---
title: "Einstein–Bergson debate"
chunk: 2/3
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einstein–Bergson_debate"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:17:42.156437+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

Einstein's theory of relativity and his contributions to quantum theory had made him a household name in the scientific community, and by 1919 he even became a public celebrity after the solar eclipse of May 29, 1919, which helped substantiate Einstein's theory of general relativity, with the New York Times proclaiming: “Revolution in Science/New Theory of the Universe/Newtonian Ideas Overthrown.” The new doctrine was widely regarded as necessitating a total overhaul of current understandings of space and time. Einstein's fame had proliferated through his own efforts as well: he had published popular versions of both his treatises, and his Four Lectures on Relativity (delivered in 1921 at Princeton University) had intensified public interest even further. Einstein was invited to France by Paul Langevin, on behalf of the Collège de France, to help “to restore relations between German and French scholars” after World War I, a conflict whose mechanization had enlisted scientists in the service of bloodshed to a previously unprecedented degree. Einstein had opposed the war. On his arrival at the Gare du Nord, Einstein was greeted by crowds of "photographers, reporters, filmmakers, officials and diplomats," and had to slip out a side door to escape the attention. The debate involved some reputational risk for Einstein. He was expecting to win the Nobel Prize that year, and had already promised the prize money as alimony to his ex-wife. Furthermore, his rhetorical skills would be handicapped due to his lack of fluency in French. The debate was not intended as a solo confrontation between Einstein and Bergson; Einstein was to field questions from the whole College, of which Bergson was only a single member.
Einstein's theory proposed that the speed of light in a vacuum is both constant and unsurpassable, regardless of the viewer's movement or location, necessitating that time passes at different rates for different reference frames, based on their velocity. Two clocks moving at two different speeds might therefore show different, yet equally correct times. This was a rejection of the Newtonian absolutism that had previously characterized the attitude of physicists toward time. However, this does not preclude Einstein from believing that time has "an objective meaning [...] independent of individuals," and is quantifiable and predictable. Einstein's theory meant that time and space were no longer universal, and it disposed of the aether that was believed at the time to fill empty space. Einstein initially was an empiricist/positivist in line with Ernst Mach who took the input of the senses at face value, and his theories were deterministic, making no room for creativity, even though starting in the early 1920s he distanced himself from positivism and began to embrace philosophical realism. Einstein had a longstanding distaste for Bergson's ideas. In 1914, he described Bergson's philosophy as "flaccid," and remarked that Bergson's work was not even worth reading to improve his French. After the debate, though acknowledging that Bergson had understood the substance of relativity theory, he reaffirmed his belief that “[t]he philosophers constantly dance around the dichotomy: the psychologically real and physically real, and differ only in evaluations in this regard.”

== Remarks of April 6 ==
Xavier Léon, who had organized the event, introduced Einstein; Langevin spoke next, outlining Einstein's contribution to physics for those present. Einstein then fielded questions from several philosophers, including Léon Brunschvicg, whose question about relativity and Kant's conception of science Einstein shrugged off. Finally, Édouard Le Roy, a student of Bergson's, moved for Bergson to weigh in. Bergson was initially reluctant, saying that he "had come here to listen." For the most part, he praised Einstein's theory, saying that it could be admitted within the domain of physics, but argued that philosophy still had important contributions to make in the understanding of time, and that "all does not end" with relativity. He spoke for thirty minutes, quoting certain passages from his forthcoming book "Duration and Simultaneity"; Einstein took only a minute to respond. The response rested on distinguishing physical from psychological time as a pair of binary options, making no room for a philosophical understanding of time: "The time of the philosophers does not exist" (French: Il n'y a donc pas un temps des philosophes).
Minutes of the meeting can be seen here (in French).

== The debate continues ==

=== Einstein's Nobel Prize ===
When Einstein was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for 1921, it was not for relativity, but for "his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect." The presenter of the prize, Professor Svante Arrhenius, mentioned Bergson by name, saying that "though most discussion centers on [Einstein's] theory of relativity," Bergson had shown that relativity "pertains essentially to epistemology," rather than to physics, from which some concluded that Bergson's arguments were the reason that Einstein could not be awarded the Nobel Prize in that subject. Ironically, when Bergson was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1927, the presentation speech focused on his accomplishments as "stylist and poet," rather than on his contributions to philosophy. However, others have argued that Bergson's arguments played no essential role in denying Einstein the Nobel prize for relativity, and that the real reason lay in the "German ultranationalist experimental physicists politically and racially motivated opposition to Einstein and his theories of relativity and gravitation".