Savitt, Steven
(2020)
What Bergson Should have said to Einstein.
[Preprint]
Abstract
In the famous 1922 debate with Einstein, Bergson was mistaken in his rejection of the so-called twin or clock “paradox”. Consistent with at least one of his core beliefs (that time is succession) Bergson could have maintained that there is genuine time along each twin’s worldline in a relativistic spacetime, since there is succession (of events) along every such world line.
Had he taken such a stance, we might have been spared the confused idea that relativistic spacetimes are (or represent) static or “block” universes. Moreover, in a recent book on the debate Jimena Canales claims that the Einstein/Bergson difference was one of the sources of the rift between continental and analytic (or at least science-oriented) philosophy. Insofar as that claim is true, the rift has a spurious origin. Recognition of this fact by contemporary Bergsonians might help to close or bridge it.
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