ABSTRACT
In this essay I wish to examine Bergson’s thinking on duration in the context of his reading of the spatial habits of thought within ancient philosophy and modern science. This will provide a terrain on which we can better appreciate the nature of his encounter with Relativity, an encounter that reveals a great deal about the strengths and limitations of Bergsonian thinking. Before turning to Bergson, however, I want to first take a look at how Popper reads Einstein. The criticism that Relativity rests upon a spatialization of time is not peculiar to Bergson. And Popper, like Bergson before him, has recourse to ancient sources of thought in order to demonstrate this point. His question is a simple one: is Einstein a Parmenidean? We shall encounter the force of Popper’s position in favour of the reality of change but the limits of his position will also manifest themselves. His thesis is worth examining because, like Bergson, it too claims that Relativity, for all its novel insights, has effected another spatialization of time.
