Leon Ter Schure - Bergson and History: Transforming the Modern Regime of Historicity

BERGSON AND HISTORY

SUNY series in Contemporary French Thought

David Pettigrew and Franois Raffoul, editors

BERGSON AND HISTORY

Transforming the Modern Regime of Historicity

L EON TER S CHURE

Published by State University of New York Press, Albany

2019 State University of New York

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Printed in the United States of America

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Schure, Leon ter, 1980 author.

Title: Bergson and history : transforming the modern regime of historicity / Leon ter Schure.

Description: Albany : State University of New York Press, [2019] | Series: SUNY series in contemporary French thought | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2018052656 | ISBN 9781438476230 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781438476254 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Bergson, Henri, 18591941. | Historicism. | HistoryPhilosophy.

Classification: LCC B2430.B43 S382 2019 | DDC 194dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018052656

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C ONTENTS

I LLUSTRATIONS

A CKNOWLEDGMENTS

I wish to acknowledge those who contributed in various ways to the realization of this book. This work evolved from my doctoral thesis and I want to thank the University of Groningen for allowing me the opportunity to conduct the research on which it is based. While working at the Faculty of Philosophy, I benefited a lot from the feedback that I received from my colleagues. My special thanks go out to Ren Boomkens and Eddo Evink, who took the time to discuss earlier drafts of this manuscript and who gave many useful suggestions for improvement. This also goes for Eelco Runia, who pointed me to the history of the London Cenotaph. I am appreciative to Marc Cooper and James Harbeck for their help in improving the English of this text. I would like to thank the editors and staff of SUNY Press for the pleasant way in which they have guided me through the publication process, especially Jenn Bennett-Genthner, Andrew Kenyon, Chelsea Miller, and Kate Seburyamo. I also owe gratitude to the two anonymous readers for their insightful reports. I acknowledge the Mary Evans Picture Library and the Bibliothque nationale de France for giving me permission to use a number of images in this book. Many people have contributed to this book by giving me new insights and inspiration, or by reading and commenting on previous versions of this text. In particular, I want to thank Thijs Lijster, Danille Aalten, Auke Kranenborg, Joost van Driessche, Bjinse Sikma, Frank Ankersmit, and Sandra Ramrez. I am deeply grateful for the encouragement and support of my friends and of my family, Inge and Jeroen, Jurre and Lize, and Pauline. I thank my girlfriend, Hiske, for her invaluable love and support. I dedicate this book to my mother and father.

A BBREVIATIONS

Whenever possible, references to the works of Bergson are given to the authorized English translations, which were approved by Bergson, who was fluent in English. Abbreviations are used in the notes to refer to Bergsons writings. The French originals are included in Bergsons Oeuvres (1959), to which I refer below:

I NTRODUCTION

History, Presentism, Bergsonism

We have been thrown into a time in which everything is provisional. New technologies alter our lives daily. The traditions of the past cannot be retrieved. At the same time we have little idea of what the future will bring. We are forced to live as if we were free.

John Gray, Straw Dogs: Thoughts on Humans and Other Animals

A return to Bergson does not only mean a renewed admiration for a great philosopher but a renewal or an extension of his project today, in relation to the transformations of life and society, in parallel with the transformations of science.

Gilles Deleuze, Bergsonism

Time is what hinders everything from being given at once. It retards, or rather it is retardation. It must therefore, be elaboration. Would it not then be a vehicle of creation and of choice? Would not the existence of time prove that there is indetermination in things? Would not time be that indetermination itself?

Henri Bergson, The Creative Mind: An Introduction to Metaphysics

Fukuyamas predictions have since been widely criticized and rejected. Now, more than twenty-five years after its proclamation, the end of history is often considered as a utopian symbol for the happy 90s, when liberal democracy seemed like the finally found formula of the best possible society. The only thing left to do was improve liberal-democratic capitalism and make it even more just and tolerant than it already was. The ideological striving that had determined the course of the twentieth century appeared to belong to the past once and for all.

We could therefore maintain that Fukuyama was not all that wrong and that history did indeed come to an end after 1989. Yet this has not been the end of history as such, but of a very specific idea about the nature of history. What has come to an end is the notion that we as human beings are part of history as an all-encompassing process that we are collectively shaping. This idea came into existence at the end of the eighteenth century with the invention of the modern future. History, in this view, was the road upon which we collectively travel toward a utopian future, while the past represented the distance already covered, measuring how far we have removed ourselves from the traditional, premodern world that we have left behind.