Living in Time

Barry Allen here explains the philosophical ideas of Henri Bergson, a French philosopher prominent in the early 20th century. Allen puts forward Bergson as worthy of re-appraisal, and explains and interprets the arguments across Bergson's work in order to show why they are relevant to Anglophone philosophy today. A chapter is devoted to each of Bergson's four major works, explaining his theories of time, perception, memory, and panpsychic consciousness, his innovative concept of virtual existence, his objection to Darwin, his controversy with Einstein, his philosophy of creative evolution, and his social philosophy of closed and open society.