Abstract:

Although there are a lot of people often talking about Bergsonian ontology, most of them are too superficial. They just regard some frequent words, such as life, change, and duration, as its ontology. However, they can not explain how life becomes life and how change changes. If we put these superficialities aside and penetrate into Bergsonism, we will find that only the past is its ontology. Only by memory can the past penetrate into and blend with the present, and creative evolutions happen in the world now and then. Only starting from the past ontology can we understand how Bergson constructed his philosophical system and further discover its shortcomings.

Key words: Bergson, past, duration, memory