Bergson as Writer

Bruno Clément is Emeritus Professor of Literature, Paris 8 University Vincennes-Saint-Denis and is former President of the International College of Philosophy (2004-2007). He is a well-known literary critic and theorist who studies the links between literature and philosophy. He has contributed to Journal of Beckett Studies and The Edinburgh Companion to Virginia Woolf. He is the author of many books in French including L’Œuvre sans qualités, rhétorique de Samuel Beckett, préface de Michel Deguy ("Logique de la figure"), 442 p., Paris, Seuil, 1994 (traduction en espagnol en cours); Le Lecteur et son modèle, coll. "Écriture", 272 p., P.U.F., 1999; La Tragédie classique, Seuil, "Mémo" 100 p., 1999 [ce livre a été traduit en roumain (2000) et en coréen (2002)]; L’Invention du commentaire, Augustin, Jacques Derrida, 175 p., P.U.F., 2000; Le Récit de la méthode, Seuil (collection Poétique »), 2005; La Voix verticale – essai sur la prosopopée, Belin (« L’extrême contemporain »); Henri Bergson, Prix nobel de littérature, Lagrasse, Verdier, 2021. Anthony Uhlmann is Distinguished Professor in the School of Humanities and Communication Arts, Western Sydney University, Australia. He is the author of Beckett and Poststructuralism (Cambridge University Press, 1999), Samuel Beckett and the Philosophical Image (Cambridge University Press, 2006), Thinking in Literature: Joyce, Woolf, Nabokov (Bloomsbury, 2011), J. M. Coetzee, Truth, Meaning, Fiction (Bloomsbury, 2020). He was the Managing Editor of the Journal of Beckett Studies (Edinburgh University Press). He has translated a number of essays from French into English, including, The Exhausted by Gilles Deleuze.

Focusing on Bergson’s concept of expression, Clément dispels the idea that he was a littérateur whose belletristics compensated for defects in philosophy. This extraordinarily lucid and innovative book restores the genius of Bergson seen as a poietic inventor not only of his discourse but also of his language.

• Translator’s IntroductionList of Abbreviations1. ’In other words…’An Author’s PrefaceHow to WriteThe Distinction of a PoetPenetrating the Veil of WordsThought and LanguageCommentary on BergsonPhilosophy and Literature The Form of DiscourseIn Praise of ApproximationOf the Proper, Of the Image; Of the Figurative, Of the ConceptForget WordsThree FiguresZigzagGiving VoiceTo FabulateThinking Through the ImaginationThe Words of Philosophy, the Words of LifeLanguage and ReasonOn MetaphorLanguage and ContinuityInfinite CorrectionIntuition, Image, ConceptBergson’s Languages Language and MusicCare of the SymbolBilingual BergsonReading Bergson2. ’… in the same direction as art’Art and ThoughtThe Measurable and the UnpredictableArt and ScienceArt is an Anti-ConceptA Question of VisionArt and PhilosophyThe Singular, the UniversalThe Life and The WorkThe Philosopher and his ModelTo Philosophize as an ArtistArt, Empathy; Metaphysics, SympathyPhotography and TranslationOn Literary Composition‘We artists…’The Essence of ArtBergson TranslatorBergson Musician3. ’An Effective Fiction’On the Imagination in PhilosophyThe Imagination from a Semantic Point of View...The Temptation of FancyThe Imagination, from an Anthropological Point of ViewFancy and WillGeneralized InventionCircumstance is a LureFiction is a Counter-PowerEvolution is a FableBergson’s Ghost PhilosophyLondon, just after BolognaThe ‘Ghosts which Surround Us’ and the ‘Phantasms of the Living’‘The Little Girl and the Learned Doctor’, FableThe Creatures of Dream‘... a dream I indulge in at times...’‘... perhaps even death’Literature and Philosophy mixedThe Mediating Figure [image] in the CarpetHenri, Henry and WilliamPhilosophy and PhilosophyPhilosophy and LiteratureLiterature and LiteratureCritique of the Imagination, Critique of Bergson4. '… to transfer thought, still living, into the soul of another'CoincidencesTeachingIn Praise of the HandJeanneTeaching literatureTo Hell with Meaning, to Hell with Doctrine‘The Spirt of Form’To Teach Philosophy is to PhilosophizeTo Philosophize is to Teach the History of PhilosophyTime and NarrativeBergson, Among Many OthersFor a Written Philosophy, Despite Everything (Plato)The Textual Aporias of Pure Reason (Kant)‘Words, words, words…’ Thought is Circumstantial...... figural…... and textualWorks Cited