Bergson's Time Theory

The problem of time is not only a question of philosophy but also a question of science, which takes the most important position in Bergoson's philosophy. Time, space and conscious state are three core concepts in Bergson's time philosophy.His explaining of space served for his time theory.While the concept of conscious state is a key word which appeared throughout all his theory.Though Bergson censured Kant severely , he inherited Kant's view on space and tried to solve the conflict between time and freedom which kant cant solve reasonably.Bergson has completed the conversion of the time theory view, that is to say, to understand space from the original time concept, insteadly, to understand time from the mechanic space concept. Bergson's time theory is very similar to Augustine's time on contacting time with life and consciousness. They two were trying to state uniform features of time, including the mysteriousness of time and relation between time and spirit. As to Augustine's time, the soulization of time is only disillusion. Moreover, the soul is He's soul. Kant made time as the form of people's internal sensibility, whose time is people's time. Kant found out the conflict between time and freedom. However, Bergson completed the soulization of time and tried to explain relation between time and free will by means of pure continna.In some degrees, it can be said that Bergson's time is mankinds' time. Differing from the traditional objective opinion on time whichbelieves that time is the measurement of movement, Bergson believed that movement is the expression of time and the inbeing of life is time. In Marxism's basic view on time, time and space are existing modes of moving objects. As to views on time between Marxism and Bergson, there is sharp opposition between materialism and idealism, but there is communication on understanding relation between movement and time. From the standpoint of Marxism, Bergson's time theory turned to mankind and his emphasizing of the time's creation and becoming is positive.Bergson's view on time belongs to intuitionism, which is more based on people's personal experiences which come from animated persons and animated person's lives. Bergson Played an important role in transforming from traditional time view to modern time view and initially put forward modern time view. When commenting on Bergson's time view, we should not concentrate our attention on the shortage of his time view, know about the causes and historical limits of Bergson's time view, notice the effects of his time view on late generations and make an objective comment.Bergson's time theory is historical and systematic. People can only study it from one or certain aspect . During the course of writing, I tried to review Bergson's time in the history of philosophy and probed into the logical relationship and the meaning of his basical conceptions in his own theory and then made an inquiry of its theory resource and historical affections. The paper consists of six parts.Part one introduces background of Bergson's philosophy, including thought of irrationality at the end of nineteenth century, abandoning dichotomy thought modes of subject and object and returning to the subject by modern philosophy. This part also stats briefly common features of Bergson's philosophy, that is to say, changing philosophy and intuitionistic ways.Part two states generally the position of Bergson's time theory in his philosophy system, which is the core of Bergson 's philosophy and runs through from the beginning to the end.Part three retrospects main time theories existing before Bergson, including Aristotle ,Augustine,Newton and kant .And points out their similarity and differece. Part four discusses carefully the content of Bergson's time theory. Space, time and consciousness are three basic concepts in Bergson's time theory. Bergson almost inherited Kant's space idea, and then discussed the problem of Kant's time and freedom. Consciousness is the most basic concept, which runs...