Re:Henri Bergson’s debate with Albert Einstein swayed the 19...
by Tomte on Saturday May 07, 2016 @01:40AM
(#11648534)
Sure, some Internet guy summarily dismissing a philosopher whose oeuvre spans decades and who is widely recognized and admired. That must be all there is to it.
I know next to nothing about philosophy, bur I've just looked up what Will Durant has to say at the very end of the subchapter "Criticism" about Bergson:
"Yet, of all contemporary contributions to philosophy, Bergson's is the most precious. We needed his emphasis on the elusive contingency of things, and the remoulding activity of mind. We were near to thinking of the world as a finished and pre-determined show, in which our initiative was self-delusion, and our efforts a devilish humor of the gods; after Bergson we come to see the world as a stage and the material of our own originative powers. Before him we were cogs and wheels in a vast and dead machine; now, if we wish it, we can help to write our own parts in the drama of creation."
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/h/henri_bergson.ht...
I'm not sure what's more amazing - the fact that Bergson was feted as a philosophical genius in the first place, or the way that Einstein dissected his pretensions so economically.