Although Henri Bergson has been viewed negatively by most British philosophers – unreasonably dominated by the hostility of Bertrand Russell (whose simplistic and waspish essay about Bergson of 1914 reappears almost word for word in his widely influential and endlessly reprinted History of Western Philosophy of 1945), and hence by the Logical Positivists – he was generally considered one of the greatest French philosophers of all time and was certainly hugely influential on the European continent and in America in the years 1900-1939. Bergson’s particular achievement was to extend our understanding of the subjective nature of experience, and thus to critique those philosophies which presumed objective and factual …
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Citation: Dervin, Fred. "Henri Bergson". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 18 August 2008 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=382, accessed 31 October 2024.]
