The Transformation of Bergson’s Philosophy of Duration in S.L. Frank’s Ideal-Realism

Abstract

The paper is devoted to S.L. Frank’s interpretation of H. Bergson’s philosophy of duration.
Analyzing “Knowledge. Principles and Limitations of Conceptual Perception” the author of the
article shows the way Frank treated Bergson’s philosophy of duration and which meaning it had
in the philosophical discourse of the Russian thinker. Thus, it is demonstrated in the article that
Bergson’s philosophy of duration was key to Frank’s understanding of the nature of the Absolut
and Being, which speaks well for the fact of extensive influence of Bergsonism on Frank in that
period of his creative work. Regardless of the fact that in “Knowledge. Principles and Limitations
of Conceptual Perception” Frank was quite critical of the implications of philosophy of duration,
he himself admitted that as a matter of fact Bergson in his philosophy of time had not discovered
the time as pure duration but the absolute All-Unity of Being, which the Russian philosopher’s
gnoseological conception was intended to discover. The result of such thinking is the idea that man
is capable to immediately find in himself the Absolute, within ir which Bergson, in Frank’s opinion,
highlights only the side of the becoming, while the substantial analysis of the philosophy of duration
reveals the true All-Unity in it. Hence, it is this bergsonian becoming-creation, or élan, that is a
necessary trait of the Absolute for Frank.