Bergson creates his argument in response to the complex nature of existence and how it involves a constant
passage from one state to another. He explores the process of ageing and the impetus for growth and
development. The idea of life is presented as a visible current passing through organisms, dividing among
species and individuals without losing its force.
The text also discusses transformism, the concept of mechanism and duration, and the limitations of
current understanding in science. It highlights the importance of duration in human consciousness and
experience, acknowledging that the whole universe might be an indivisible continuity, and the systems
isolated by science are partial views of the whole.
The philosophy of Bergson is based on key stages such as Duration, Memory, and Elan Vital. The method of
Bergsonism is Intuition, which is not merely a feeling, but a fully developed philosophical method. Intuition
relies on duration, which Bergson raised to the level of a philosophical method. Precision in philosophy is
achieved through intuition, as it involves strict rules according to Bergson. To establish philosophy as a
precise discipline comparable to science, Bergson relied on the intuitive method.
The rules of Bergson's intuitive method consist of three distinct acts: stating and creating problems,
discovering genuine differences, and apprehending real-time. The first rule is to apply the test of true and
false to the problems themselves. False problems must be condemned, and truth and creation must be
reconciled at the problem level.
True and false are not limited to solutions; society and education impose ready-made problems. True
freedom lies in the power to decide and constitute problems, involving the disappearance of false problems
and the creative upsurge of true ones. In philosophy, finding and stating the problem is as crucial as solving
it, as invention is involved in both.
The history of humanity is the construction of problems, and becoming aware of this activity is like the
conquest of freedom. The problem has a constitutive power residing in it, and humanity makes its own
history through the construction of problems. Bergson attempts an intrinsic determination of the false in
the expression "false problem," providing a complementary rule to the general rule to reconcile with the
norm of the true.
In his philosophy, Bergson critiques the negative and negation as sources of false problems. False problems
are categorized into two types: non-existent problems and badly stated questions. Non-existent problems
arise due to confusion between "more" and "less." Disorder, non-being, and the possible are examples of
non-existent problems, which are more than the corresponding being, order, and real. On the other hand,
badly stated questions involve composite terms that arbitrarily group things differing in kind, such as the
problem of happiness reducible to pleasure and the problem of intensity.
Bergson argues that the problem of intensity is a badly stated question involving a mixture of
determinations differing in kind. Bergson criticizes the obsession with thinking in terms of more and less in
