Henri Bergson
Facts
Photo from the Nobel Foundation archive.
Henri Bergson
The Nobel Prize in Literature 1927
Born: 18 October 1859, Paris, France
Died: 4 January 1941, Paris, France
Residence at the time of the award: France
Prize motivation: “in recognition of his rich and vitalizing ideas and the brilliant skill with which they have been presented”
Language: French
Henri Bergson received his Nobel Prize one year later, in 1928.
Prize share: 1/1
Life
Henri Bergson was born in Paris. He was educated at the Lycée Condorcet and at the École Normale Supérieure, where he studied philosophy. After teaching at various schools, Bergson was appointed to the École Normale Supérieure in 1898, and between 1900 and 1921 held a chair of philosophy at the Collège de France. Between 1921 and 1926, he was president of the Commission for Intellectual Cooperation of the League of Nations. Shortly before his death, Bergson expressed his opposition to the Vichy regime.
Work
Henri Bergson developed his philosophy in a number of books that have become famous not only for their fresh interpretation of life but also for their powerful use of metaphor, imagery, and analogy. In Time and Free Will (1889), Bergson offered an interpretation of consciousness as existing on two levels: the first reached through deep introspection and the second an external projection of the first. In Creative Evolution (1907), Bergson developed the theory of time introduced in his other works and applied it to the study of living things.
Nobel Prizes and laureates
Six prizes were awarded for achievements that have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind. The 12 laureates' work and discoveries range from proteins' structures and machine learning to fighting for a world free of nuclear weapons.
See them all presented here.
