The Thread of Experience in Bergson's Philosophical Trajectory

An attempt is made here to see experience as the narrative thread unifying Bergson's entire intellectual itinerary. The philosopher begins with an inner experience of freedom which is solidly opposed to any objective spatialization. He rapidly moves on, determined to explore a more dialectical experience, one whose human reality is tested at the never stationary intersection of outward and inward focus, of perception and memory. This leads him to transpose these anthropological tensions into a more universal key: the elasticity of time underlies all of creation, where the momentum of life is nonetheless subject to the implications of matter. Thereafter comes a time of transiition and waiting,where the metaphysical target of a universal experience finds itself at odds with the differentiated experiences of science and art, of morality and religion. In the end, the thought process allows itself to be open to an overpowering (mystical) experience, and it seeks to uncover the meaning of this experience which is relevant to humanity, to its history, and to its vocation. Today, this "true empiricism" could doubtless be take up again and taken in other directions.