Murakami Ryu

In this paper I will consider <discontinuité> as a positive element of the Bergsonian notion of <durée>. Since his maiden book, Time and Free Will (1889), Henri Bergson (1859-1941) defines time as <durée>, which means uninterrupted continuity of the past, the present and the future. In opposition to Bergson, Gaston Bachelard (1884-1962), who begins to speculate on time in the 1930s, takes time to be essentially discontinuous. According to Bachelard, it is not continuous <durée> but discontinuous <instant> that does give birth to something new, and this is why he criticizes Bergson. In my opinion, however, at least in the 1930s, Bergson himself tries to reconsider <durée> not only to be continuous but also to be discontinuous.

In this paper I will consider <rétrospectivité> as a positive element of the Bergsonian notion of <durée>. Around 1930 Henri Bergson borrows from Vladimir Jankélévitch a concept of <illusion de rétrospectivité>, which means a lack of understanding about <durée>. However, his usage of the concept seems not to be true to Jankélévitch’s, in that he regards <rétrospectivité> as a positive element of <durée>. In my opinion, Bergson’s infidelity to Jankélévitch, so to speak, is based on his interest in <histoire>, as far as the mysticism is concerned, which bears fruit in The Two Sources of Morality and Religion (1932). As regards this, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, who criticizes Bergson for his misunderstanding <histoire>, provides an important clue.

In another paper I pointed out that Henri Bergson (1859-1941), a French philosopher, in his early years argues on <sensibility> from a similar viewpoint to his contemporaries’. In this paper I aim to examine his notion of <sensibility> in his later years, focusing on The Two Sources of Morality and Religion (1932). Although rarely pointed out, in The Two Sources Bergson argues on <sensibility> from his particular point of view. He proposes “a psychology which accords so extensive and so handsome a place to sensibility,” where emotion gains an advantage over intellect and volition. When we compare The Two Sources with Technical and Critical Vocabulary of the Philosophy, a French encyclopedia published in 1926, we see that Bergson has his conception in common with his contemporaries to some extent, but that on the other hand he is outstanding among his contemporaries especially for his paying attention to the <superior component> of <sensibility>, which is characterized by activity and unity, in contrast to the <inferior component>, which is characterized by passivity and multiplicity.