Abstract

In Bergson's work, intuition and sympathy are not synonymous terms. Each of them are two different aspects of his method. Intuition means the intimate relation of the spirit with itself as a pure form of interiority, the spiritual field considered as duration. But, this means that the spirit can't reach a reality out of itself. Here intervenes sympathy. It reaches the material in matter, the vital in living forms, the social in societies, the personal in individual existences. Phenomena are perceived according to their inner sense, in duration as they are reflected in our spirit. This is the double relation we try to describe.