John Griogair BellMar 12
Photo of Henri Bergson https://library.hrmtc.com/2026/03/12/photo-of-henri-bergson/ #HenriBergson #hermeneuticon #iconomancy
Jonathan EmmesediDec 29

You might have the impression from the thread I've just posted on Emily Herring's "Herald of a Restless World: How Henri Bergson Brought Philosophy to the People" that I neither enjoyed nor profited from the book.

That impression would be mistaken, because I both learned from it and thoroughly enjoyed it as a well written work of history, even if I do not share Herring's esteem for Bergson as a philosopher.

She is especially strong on showing how the Belle Epoque acclaim for Bergson represented a yearning for the re-enchantment of a world now mechanized and soulless. She is also acute in her observation of the split between Bergson the solitary philosopher and Bergson the academic networker, the misogyny in his contemporaries' accounts of his popularity, and the gap that opened between Bergson the man and Bergsonism the movement.

So I would recommend "Herald of a Restless World", not for what it might provide for the future of philosophy, but for what it tells us of the past of modernity.

#Philosophy #IntellectualHistory #History #HenriBergson #EmilyHerring #HeraldOfARestlessWorld #Modernity #France #Books

Jonathan EmmesediDec 29

🧵 1/3

https://wellreadherring.substack.com/p/herald-of-a-restless-world-out-now

I've just finished Emily Herring's "Herald of a Restless World: How Henri Bergson Brought Philosophy to the People", which the author hopes will inspire a Bergson revival.

I doubt that any such revival is in the offing. Consider the three most important terms of Bergson's philosophy:

-- Élan vital. Bergson came up with this in his 1907 "Creative Evolution" to name a force that he thought of as driving evolution forward. In spite of Herring's claims to the contrary, I find little significant difference between Bergson's notion and the life forces posited by Bergson's vitalist contemporaries. Bergson published his work during late C19/ early C20 "eclipse of Darwinism", and his views on biology are of the same vintage and degree of relevance to today's concerns as disagreements over home rule for Ireland, prohibition, or the dangers posed by bicycling to women's health.

Follow the thread for the other two!

#Philosophy #IntellectualHistory #History #HenriBergson #EmilyHerring #HeraldOfaRestlessWorld #Modernity #France

Herald of a Restless World out now!!!

The first biography of Henri Bergson in English is available everywhere you get your books!

Well-Read Herring
janNov 12
[What]…we actually perceive concretely is in many ways co-created by us and is to that extent our own unique experience, an experience that is not shared by others.
—William Barnard, Living Consciousness: The Metaphysical Vision of Henri Bergson
#bergson #henribergson #perception
janNov 12
Most of what we actually see [or percieve] is the end result of a preconscious “overlay” or “extract” of memories that is superimposed upon the “sketch” of our pure perceptions…
—William Barnard, Living Consciousness: The Metaphysical Vision of Henri Bergson
#bergson #henribergson #perception #memory
janNov 12
Currently reading #henribergson #book
janOct 18
For Bergson, both philosophy and science should always be in mutual dialogue with each other, and while science at times might well benefit from a philosophical critique, any philosophy that is not grounded in, and responsive to, the ongoing findings of science is at best incomplete, and at worst is the product of idle speculation.
—William Barnard, Living Consciousness: The Metaphysical Vision of Henri Bergson
#bergson #henribergson #philosophy #science
Show threadjanOct 18
…in a way that is remarkably congruent with (but not identical to) the discoveries of contemporary physics, Bergson’s vision of matter challenges almost all of the classical Newtonian conceptions of the physical universe…
—William Barnard, Living Consciousness: The Metaphysical Vision of Henri Bergson
#bergson #henribergson #physics #philosophy
Show threadjanOct 18
It is difficult for us, from our twenty-first-century perspective, to realize just how daring Bergson’s vision of matter was. …seen from the vantage point of our current understandings of the nature of the physical world, it can now be acknowledged that Bergson’s theoretical perspective on matter, far from being dated and passé, is actually a remarkably sophisticated philosophical position, one that anticipated and mirrors many, if not most, of the findings of modern physics.
—William Barnard, Living Consciousness: The Metaphysical Vision of Henri Bergson
#bergson #henribergson #physics #philosophy
Show threadjanOct 18
…what is fundamental, is either a variety of “movements” or “lines of force” (cosmic in scope) that overlap and interpenetrate each other to such an extent that the focus would inevitably shift from extremely tiny, highly localized interactions to a more basic “universal continuity”.
—William Barnard, Living Consciousness: The Metaphysical Vision of Henri Bergson
#bergson #henribergson