In this article, I draw attention to some important points of intersection in the work of Henri Bergson and Friedrich Nietzsche. In particular I focus on the overlapping nature of their naturalisms. This proves enlightening for an overall appreciation of their respective philosophical projects but also allows those projects to be inscribed within a broader set of naturalistic traditions to which I think they contribute in interesting ways. I begin by assessing how Bergson's and Nietzsche's general problematics are shaped by (...) the antinaturalistic character of their targets, more specifically the appeals to the immobile and the unconditional that they expose in their critical approaches. I move on to examine the core components of their naturalistic responses, highlighting how both thinkers extend introspective insights about the psyche and the body to make claims regarding broader activity patterns across nature and ground these new monistic continua in their concepts of rhythms and drives. Lastly; I draw out three important consequences on which these moves jointly converge, with particular emphasis on the “quantal” nature of the ontologies they outline. Moving beyond the comparative perspective, I conclude by using these points to situate Bergson and Nietzsche among three different lineages of naturalism: metaphysical antireductionist, and Epicurean. (shrink)

The received view of Bergson's philosophy of life is that it advances some form of vitalism under the heading of an “élan vital.” This paper argues against the vitalistic interpretation of Bergson's élan vital as it appears in Creative Evolution in favor of an interpretation based on his overlooked reflections on entropy and energetics. Within the interpretation developed here, the élan vital is characterized not as a spiritualistic “vital force” but as a tendency of organization opposed to the tendency of (...) entropic degradation. It is then shown how Bergson's view of evolution and living organization resonates with more contemporary scientific approaches belonging to a “thermodynamic paradigm” in theoretical biology in different respects, including the critique of neo-Darwinism and the positing of a driving force behind evolution. Finally, the special interest that Bergson's philosophical biology bears today is considered in terms of the connection between the concepts of élan vital and duration. (shrink)

In this paper I explore Henri Bergson’s notion of the meaning of life by focusing on two places where he discusses it in his work. The first is Creative Evolution (1907, CE), where a bio-ontological meaning of life is proposed in terms of the ongoing ‘advance’ of the élan vital. Bergson conceives of this vital tendency towards freer activity in terms of nature’s pursuit of a mechanics that would triumph over mechanism. The second is a lesser-known paper called ‘Psycho-physical Parallelism (...) and Positive Metaphysics’ (1901, ‘PPPM’), where Bergson articulates the same themes concerning the evolutionary relationship between life and matter, only this time gives an ethical rendition of the meaning of life. Discerning the true sense of the distinction between mind and body, he claims, will allow us to understand the reason they ‘unite and collaborate’, and thereby to speculate on thought’s apparent trajectory towards an independence from matter. While the latter position appears to be inscribed within the former, this continuity nonetheless resists reducing the ethical to a biological essentialism. This is ensured by the ‘virtual’ nature he ascribes to life’s movement, which shows that the ethical meaning of life is ultimately grounded in an ontology premised upon the irreducibly open and inventive rather than on the reductively closed and repetitive. In turn, this conception of life’s virtuality further illuminates what Bergson might mean, from an ethical perspective, as regards a progressive independence from matter, which I propose in terms of a withdrawal from the body and the present, with a view to a superior moral activity. (shrink)