What a funny idea to go get Bergson!
A vague memory from high school reminded us that this philosopher had reflected on laughter, but was that a sufficient reason to tell ourselves that we were going to have a good time in his company?
Jean-Paul Sartre scoffed at his
"superficial optimism"
, and no fantasy was ever associated with his life.
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Jean Jaurès, his classmate at Normale Sup, said that
“if nature had foreseen that during its evolution it should one day produce a Bergson, it would have stopped at the mollusc stage”
.
His status as a quasi-official philosopher of the Third Republic, accompanied by all the honors that go with it - College de France, French Academy, Nobel Prize for Literature - served him badly.
Too conventional for an audience which, after the war, at the time of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, preferred rebellious spirits.
Rare are those who can, today, cite the title of one of his books.
Anticipate the unpredictable
Posterity is cruel, but Emmanuel Kessler usefully invites us...
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