BERGSON’S TWO SOURCES OF MORALITY AND RELIGION AND THEIR PERTINENCE FOR US TODAY
BERGSON’S TWO SOURCES OF MORALITY AND RELIGION AND THEIR PERTINENCE FOR US TODAY

Summary/Abstract: This paper uses a hermeneutical strategy that allows it to turn our contemporary and subjective reading of Bergson’s The two sources of morality and religion in a sort of a symptomatology of our present. Two of our immediate reactions towards Bergson’s theses on religion and morality are thus analyzed in order to give us a sense of Bergson’s inadequacy to our times and of his actuality. Following some indications from Paolo Virno, I attempt to stage an opposition between a Bergsonian notion of “moral institution” and a contemporary generalized ethics of self-modulation. At the same time, this paper briefly shows that the two opposing terms are philosophically linked and are denouncing the same fallacious ways of attempting to escape from the challenges of our times. A deeper connection between Bergson’s relationship to our present and our present itself seems to emerge and the ambiguous nature of the two elements is thus prefigured.

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