Bergson and Bachelard facing the new physics

Abstract

The meeting between Bergson and Einstein in 1922 is often presented as an

exemplary case of mutual incomprehension between the philosopher and the physicist.

However, the same year Bergson published Durée et simultanéité, Analysis and Interpretation

of the same Relativity. However, it would be wrong to present Bergson as a philosopher

ignorant of hard sciences. Between the 1922 text of Durée et simultanéité and Nouvel Esprit

Scientifique (Bachelard 1934), there is no changeover from an erroneous interpretation of

Relativity to a philosophical understanding of its stakes. Bergson had perfectly understood

Relativity, at least as much as it could have been understood by someone who was not a

physicist and perhaps as much as some physicists at the same time. If there are errors in

Durée et simultanéité, they are based on the philosophical approach rather than on the non-

mastery of the elements of physics. Consequently, the passage from Bergson to Bachelard, in

this domain, is indeed a reversal in the philosophical approach. It is this philosophical reversal

that we must explain.