Henri Bergson and the logic of imagination

This is a review of Ioulia Podoroga's recent monograph on Bergson (Penser en duree. Bergson au fil de ses images. Lausanne: L'Age d'homme, 2014). Podoroga proposes a new reading of Bergson's oeuvre based on the analysis of images in his texts. In this book, Podoroga concentrates on the technique of thinking of the French philosopher, the modes of argumentation he uses and the particularities of style in his writings. Bergson, according to Podoroga, initiates the new practice of 'image thinking' allegedly capable of expressing the immediate experience of duration, of temporality of human existence; it is from this standpoint that Podoroga examines such works as Time and Free Will, Matter and Memory and Creative Evolution, as well as some of Bergson's texts on methodology. Podoroga explains the meaning of various metaphors, images and diagrams employed by Bergson, their interaction with one another and with the theoretical notions he frequently recurs to. From the study of such material she derives a typology of images in Bergson's philosophy and concludes about the existence of a special 'logic of creative imagination' followed by Bergson in his attempt to 'think in duration'.