Popular and accessible works of French philosopher and writer
Henri Louis Bergson include
Creative Evolution
(1907) and
The Creative Mind
(1934) and largely concern the importance of intuition as a means of attaining knowledge and the élan vital present in all living things; he won the Nobel Prize of 1927 for literature.
Although international fame and influence of this late 19th century-early 20th century man reached heights like cult during his lifetime, after the Second World War, his influence decreased notably. Whereas such thinkers as
Maurice Merleau-Ponty,
Jean Paul Sartre, and
Lévinas explicitly acknowledged his influence on their thought, Bergsonism of
Gilles Deleuze in 1966 marked the reawakening of interest. Deleuze recognized his concept of multiplicity as his most enduring contribution to thinking. This concept attempts to unify heterogeneity and continuity, contradictory features, in a consistent way. This revolutionary multiplicity despite its difficulty opens the way to a re-conception of community, or so many today think.
