Henri Bergson About Spirits

This article covers the thoughts of Henri Bergson about spirits.

Bergson‘s philosophy is based on indeterminism. That is, according to determinism, the state of things at any given moment is the necessary result of its state just prior to that moment. What this signifies is that the same things or causes in the universe always produce the same results. Bergson rejects this attitude and asserts that there is no certain necessity in the universe. His approach to the matter of the spirit is similar to that of Berkeley. He maintains that something material cannot be the real origin of our feelings; the source can only be the soul.

Spirit

According to Bergson, being existent means perceiving, therefore, something that has no perception cannot be regarded as existing. What perceives is the spirit, which is always active and effective. What the spirit perceives are ideas. Therefore, it is only the spirit and ideas that really exist. Like idealists, Bergson also sees things as consisting of mental images. While materialists attribute “mental images” or thoughts to the activities of the brain and, therefore, see them as posterior to it, Bergson considers mental activities to be the results of mental images, which are, according to him, the real motives or motors of these activities.