Whatever Happened to Henri Bergson?
In the early decades of the twentieth century, Henri Bergson (1859–1941) ranked among the world's most eminent philosophers. His distinction between clock-time and time as subjectively experienced, as well as his invocation of the élan vital as driving humanity to higher planes of creativity and fre...
| Published in: | Modern Judaism: A Journal of Jewish Ideas & Experience Vol. 41; no. 3; pp. 294 - 317 |
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| Format: | Article |
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Oxford University Press / USA
Oct2021
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| Online Access: | View this record in EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=152743468&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 152743468 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 02761114 2AD jtl: Modern Judaism: A Journal of Jewish Ideas & Experience issn: 02761114 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Oct2021 vid: 41 iid: 3 pid: 622 pub: Oxford University Press / USA artinfo: ui: 152743468 10.1093/mj/kjab009 ppf: 294 ppct: 23 formats: fmt: – @attributes: type: T – @attributes: type: P size: 194KB tig: atl: Whatever Happened to Henri Bergson? aug: au: Whitfield, Stephen J affil: Brandeis University , USA su: Bergson, Henri, 1859-1941 Humanity World War I Vital records (Births, deaths, etc.) Creative ability Linguistic analysis Nobel Prizes Victims sug: subj: Bergson, Henri, 1859-1941 Humanity World War I Vital records (Births, deaths, etc.) Creative ability Linguistic analysis Nobel Prizes Victims ab: In the early decades of the twentieth century, Henri Bergson (1859–1941) ranked among the world's most eminent philosophers. His distinction between clock-time and time as subjectively experienced, as well as his invocation of the élan vital as driving humanity to higher planes of creativity and freedom, enabled him to enjoy unparalleled influence among French students as well as international writers. Bergson personified philosophy. He also seemed to justify the gamble of emancipation that France had taken barely a century earlier, in granting talented Jews the opportunity to flourish. In 1927 Bergson was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. Yet very soon thereafter, the prominence that he had enjoyed quite precipitously declined, and he drifted into obscurity from which his writings have yet to recover. How can such an eclipse be explained? Part of the reason was an inevitable shift in philosophic fashion. By the 1920s, belles-lettres aimed at an educated public yielded to linguistic analysis in the Anglo-American world and to phenomenology on the continent. Part of the reason was the shock of the First World War. Its carnage led to disillusionment and to pessimism, which made Bergson's paeans to the intuitive powers of humanity seem tone-deaf. Another part of the reason was an illness that left him virtually speechless—and thus unresponsive—for the last fifteen years of his life, which was cut short by the German invasion and occupation. Registering as a Jew in the dead of winter, Bergson died—a victim of Nazism—of pneumonia. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y custom: © 2019 Modern Jewish Studies, Inc. item: Modern Judaism: A Journal of Jewish Ideas & Experience holder: Oxford University Press / USA dt: @attributes: year: 2021 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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