For 15 years Henri Bergson the most important French philosopher of the early 20th-century
taught at the Collège de France. Speaking without notes most of his classes are now lost to
history but records of a handful of courses fortuitously survived thanks to stenographic
transcripts. Conveying Bergson's very voice these extraordinary documents are finally
presented here in English. The 1904-1905 lectures are dedicated to the topic of freedom or as
Bergson put it the evolution of the problem of freedom. Building on the philosophy of freedom
from his first book Time and Free Will he proposes that freedom is not only a fundamental
human experience but characteristic of all life as such. By retracing how ancient and modern
philosophers have dealt with the delicate question of freedom Bergson demonstrates the
necessity and also the radically new character of his own theory of freedom. Bergson's
lectures are a feast for many audiences. For philosophers they give a fuller picture of his
thought and contain deep reflections on many core topics in philosophy today from the nature
of time to the difference between brain and mind the relation between memory and perception
and the vindication of freedom over determinism. For intellectual historians the lectures are
a treasure trove: as a slice of the living thought of a great thinker as an extended analysis
of the natural and human sciences of his day and as a rich commentary on the history of
ancient and modern philosophy. Finally for cultural historians and literary scholars the
lectures were the cultural capital of Belle Époque France consumed by elites and a vast
educated public. They are also part of an exceedingly rare genre in modern philosophy: spoken
not written lectures and expressed as a veritable stream of philosophical consciousness that
is remarkably structured and analytically lucid.
