La conscience

by Henri Bergson

« Considérez la direction de votre esprit à n'importe quel moment : vous trouverez qu'il s'occupe de ce qui est, mais en vue surtout de ce qui va être. » Telle est la conscience selon Bergson, qui lui associe l'intuition et la mémoire. On trouvera dans ce recueil les pages les plus significatives de son oeuvre sur ce thème : le premier chapitre de l'Essai sur les données immédiates de la conscience, le chapitre 3 du Rire, et bien sûr l'essai sur « La conscience et la vie » - trois textes incontournables d'un des plus grands philosophes du XXe siècle.

160 pages, Pocket Book

Published May 10, 2023

About the author

Popular and accessible works of French philosopher and writer Henri Louis Bergson include Creative Evolution (1907) and The Creative Mind (1934) and largely concern the importance of intuition as a means of attaining knowledge and the élan vital present in all living things; he won the Nobel Prize of 1927 for literature.

Although international fame and influence of this late 19th century-early 20th century man reached heights like cult during his lifetime, after the Second World War, his influence decreased notably. Whereas such thinkers as Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Jean Paul Sartre, and Lévinas explicitly acknowledged his influence on their thought, Bergsonism of Gilles Deleuze in 1966 marked the reawakening of interest. Deleuze recognized his concept of multiplicity as his most enduring contribution to thinking. This concept attempts to unify heterogeneity and continuity, contradictory features, in a consistent way. This revolutionary multiplicity despite its difficulty opens the way to a re-conception of community, or so many today think.