Margot Wahl on the Significance of Emotion in Bergson’s Concept

Abstract

In the book by M. Wahl “La portée métaphysique de l’émotion dans la philosophie de Henri Bergson”
(“The Metaphysical Significance of Emotion in the Philosophy of Henri Bergson”) (2018) the
theme of emotion in the concept of Bergson discusses in a broad historical and philosophical
context. Using the method of parallel reading of works by Bergson and other thinkers from
different eras, including his contemporaries, the author seeks to more accurately identify the
genesis of a number of philosophical ideas characteristic of the 20th century, and to analyze the
original features of the teachings of the French thinker. The monograph examines the main points
of the concept of emotion, set out by Bergson in “Two sources of morality and religion”. The value
of emotion in Bergson’s metaphysics is determined, in the opinion of M. Wahl, by its
interpretation as a requirement for creativity, as a source of free action, as an important component
of the experience of Christian mystics, representatives of dynamic morality and religion.