Bergson: Thinking Beyond the Human Condition

210 Pages·2018·2.32 MB·English

by  Keith Ansell-Pearson

B BERGSON
‘Yet another great book from one of our most important scholars on E
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Bergson (and Nietzsche, and Deleuze). There is no question that
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Ansell-Pearson succeeds in introducing Bergson more thoroughly
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to the Anglophone world, illuminating all of the most central areas O
of Bergson’s thinking. Of particular note are the final two chapters on N THINKING
ethics and religion in Bergson, areas usually left unexplored by Bergson
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scholars. This is one of the best, if not the best, studies of Bergson.’ H
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LEONARD LAWLOR, Sparks Professor of Philosophy, Penn State N
University, USA K
BEYOND
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‘Keith Ansell-Pearson explores how “we as human beings can think G
beyond our own condition.” This is an urgent question in the age of the
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Anthropocene and Ansell-Pearson is right to think Bergson can help us E
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answer it. His book demonstrates, with great clarity, the importance of
O THE HUMAN
Bergson’s work to the present day. It will prove indispensable to anyone
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who wants to see our contemporary world in a new light.’
D
SUZANNE GUERLAC, Professor of French, UC Berkeley, USA
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‘Keith Ansell-Pearson claims that Henri Bergson’s thought marks an E CONDITION
upheaval in philosophy of equal magnitude to Kant, Nietzsche, and H
Heidegger. I can’t think of a better author or book to make the case.’ U
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ALEXANDRE LEFEBVRE, Associate Professor, Department of Government
and International Relations and the Department of Philosophy, University A
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of Sydney, Australia
C KEITH ANSELL - PEARSON
‘This is an excellent book. Ansell-Pearson’s years of sustained, quality O
engagement with Bergson enable him to show him as an impassioned N
philosopher, steeped in the history of philosophy who understands the value D
of thinking through many of its central ‘problems’—such as freedom and IT
determinism, body and soul, brain and mind, habit and attention, self and IO
selfhood, morality and progress—for enriching human life. This is an
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informed, clear, and compelling study.’`
MICHAEL R. KELLY, Professor, Department of Philosophy, University
of San Diego, USA A
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KEITH ANSELL-PEARSON holds a Personal Chair in Philosophy at the University -

of Warwick, UK. He is also the author of Nietzsche’s Search for Philosophy (2018). P
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PHILOSOPHY www.bloomsbury.com
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Cover design by Irene Martinez Costa O
Cover image © Checking permissions N
ISBN 978-1-350-04395-4
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Also available
9 781350 043954 from Bloomsbury
Bergson
Also Available from Bloomsbury
Nietzsche’s Search for Philosophy, Keith Ansell-Pearson
Nietzsche and Political Thought, edited by Keith Ansell-Pearson
Key Writings, Henri Bergson
Bergson
Thinking Beyond the Human Condition
By Keith Ansell-Pearson
Bloomsbury Academic
An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
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BLOOMSBURY and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
First published 2018
© Keith Ansell-Pearson, 2018
Keith Ansell-Pearson has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any
form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording,
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British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN: HB: 978-1-3500-4394-7
PB: 978-1-3500-4395-4
ePDF: 978-1-3500-4396-1
ePub: 978-1-3500-4397-8
Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
Names: Ansell-Pearson, Keith, 1960- author.
Title: Bergson: thinking beyond the human condition / by Keith Ansell-Pearson.
Description: New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2018. |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017042660 (print) | LCCN 2017051819 (ebook) |
ISBN 9781350043961 (PDF eBook) | ISBN 9781350043978 (EPUB eBook) |
ISBN 9781350043947 (hardback: alk. paper) | ISBN 9781350043954 (pbk.: alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Bergson, Henri, 1859-1941.
Classification: LCC B2430.B43 (ebook) | LCC B2430.B43 A568 2018 (print) | DDC 194–dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017042660
Cover image © Andrew Wyeth, Soaring, 1942-1950. Tempera on masonite, 48 x 87 in.
Collection of Shelburne Museum, museum purchase, acquired from Maxim Karolik.
1961-186.6. Photography by J. David Bohl. / ARS, NY and DACS, London 2017
Typeset by Deanta Global Publishing Services, Chennai, India
To pierce the mystery of the deep, it is sometimes necessary to regard the heights.
It is earth’s hidden fire which appears at the summit of the volcano.
—(Bergson ‘Life and Consciousness’, the Huxley lecture delivered in the
University of Birmingham, May 24, 1911).
vi
Contents
Acknowledgements viii
List of Abbreviations and Editions Used x
Introduction: Thinking Beyond the Human Condition 1
1 An Introduction to Bergson 9
2 A Melancholy Science: Bergson on Lucretius 41
3 Bergson on Time, Freedom, and the Self 55
4 Bergson on Memory 73
5 On Bergson’s Reformation of Philosophy in Creative Evolution 91
6 Bergson and Ethics 111
7 Bergson and Nietzsche on Religion: Critique, Immanence,
and Affirmation (with Jim Urpeth) 133
8 Bergson on Education and the Art of Life 153
Notes 173
Index 188
Acknowledgements
This book derives from work I have been doing over the past two decades on
Bergson’s writings in the form of lecture courses, workshop contributions, public
lectures, and publications. I have been helped and inspired in my appreciation
and understanding of Bergson by readers and scholars working in Australia,
France, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States, including Alia Al-Saji,
Hisashi Fujita, Elisabeth Grosz, Pete Gunter, Suzanne Guerlac, Tatsuya Higaki,
Michael R. Kelly, Wahida Khandker, Michael Kolkman, David Lapoujade,
Leonard Lawlor, Alexandre Lefebvre, Paul-Antoine Miquel, John O. Maoilearca,
Jim Urpeth, Michael Vaughan, and Frederic Worms. For the academic year
2013–14 I had the good fortune of being a Visiting Senior Research Fellow in
the Humanities Research Centre at Rice University. This fellowship enabled
me to enrich my understanding of the history of materialism and vitalism, and
provided me with the time needed to carry out much of the research that has gone
into the writing of this book. For instruction and inspiration I wish to extend my
heartfelt thanks to the members of the Rice Seminar, where I participated in a
seminar on old and new materialisms, especially to my hosts Sarah Ellenzweig
and Jack Zammito. My University, Warwick, generously provided me with
sabbatical leave in 2017, and this enabled me to complete this study. Thanks
are also due to my editors at Bloomsbury, Liza Thompson and Frankie Mace,
for their unwavering support and enthusiasm. Finally, thanks are due to my
colleagues at Warwick, especially Miguel Beistegui and Stephen Houlgate, for
their friendship, to my brother Trevor and my sister Diane for love and support,
and last, and most important of all, to my wife, Nicky, and to Jasmine and Rick,
for their tremendous love.
Chapter 1 is a modified version of an essay that first appeared in The Routledge
Companion to Nineteenth Century Philosophy (Routledge, 2010), edited by Dean
Moyar. Chapter 2 first appeared in Pli: The Warwick Journal of Philosophy, volume
27, 2015, edited by Dino Jakusic. Chapter 3 has been especially written for this
study, though for some sections I draw on material first presented in chapter
1 of my book, Bergson and the Time of Life (Routledge, 2002). Chapter 4 was
first published in Susannah Radstone and Bill Schwarz (eds.), Memory: Histories,
Acknowledgements ix
Theories, Debates (New York: Fordham University Press, 2010). Chapter 5 was
first published in the Journal of French and Francophone Philosophy, volume
XXIV: 2, 2016, guest edited by Mark Westmoreland. Chapter 6 is a modified
version of an essay that first appeared in Continental Philosophy Review, 47:1,
2014. Chapter 7, co-authored with Jim Urpeth, was first published in Alexandre
Lefebvre and Melanie White (eds.), Bergson, Politics, and Religion (Duke
University Press, 2012). Chapter 8 was first published in Adam Bartlett, Justin
Clemens, Jessica Whyte (eds.), What is Education? (Edinburgh University Press,
2017). I express my thanks to the editors and publishers of these publications for
permission to republish material in this study. Each chapter has been edited and
finessed for the purposes of this study. I wish to apologize to the reader for some
repetition that characterizes the book. I have sought to keep this to a minimum
and trust it does not spoil the reader’s pleasure in encountering the book.
Copyrights: Soaring, 1950 © Andrew Wyeth/DACS