Анрі Берґсон і народження ідеї філософії як творення нових концептів

Abstract

“Philosophy is the creation of new concepts” is primarily associated with Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari’s “What is Philosophy?”. However, Henri Bergson had explicitly advanced this idea long before them. This facet of Bergson’s philosophy remained overshadowed by his more spotlighted topics for a long time. Only in recent years have researchers begun to give it due attention and to relate it to the central aims of his positive metaphysics. However, it has not yet been established when exactly Bergson first formulated this idea, nor what precisely prompted him to do so. Contrary to the claim made, for example, by Giuseppe Bianco, this idea is not directly related to the renewed emphasis on individual creativity in the second half of the nineteenth century, particularly in the works of representatives of French spiritualism. I argue that it in fact arose out of a polemic with thinkers the opposing camp – the positivists, and above all with Gustave Belot.