Beyond Bergson

Description

Building upon recent interest in Henri Bergson's social and political philosophy, this volume offers a series of fresh and novel perspectives on Bergson's writings through the lenses of critical philosophy of race and decolonial theory. Contributors place Bergson's work in conversation with theorists from Africa, the African Diaspora, and Latin America to examine Bergson's influence on literature, science studies, aesthetics, metaphysics, and social and political philosophy within these geopolitical contexts. The volume pays particular attention to both theoretical and practical forms of critical resistance work, including historical analyses of anti-racist, anti-imperialist, and anti-capitalist movements that have engaged with Bergson's writings—for example, the Négritude movement, the Indigenismo movement, and the Peruvian Socialist Party. These historical and theoretical intersections provide a timely and innovative contribution to the existing scholarship on Bergson, and demonstrate the importance of his thought for contemporary social and political issues.
Foreword: The Hope for this Volume: Sympathy
Leonard Lawlor

Acknowledgments

Introduction: Creative Extensions
Andrea J. Pitts and Mark William Westmoreland

Part I. Bergson on Colonialism, Social Groups, and the State

1. Decolonizing Bergson: The Temporal Schema of the Open and the Closed
Alia Al-Saji

2. The Language of Closure: Homogeneity, Exclusion, and the State
Martin Shuster

3. The Politics of Sympathy in Bergson’s The Two Sources of Morality and Religion
Melanie White

Part II. Bergsonian Themes in the Négritude Movement

4. Bergson, Senghor, and the Philosophical Foundations of Negritude: Intellect, Intuition, and Knowledge
Clevis Headley

5. The Spectacle of Belonging: Henri Bergson’s Comic Negro and the (Im)possibility of Place in the Colonial Metropolis
Annette K. Joseph-Gabriel

Part III. Race, Revolution, and Bergsonism in Latin America

6. Racial Becomings: Evolution, Materialism, and Bergson in Spanish America
Adriana Novoa

7. Bergsonism in Postrevolutionary Mexico: Antonio Caso’s Theory of Aesthetic Intuition
Andrea J. Pitts

8. Antagonism and Myth: Jose Carlos Mariategui’s Revolutionary Bergsonism
Jaime Hanneken

Bibliography
List of Contributors
Index

Sujets

• Philosophie
• Philosophie politique
• Philosophie de la psychologie
• Cultures
• Indigenous peoples
• Ethnic studies
• Philosophy

Informations

• Publié par: State University of New York Press
• Date de parution: 16 avril 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781438473536
• Langue: English

Extrait

BEYOND BERGSON
SUNY series, Philosophy and Race

Robert Bernasconi and T. Denean Sharpley-Whiting, editors
BEYOND BERGSON
EXAMINING RACE AND COLONIALISM THROUGH THE WRITINGS OF HENRI BERGSON
EDITED BY
ANDREA J. PITTS AND MARK WILLIAM WESTMORELAND
FOREWORD BY
LEONARD LAWLOR
On the cover: Night Journey by artist Frank Bowling (British, born Guyana, 1936)
Date: 1969–70
Medium: Acrylic on canvas
Dimensions: H. 833/4 × W. 721/8 in. (212.7 × 183.2 cm)
Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY. Accession number 2011.590.2.
Gift of Maddy and Larry Mohr, 2011.
© 2018 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/DACS, London
Published by State University of New York Press, Albany
© 2019 State University of New York
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.
For information, contact State University of New York Press, Albany, NY
www.sunypress.edu
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Pitts, Andrea J., editor. | Westmoreland, Mark William, 1983, editor.
Title: Beyond Bergson : examining race and colonialism through the writings of Henri Bergson / edited by Andrea J. Pitts and Mark William Westmoreland.
Description: Albany : State University of New York Press, [2019] | Series: SUNY series, philosophy and race | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018020075 | ISBN 9781438473512 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781438473536 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Bergson, Henri, 1859–1941.
Classification: LCC B2430.B43 B479 2019 | DDC 194—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018020075
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
Foreword: The Hope for this Volume: Sympathy
Leonard Lawlor
Acknowledgments
Introduction Creative Extensions
Andrea J. Pitts and Mark William Westmoreland
Part I Bergson on Colonialism, Social Groups, and the State
Chapter 1 Decolonizing Bergson: The Temporal Schema of the Open and the Closed
Alia Al-Saji
Chapter 2 The Language of Closure: Homogeneity, Exclusion, and the State
Martin Shuster
Chapter 3 The Politics of Sympathy in Bergson’s The Two Sources of Morality and Religion
Melanie White
Part II Bergsonian Themes in the Négritude Movement
Chapter 4 Bergson, Senghor, and the Philosophical Foundations of Négritude: Intellect, Intuition, and Knowledge
Clevis Headley
Chapter 5 The Spectacle of Belonging: Henri Bergson’s Comic Negro and the (Im)possibility of Place in the Colonial Metropolis
Annette K. Joseph-Gabriel
Part III Race, Revolution, and Bergsonism in Latin America
Chapter 6 Racial Becomings: Evolution, Materialism, and Bergson in Spanish America
Adriana Novoa
Chapter 7 Bergsonism in Postrevolutionary Mexico: Antonio Caso’s Theory of Aesthetic Intuition
Andrea J. Pitts
Chapter 8 Antagonism and Myth: José Carlos Mariátegui’s Revolutionary Bergsonism
Jaime Hanneken
Bibliography
List of Contributors
Index
Foreword
The Hope for this Volume: Sympathy
L EONARD L AWLOR
It is an honor for me to write the foreword to this volume, which extends Henri Bergson’s thought into areas of research that Bergson himself probably would have never imagined. It is in fact gratifying for me to see a volume like this appear. It is a good sign for those of us who see in Bergson a model for philosophical work. Over the twenty years or so that I have worked on Bergson, three ideas have appeared to me to be fundamental in his thinking and fundamental for genuine philosophical work: the starting point in an intuition, the idea of qualitative multiplicity, and the idea of creative emotions. This last idea comes from Bergson’s The Two Sources of Morality and Religion . The Two Sources , appearing in 1932, may be Bergson’s greatest work. It is also, however, the most controversial. I will turn to what is controversial in The Two Sources at the end of this foreword. The problem of what Bergson says about “the primitives” in The Two Sources will disclose my hope for this volume.
The first idea that is fundamental is the starting point for all philosophical thinking in an intuition. In Bergson, the word intuition has two senses. On the one hand, for Bergson, intuition refers to a method. 1 Negatively, in intuition one does not remain outside of the thing one is considering. The positive formula for the method of intuition is to enter into the thing. 2 Bergson provides the image of either standing outside of a city in order to look at it, or walking around within the city to experience it. Of course, one learns more about the city from within the city than from outside the city. Therefore, in Bergson, unlike the psychologist who observes a patient’s inner life from the outside, one must enter into the continuous, inner flow of time that defines consciousness. As is well known, Bergson called the inner flow of time “the duration” (which, as we shall see in a moment, is defined by qualitative multiplicity). When one has entered into the duration, one is able to learn how the continuous flow is differentiated (and even seems to be an opposition between, for instance, the soul and the body), and one is able to learn how to integrate the differences back into the continuity. Bergson’s second sense of intuition takes us to The Two Sources . In The Two Sources , Bergson shows that, on the other hand, intuition means a mystical vision. 3 The meaning of intuition as a mystical vision is part of the controversy surrounding this book. It is controversial because the mystical vision seems to resemble madness. Likewise, the mystic seems to resemble a madman because both undergo a disequilibrium in the mind. 4 However, Bergson at length tries to distinguish the vision from madness. 5 Madmen and mystics who are actually mad, Bergson says, are “charlatans”; they speak and speak, but make no sense. They remain in the disequilibrium. 6 In contrast, the true mystic overcomes the disequilibrium resulting in a new and different equilibrium. Responding to the vision, the true mystic speaks, makes sense, and creates changes in the world. Bergson’s example of a great mystic is of course Joan of Arc. 7 It is precisely the expression of the experience in meaningful words and actions that distinguishes the mystic from the madman. I think the identification of intuition with a mystical vision is important because it seems that philosophy must maintain its traditional aim of being presuppositionless. If philosophy indeed aims to be presuppositionless, then only an encounter like the mystical vision allows us to eliminate presuppositions. As philosophers, we need to be thrown into disequilibrium. But is this encounter enough to free us from the prejudices relative to our times? As we shall see at the end, the answer is probably not.
The second idea that is fundamental for philosophical thinking in general is Bergson’s idea of qualitative multiplicity. In his first book, Time and Free Will , published in 1889, Bergson distinguishes (through the method of intuition) qualitative multiplicity from quantitative multiplicity. As the name suggests, a quantitative multiplicity enumerates things or states of consciousness by means of externalizing one from another in a homogeneous space. In contrast, a qualitative multiplicity consists in a temporal heterogeneity, in which “several conscious states are organized into a whole, permeate one another, [and] gradually gain a richer content.” 8 Bergson even insists that the word several is inappropriate to qualitative multiplicity because it suggests numbering. In Time and Free Will , Bergson provides examples of a quantitative multiplicity; the example of a flock of sheep is perhaps the easiest to grasp. 9 When we look at a flock of sheep, what we notice is that they all look alike. But also, we notice that we can enumerate the sheep. We are able to enumerate them because each sheep is spatially separated from or juxtaposed to the others; in other words, each occupies a spatial location. Therefore, quantitative multiplicities, as Bergson says, are homogeneous and spatial. Bergson also provides examples of qualitative multiplicity. Let us consider the example of a moral feeling, namely, sympathy. 10 Our experience of sympathy begins, according to Bergson, with us putting ourselves in the place of others, in feeling their pain. But, if this were all, the feeling would inspire in us abhorrence of others, and we would want to avoid them, not help them. Bergson concedes that the feeling of horror may be at the root of sympathy. But then you realize that if you do not help this poor wretch, it is going to turn out that when you need help, no one will come to your aide. There is a “need” to help the suffering. For Bergson, these two phases are “inferior forms of pity.” In contrast, true pity is not so much fearing pain as desiring it. It is as if “nature” has committed a great injustice and what we want is not to be seen as complicit with it. As Bergson says, “The essence of pity is thus a need for self-abasement, an aspiration downward.” 11 But, this downward aspiration develops into a sense of being superior. One realizes that one can do without certain sensuous goods; one is superior over them since one has managed to dissociate oneself from them. In the end, one feels humility, since one is now stripped of these sensuous goods. Bergson calls this feeling “a qualitative progress.” It consists in a “transition from repugnance to fear, from fear to sympathy, and from sympathy itself to humility.” 12 The genius of Bergson’s description is that there is a heterogeneity of feelings here, and yet no one would be able to juxtapose them. The feelings a