Affect, Utility, and Self-Constitution. A Bergsonian Reading of Whitehead and Levinas

This paper studies Bergson’s notions of utility and affect in light of their relationship to the process of self-constitution as it is developed in Time and Free Will and Matter and Memory as well as how these ideas were taken up in the thought of Levinas and Whitehead. I begin by mentioning three basic critiques of Bergson’s work focusing on the charge that his philosophy is problematically impersonal. In the first part of the paper, I explore how the notion of affect may counter such a charge. Affect, although sparsely treated, plays a fundamental, determining role in Bergson’s notion of self-constitution. I then show how this view might be at odds with Bergson’s determination of nature as utilitarian. In light of this conflict, the paper speaks of two Bergsons, one overly utilitarian and the other with a vague but important focus on affect. Part two then outlines the basic metaphysics of Whitehead and Levinas in order to show that their critiques of utilitarian and vital philosophies share the same focus on affect that was already present in Bergson’s philosophy. Noting this similarity, the paper concludes by arguing that, in the moments when they seem most critical of Bergson, it is possible to read Whitehead and Levinas as being, in fact, distinctly Bergsonian.