The relation of subject and memory in Bergson’s philosophy

Abstract

The paper investigates the concepts ’subject’ and ’memory’ and their relation in Bergson’s philosophy. The main issue is whether memories constitute the subject or it is the subject that re-collects its memories, thereby reconstituting itself continually. The paper starts out from Bergson’s Matter and Memory (1896), in which Bergson aimed at escaping the boundaries of dualism. He was looking for a third method in order to unify the opposition of the previous two by relying on the method of direct experience and the logic of common sense, not on analytical-synthetizing reason. He studied the connection and interaction of mind and matter to reveal the mysterious workings of memory. He insists on one principle, that “the whole is more than the sum of its parts.”