ABSTRACT
Henri Bergson’s philosophy – which can be described as a philosophy of becoming and of difference; as a philosophy of immanence; and as a new vitalism – is intimately related to the work of Herbert Spencer. Bergson described himself as first being deeply impressed by Spencer’s theory of evolution, but at the same time also as being highly critical of it. Indeed, almost all aspects of Spencer’s work – its ignorance of ‘time’ (of becoming), or its mechanical and teleological concept of evolution, and its ethical consequences – led Bergson to develop a unique philosophy of life, epistemology and ontology. Lastly, Bergson criticizes Spencer’s theory of evolution in the name of life itself (as Georges Canguilhem puts it). The article follows this productive repulsion. First, it reconstructs the core idea of Time and Free Will, in which Bergson differentiates time and space or intensity and quantity, in contrary to the epistemology and ontology of Spencer (but also of Kant). In the second and third part, the article reconstructs Bergson’s criticism of Spencer’s theory of evolution. This theory is criticized as being a ‘false’ evolutionism; and as being the representative of a positivist posture which ‘brutalizes’ the living being. Against it, Bergson’s ‘new vitalism’ (Canguilhem) recognizes the living being as being not only the object but also the subject of any knowledge of life.
