An Introduction to Metaphysics

Description

An Introduction to Metaphysics is an essay written by Henri Bergson in 1903 that discusses the concept of reality as it was seen by Bergson’s predecessors and as it is seen by Bergson himself.

Bergson provides a very complex exploration of the topic of reality. In his view, the perception of reality is very similar to the way it was accounted for by the ancient Greeks, most notably by Heraclitus, as a process, rather than as a succession of different states completely separated from each other and radically discontinuous. Reality flows and is most complex than the human mind can perceive and it cannot be completely accounted for by means of reduction. Bergson’s conclusion is that reality is in a perpetual flux and therefore the only way to fully grasp it to any extent is not by means of scientific analysis, but by means of intuition, feeling it rather than knowing it, which he also considers to be the only way to grasp meaning. While formulating his views, he also criticizes the trends that dominated philosophical thinking at the beginning of the 20th century such as rationalism and empiricism.

Bergson’s views influenced philosophical thinking for decades to come. This essay is one of his lesser known, but undoubtedly important pieces. Beside the nature of reality and metaphysics, he was also interested in the relationship between mind and body, being one of the first pioneers of the idea that to every psychological reaction there is a physiological fact that generates it. His major works such as Time and Free Will, Matter and Memory or Creative Evolution established him as one of the most importers thinkers of the century and won him the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1927 and the Grand-Croix de la Legion d’honneur, the highest honor in France in 1930.
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