Paper short abstract:

The aim of this paper is to provide an outline of Henri Bergson’s problematic philosophy. Special attention will be paid to the link Bergson draws between his problematising method and the pursuit of precision in metaphysics. The implications for later thinkers of the problem will also be canvassed.

Paper long abstract:

The aim of this paper is to provide an outline of Henri Bergson's problematic philosophy. As Bergson makes clear in the latter stages of his career, it would be accurate to describe all of his work as propelled by a problematic methodology that reconfigures the conventionally understood relation between 'problem' and 'solution'. In contrast to the tradition of seeking solutions for ready-made and inherited problems, Bergson advocates an agenda that emphasises the importance of properly articulating problems, and as such creating them, since this activity culminates not so much is their 'solution' but 'dissolution'. Moreover, Bergson suggests that this problematic methodology bears a particular affinity with the pursuit for metaphysical precision that animates his work on the nature of time, memory and the evolution of life. As such, Bergson could be said to advance a novel problematic philosophy that is at once methodological and ontological. This paper will specify how. In so doing it will also indicate the significant ramifications of Bergson's problematic philosophy for subsequent thinkers of the problem - including Canguilhem, Deleuze, Simondon and Stengers - all of whom owe a great deal to the insights of Bergson.