Bergson’s Freedom: A Dualistic Interpretation

When studying Henri Bergson's works, one can understand that as he proceeds from theoretical philosophy to applied philosophy, he criticizes deterministic view in favor of freedom and establishes foundations of this attitude. He is of the view that by obtaining true knowledge, we would achieve practical purposes including dynamic religion, open society and, more importantly, freedom. Bergson establishes his epistemological and metaphysical foundations in a way that he provides an appropriate base for the realization of freedom in open society. This study attempts to interpret Bergson's idea about freedom in light of his dualistic system, and by referring to the place of freedom within the dualistic system, it also attempts to explain Bergson's conception of freedom and show how and why freedom would be realized. Furthermore, this paper seeks to show that freedom would be realized by disregarding the wrong parts of Bergson's dualism in relation to dynamic religion, with the help of intuitive knowledge which takes duration into account and in an open society, while closed society, static religion and the epistemological attitude which rely on intelligence and have a spatial approach to time would hinder the occurrence of freedom. Thus the cognitive basis of conceiving free will is considered in the light of a dualistic approach in which the positive side (life) realizes the freedom, while the negative side (matter) causes determinism.