Powers of Time ─ Versions of Bergson

How is it that when we think of time, we hardly think of the role affect plays in granting us access to time: the sense of waiting, regret, mourning, melancholy? In Powers of Time, David Lapoujade returns to two central themes that continuously converge throughout the writings of the French philosopher Henri Bergson: durée (duration) and intuition. If duration is synonymous with memory, how are we then capable of thinking an authentic sense of the future? Does this mean that freedom is nothing more than a reprisal of our past?

Lapoujade uncovers multiple versions of Bergson: a philosopher of sympathy, a melancholic philosopher, a perspectivist Bergson, a spiritualist Bergson. Leading us beyond simplistic anthropomorphic conceptions of temporality and intuition, Lapoujade’s multiple Bergsons guide us to encounter a rapport with time, memory, and duration that places us in direct contact with the nonhuman flows and movements of the universe.

David Lapoujade is a French philosopher and professor at the University of Paris-1-Pantheon-Sorbonne. His book on the philosopher Étienne Souriau, Les Existences Moindres (The Lesser Existences), is his most recent publication.

Andrew Goffey is associate professor in critical theory and cultural studies at the University of Nottingham.