The Creation of the New Within the Flow of Duration

The question as to how Bergson conceives freedom, and how freedom is treated throughout his work, is the focus of this work. For Bergson, there are two factors at play when we think of freedom. Firstly, how the philosopher conceives of freedom metaphysically, and secondly, what the agent needs to do in order to act freely. Both are related yet distinct. Distinct in that one can act freely regardless of one’s metaphysical conception of freedom, related in that they both involve a return to duration, yet in slightly different ways. Returning to duration, metaphysically speaking, allows us to recast traditional modes of thinking by challenging historical conceptions of freedom that have been handed down to us. As we will see throughout this book, the conceptions Bergson will engage with in regard to freedom are: determinism and libertarianism, mind and matter, mechanism and finalism, as well as closed conceptions of morality and religion. Bergson will challenge traditional conceptions by thinking in terms of time and not space. Bergson’s conception of freedom is centralising in his work to the effect that each of his major works engages in a freedom problematic in the realm of metaphysics, the mind/body relationship, evolution, and in morality and religion. Thinking of freedom in relation to duration allows one to move beyond static space-based conceptions of freedom.