Duration (philosophy)

Bergson sought to improve upon inadequacies he perceived in the philosophy of Herbert Spencer, due, he believed, to Spencer's lack of comprehension of mechanics, which led Bergson to the conclusion that time eluded mathematics and science.

Hence Bergson decided to explore the inner life of man, which is a kind of duration, neither a unity nor a quantitative multiplicity.

[5] But to Bergson, the problem only arises when mobility and time, that is, duration, are mistaken for the spatial line that underlies them.

They are treated retrospectively as a thing's spatial trajectory, which can be divided ad infinitum, whereas they are, in fact, an indivisible whole.

Free will is not really a problem but merely a common confusion among philosophers caused by the immobile time of science.

One must accept time as it really is through placing oneself within duration where freedom can be identified and experienced as pure mobility.

[10] The image of two spools, however, is of a homogeneous and commensurable thread, whereas, according to Bergson, no two moments can be the same, hence duration is heterogeneous.

[10] But as the three images illustrate, it can be stated that duration is qualitative, unextended, multiple yet a unity, mobile and continuously interpenetrating itself.

Gilles Deleuze was profoundly influenced by Bergson's theory of duration, particularly in his work Cinema 1: The Movement Image in which he described cinema as providing people with continuity of movement (duration) rather than still images strewn together.

Henri Bergson in 1927.
Immanuel Kant, who believed free will was only a pragmatic belief.
Albert Einstein in 1921