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oa Contagion and Epidemics in Twentieth-Century Thought. A Hypothesis about Bergson

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Abstract

In the twentieth century, as in previous centuries, there was also much talk, at various levels and in the most diverse cultural fields, of epidemics and, more generally, of contagion. After some references to authors and works dealing with epidemics and contagion in the literary, philosophical, and human sciences fields, the essay focuses specifically on the theme of contagion and on one of the greatest thinkers of the early twentieth century, Henri Bergson, in whose works this theme is very present, albeit in a very peculiar form. Bergson often resorts to terms and concepts such as those of influence, diffusion, propagation, and transmission, when dealing with: psychological and gnoseological issues, the central theme of the evolution of life, and anthropological, ethical, and religious themes. In conclusion, it is hypothesized that in Bergson there is not simply a metaphorical use of the idea of contagion, but the presence of an original theoretical model of interpretation of reality consisting of a dynamic of interaction and transfer, which constitutes a conceptual structure characteristic of his thought.

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References

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    Lucretius, De rerum natura, ed. by Cyril Bailey (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978).
  2. ***
    Adair-Toteff, Christopher, ‘“Methodological Pestilence”: Max Weber’s Devastating Critique of Stammler’, Max Weber Studies, 14 (2014), no. 2, pp. 245–68.
  3. Astell, Ann W., ‘Saintly Mimesis, Contagion, and Empathy in the Thought of René Girard, Edith Stein, and Simone Weil’, Shofar, 22 (2004), no. 2, pp. 116–31.
  4. Bashford, Alison, and Hooker, Claire (eds.), Contagion: Historical and Cultural Studies (London and New York: Routledge, 2001).
  5. Beecher, Donald, ‘An Afterword on Contagion’, in Imagining Contagion in Early Modern Europe, ed. by Claire L. Carlin (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), pp. 243–60.
  6. Benda, Julien, Une philosophie pathétique (Paris: Cahiers de la quinzaine, 1913).
  7. Bergson, Henri, Extraits de Lucrèce, dixième édition (Paris: Delagrave, undated).
  8. Bergson, Henri, Essai sur les données immediates de la conscience, in Œuvres (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1959; seconde édition 1963), pp. 1–157.
  9. Bergson, Henri, Matière et mémoire, in Œuvres (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1959; seconde édition 1963), pp. 159–379.
  10. Bergson, Henri, Le rire. Essai sur la signification du comique, in Œuvres (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1959; seconde édition 1963), pp. 381–485.
  11. Bergson, Henri, L’évolution créatrice, in Œuvres (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1959; seconde édition 1963), pp. 487–809.
  12. Bergson, Henri, ‘Le rêve’, in L’énergie spirituelle. Essais et conférences, in Œuvres (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1959; seconde édition 1963), pp. 811–977.
  13. Bergson, Henri, Les deux sources de la morale et de la religion, in Œuvres (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1959; seconde édition 1963), pp. 979–1247.
  14. Bergson, Henri, La pensée et le mouvant. Essais et conférences, in Œuvres (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1959; seconde édition 1963), pp. 1249–1482.
  15. Bergson, Henri, ‘Sur le pragmatisme de William James. Vérité et réalité’, in Œuvres (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1959; seconde édition 1963) pp. 1440–50.
  16. Bergson, Henri, Mélanges (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1972).
  17. Bergson, Henri, Correspondances (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2002).
  18. Bergson, Henri, Sur le pragmatisme de William James (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2011).
  19. Brodie, Richard, Virus of the Mind: The New Science of the Meme (Seattle: Integral Press, 1996).
  20. Burdine, Wesley H., ‘Feeling Out of Time: Phenomenal Bodies and Temporality in fin de siècle’ (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Minnesota, 2016).
  21. Caeymaex, Florence, ‘Les discours de guerre (1914–1918). Propagande et philosophie’, in Annales bergsoniennes VII (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2014), pp. 143–66.
  22. Camus, Albert, La peste (Paris: Gallimard, 2021).
  23. Cariou, Marie, L’atomisme. Gassendi, Leibniz, Bergson et Lucrèce (Paris: Aubier Montaigne, 1978).
  24. Carlin, Claire L. (ed.), Imagining Contagion in Early Modern Europe (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005).
  25. Céline, Louis-Ferdinand, Semmelweis (Paris: Gallimard, 1999).
  26. Cioran, Emil M., Histoire et utopie, in Œuvres (Paris: Gallimard, 1995), pp. 979–1061.
  27. Conrad, Lawrence I., and Wujastyk, Dominik (eds.), Contagion: Perspectives from Pre-Modern Societies (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2000).
  28. Dawkins, Richard, The Selfish Gene (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1976; second edition 1989).
  29. Deleuze, Gilles, and Guattari, Félix, Mille plateaux. Capitalisme et schizophrénie 2 (Paris: Les Éditions de Minuit, 1980).
  30. Dennett, Daniel C., Consciousness Explained (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1991).
  31. Durkheim, Émile, Les formes élémentaires de la vie religieuse. Le système totémique en Australie (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1990).
  32. Foucault, Michel, Naissance de la clinique. Une archéologie du regard médical (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2007).
  33. Foucault, Michel, Histoire de la folie à l’âge classique (Paris: Gallimard, 2017).
  34. Foucault, Michel, Surveiller et punir. Naissance de la prison (Paris: Gallimard, 2020).
  35. Frazer, James, The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1990).
  36. Freud, Sigmund, Massenpsychologie und Ich-Analyse / Die Zukunft einer Illusion (Frankfurt a. M.: Fischer, 1993).
  37. García Márquez, Gabriel, El amor en los tiempos del cólera (Barcelona: Bruguera, 1985).
  38. Giono, Jean, Le hussard sur le toit (Paris: Gallimard, 1995).
  39. Girard, René, La violence et le sacré (Paris: Grasset, 1972).
  40. Girard, René, ‘The Plague in Literature and Myth’, Texas Studies in Literature and Language, 15 (1974), pp. 83350.
    [Google Scholar]
  41. Givone, Sergio, ‘Quando contagioso è il linguaggio’, in Metafisica della peste. Colpa e destino (Torino: Einaudi, 2012).
  42. Grandone, Salvatore, Lucrezio e Bergson. La ricezione del ‘De rerum natura’ in Francia nel XIX secolo (Rome: Aracne, 2018).
  43. Gunn, Joshua, ‘Canned Laughter’, Philosophy and Rhetoric, 47 (2014), no. 4, pp. 434–54.
  44. Hatfield, Elaine, and others et al., Emotional Contagion. Studies in Emotion and Social Interaction (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994).
  45. Healy, Patrick, ‘The Birthing of Things: Bergson as a Reader of Lucretius’, Footprint, 8 (2014), pp. 2939.
    [Google Scholar]
  46. Hewitt, Andrew, Social Choreography: Ideology as Performance in Dance and Everyday Movement (Durham: Duke University Press, 2005).
  47. James, William, ‘Great Men, Great Thoughts, and the Environment’, The Atlantic Monthly, 46 (1880), no. 276, pp. 441–59.
  48. James, William, ‘The Importance of Individuals’, Open Court, 4 (1890), pp. 243740.
    [Google Scholar]
  49. James, William, The Varieties of Religious Experience. A Study in Human Nature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011).
  50. Jarcho, Saul, The Concept of Contagion in Medicine, Literature, and Religion (Malabar: Krieger, 2000).
  51. Klemperer, Victor, LTI. Notizbuch eines Philologen (Berlin: Aufbau-Verlag, 1947).
  52. Le Bon, Gustave, Psychologie des foules (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2020).
  53. London, Jack, The Scarlet Plague (New York: Macmillan, 1915).
  54. Lucci, Antonio, ‘Ansteckung. Plädoyer für eine Ethik der Kontingenz’, in Die Corona-Gesellschaft. Analysen zur Lage und Perspektiven für die Zukunft, ed. by Michael Volkmer and Karin Werner (Bielefeld: transcript Verlag, 2020), pp. 357–67.
  55. Lynch, Aaron, Thought Contagion: How Belief Spreads through Society (New York: Basic Books, 1996).
  56. Madelrieux, Stéphane (ed.), Bergson et James. Cent ans après (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2011).
  57. Malaparte, Curzio, La pelle (Milano: Adelphi, 2010).
  58. Mann, Thomas, Der Tod in Venedig (Frankfurt a. M.: Fischer, 1992).
  59. Mann, Thomas, Der Zauberberg (Frankfurt a. M.: Fischer, 2003).
  60. Massimilla, Edoardo, ‘La “pestilenza metodologica” e la “maledizione del rospo”: Max Weber lettore di Gustav Meyrink’, Archivio di storia della cultura, 31 (2018), pp. 263–72.
  61. Nutton, Vivian, ‘The Seeds of Disease: An Explanation of Contagion and Infection from the Greeks to the Renaissance’, Medical History, 27 (1983), pp. 134.
    [Google Scholar]
  62. Pagnol, Marcel, Les Pestiférés (Paris: Éditions de Fallois, 2020).
  63. Parisi, Luciana, ‘Biotech: Life by Contagion’, Theory, Culture & Society, 24 (2007), no. 6, pp. 29–52.
  64. Pernot, Camille, ‘Spiritualisme et spiritisme chez Bergson’, Revue de l’enseignement philosophique, 15 (1964), no. 3, pp. 1–23.
  65. Petyx, Vincenza, Bergson e le streghe di Macbeth. Dagli ‘écrits de guerre’ a ‘Les deux sources de la morale et de la religion’ (Alessandria: Edizioni dell’Orso, 2006).
  66. Ranger, Terence, and Slack, Paul (eds.), Epidemics and Ideas: Essays on the Historical Perception of Pestilence (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992).
  67. Rigoni, Mario A., ‘Contaminazione totale’, in Emil M. Cioran, Storia e utopia (Milan: Adelphi, 1982), pp. 147–59.
  68. Russo, Maria Teresa, Esperienza ed esemplarità morale. Rileggere ‘Le due fonti della morale e della religione’ di Henri Bergson (Pisa: ETS, 2017).
  69. Saramago, José, Ensaio sobre a Cegueira (Lisbon: Caminho, 1995).
  70. Sighele, Scipio, La folla delinquente (Milan: La Vita Felice, 2015).
  71. Snowden, Frank M., Epidemics and Society: From the Black Death to the Present (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2019).
  72. Soulez, Philippe, Bergson politique (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1989).
  73. Tarde, Gabriel, Les lois de l’imitation. Étude sociologique (Paris: Alcan, 1890).
  74. Trochu, Thibaud, ‘Bergson et Freud: la “recherche psychique” et l’“exploration de l’inconscient”’, in Bergson et Freud, ed. by Brigitte Sitbon (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2014), pp. 197–215.
  75. Weber, Max, ‘Beitrag zur Werturteildiskussion im Ausschuß des Vereins für Sozialpolitik’, in Max Weber-Gesamtausgabe, I/12: Verstehende Soziologie und Werturteilsfreiheit. Schriften und Reden 1908–1917, ed. by J. Weiß und S. Frommer (Tübingen: Mohr, 2018), pp. 329–82.
  76. Weininger, Otto, Über die letzten Dinge (Munich: Matthes & Seitz Verlag, 1997).
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    [Google Scholar]

References

  1. Bibliography
    Lucretius, De rerum natura, ed. by Cyril Bailey (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978).
  2. ***
    Adair-Toteff, Christopher, ‘“Methodological Pestilence”: Max Weber’s Devastating Critique of Stammler’, Max Weber Studies, 14 (2014), no. 2, pp. 245–68.
  3. Astell, Ann W., ‘Saintly Mimesis, Contagion, and Empathy in the Thought of René Girard, Edith Stein, and Simone Weil’, Shofar, 22 (2004), no. 2, pp. 116–31.
  4. Bashford, Alison, and Hooker, Claire (eds.), Contagion: Historical and Cultural Studies (London and New York: Routledge, 2001).
  5. Beecher, Donald, ‘An Afterword on Contagion’, in Imagining Contagion in Early Modern Europe, ed. by Claire L. Carlin (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), pp. 243–60.
  6. Benda, Julien, Une philosophie pathétique (Paris: Cahiers de la quinzaine, 1913).
  7. Bergson, Henri, Extraits de Lucrèce, dixième édition (Paris: Delagrave, undated).
  8. Bergson, Henri, Essai sur les données immediates de la conscience, in Œuvres (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1959; seconde édition 1963), pp. 1–157.
  9. Bergson, Henri, Matière et mémoire, in Œuvres (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1959; seconde édition 1963), pp. 159–379.
  10. Bergson, Henri, Le rire. Essai sur la signification du comique, in Œuvres (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1959; seconde édition 1963), pp. 381–485.
  11. Bergson, Henri, L’évolution créatrice, in Œuvres (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1959; seconde édition 1963), pp. 487–809.
  12. Bergson, Henri, ‘Le rêve’, in L’énergie spirituelle. Essais et conférences, in Œuvres (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1959; seconde édition 1963), pp. 811–977.
  13. Bergson, Henri, Les deux sources de la morale et de la religion, in Œuvres (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1959; seconde édition 1963), pp. 979–1247.
  14. Bergson, Henri, La pensée et le mouvant. Essais et conférences, in Œuvres (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1959; seconde édition 1963), pp. 1249–1482.
  15. Bergson, Henri, ‘Sur le pragmatisme de William James. Vérité et réalité’, in Œuvres (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1959; seconde édition 1963) pp. 1440–50.
  16. Bergson, Henri, Mélanges (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1972).
  17. Bergson, Henri, Correspondances (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2002).
  18. Bergson, Henri, Sur le pragmatisme de William James (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2011).
  19. Brodie, Richard, Virus of the Mind: The New Science of the Meme (Seattle: Integral Press, 1996).
  20. Burdine, Wesley H., ‘Feeling Out of Time: Phenomenal Bodies and Temporality in fin de siècle’ (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Minnesota, 2016).
  21. Caeymaex, Florence, ‘Les discours de guerre (1914–1918). Propagande et philosophie’, in Annales bergsoniennes VII (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2014), pp. 143–66.
  22. Camus, Albert, La peste (Paris: Gallimard, 2021).
  23. Cariou, Marie, L’atomisme. Gassendi, Leibniz, Bergson et Lucrèce (Paris: Aubier Montaigne, 1978).
  24. Carlin, Claire L. (ed.), Imagining Contagion in Early Modern Europe (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005).
  25. Céline, Louis-Ferdinand, Semmelweis (Paris: Gallimard, 1999).
  26. Cioran, Emil M., Histoire et utopie, in Œuvres (Paris: Gallimard, 1995), pp. 979–1061.
  27. Conrad, Lawrence I., and Wujastyk, Dominik (eds.), Contagion: Perspectives from Pre-Modern Societies (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2000).
  28. Dawkins, Richard, The Selfish Gene (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1976; second edition 1989).
  29. Deleuze, Gilles, and Guattari, Félix, Mille plateaux. Capitalisme et schizophrénie 2 (Paris: Les Éditions de Minuit, 1980).
  30. Dennett, Daniel C., Consciousness Explained (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1991).
  31. Durkheim, Émile, Les formes élémentaires de la vie religieuse. Le système totémique en Australie (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1990).
  32. Foucault, Michel, Naissance de la clinique. Une archéologie du regard médical (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2007).
  33. Foucault, Michel, Histoire de la folie à l’âge classique (Paris: Gallimard, 2017).
  34. Foucault, Michel, Surveiller et punir. Naissance de la prison (Paris: Gallimard, 2020).
  35. Frazer, James, The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1990).
  36. Freud, Sigmund, Massenpsychologie und Ich-Analyse / Die Zukunft einer Illusion (Frankfurt a. M.: Fischer, 1993).
  37. García Márquez, Gabriel, El amor en los tiempos del cólera (Barcelona: Bruguera, 1985).
  38. Giono, Jean, Le hussard sur le toit (Paris: Gallimard, 1995).
  39. Girard, René, La violence et le sacré (Paris: Grasset, 1972).
  40. Girard, René, ‘The Plague in Literature and Myth’, Texas Studies in Literature and Language, 15 (1974), pp. 83350.
    [Google Scholar]
  41. Givone, Sergio, ‘Quando contagioso è il linguaggio’, in Metafisica della peste. Colpa e destino (Torino: Einaudi, 2012).
  42. Grandone, Salvatore, Lucrezio e Bergson. La ricezione del ‘De rerum natura’ in Francia nel XIX secolo (Rome: Aracne, 2018).
  43. Gunn, Joshua, ‘Canned Laughter’, Philosophy and Rhetoric, 47 (2014), no. 4, pp. 434–54.
  44. Hatfield, Elaine, and others et al., Emotional Contagion. Studies in Emotion and Social Interaction (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994).
  45. Healy, Patrick, ‘The Birthing of Things: Bergson as a Reader of Lucretius’, Footprint, 8 (2014), pp. 2939.
    [Google Scholar]
  46. Hewitt, Andrew, Social Choreography: Ideology as Performance in Dance and Everyday Movement (Durham: Duke University Press, 2005).
  47. James, William, ‘Great Men, Great Thoughts, and the Environment’, The Atlantic Monthly, 46 (1880), no. 276, pp. 441–59.
  48. James, William, ‘The Importance of Individuals’, Open Court, 4 (1890), pp. 243740.
    [Google Scholar]
  49. James, William, The Varieties of Religious Experience. A Study in Human Nature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011).
  50. Jarcho, Saul, The Concept of Contagion in Medicine, Literature, and Religion (Malabar: Krieger, 2000).
  51. Klemperer, Victor, LTI. Notizbuch eines Philologen (Berlin: Aufbau-Verlag, 1947).
  52. Le Bon, Gustave, Psychologie des foules (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2020).
  53. London, Jack, The Scarlet Plague (New York: Macmillan, 1915).
  54. Lucci, Antonio, ‘Ansteckung. Plädoyer für eine Ethik der Kontingenz’, in Die Corona-Gesellschaft. Analysen zur Lage und Perspektiven für die Zukunft, ed. by Michael Volkmer and Karin Werner (Bielefeld: transcript Verlag, 2020), pp. 357–67.
  55. Lynch, Aaron, Thought Contagion: How Belief Spreads through Society (New York: Basic Books, 1996).
  56. Madelrieux, Stéphane (ed.), Bergson et James. Cent ans après (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2011).
  57. Malaparte, Curzio, La pelle (Milano: Adelphi, 2010).
  58. Mann, Thomas, Der Tod in Venedig (Frankfurt a. M.: Fischer, 1992).
  59. Mann, Thomas, Der Zauberberg (Frankfurt a. M.: Fischer, 2003).
  60. Massimilla, Edoardo, ‘La “pestilenza metodologica” e la “maledizione del rospo”: Max Weber lettore di Gustav Meyrink’, Archivio di storia della cultura, 31 (2018), pp. 263–72.
  61. Nutton, Vivian, ‘The Seeds of Disease: An Explanation of Contagion and Infection from the Greeks to the Renaissance’, Medical History, 27 (1983), pp. 134.
    [Google Scholar]
  62. Pagnol, Marcel, Les Pestiférés (Paris: Éditions de Fallois, 2020).
  63. Parisi, Luciana, ‘Biotech: Life by Contagion’, Theory, Culture & Society, 24 (2007), no. 6, pp. 29–52.
  64. Pernot, Camille, ‘Spiritualisme et spiritisme chez Bergson’, Revue de l’enseignement philosophique, 15 (1964), no. 3, pp. 1–23.
  65. Petyx, Vincenza, Bergson e le streghe di Macbeth. Dagli ‘écrits de guerre’ a ‘Les deux sources de la morale et de la religion’ (Alessandria: Edizioni dell’Orso, 2006).
  66. Ranger, Terence, and Slack, Paul (eds.), Epidemics and Ideas: Essays on the Historical Perception of Pestilence (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992).
  67. Rigoni, Mario A., ‘Contaminazione totale’, in Emil M. Cioran, Storia e utopia (Milan: Adelphi, 1982), pp. 147–59.
  68. Russo, Maria Teresa, Esperienza ed esemplarità morale. Rileggere ‘Le due fonti della morale e della religione’ di Henri Bergson (Pisa: ETS, 2017).
  69. Saramago, José, Ensaio sobre a Cegueira (Lisbon: Caminho, 1995).
  70. Sighele, Scipio, La folla delinquente (Milan: La Vita Felice, 2015).
  71. Snowden, Frank M., Epidemics and Society: From the Black Death to the Present (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2019).
  72. Soulez, Philippe, Bergson politique (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1989).
  73. Tarde, Gabriel, Les lois de l’imitation. Étude sociologique (Paris: Alcan, 1890).
  74. Trochu, Thibaud, ‘Bergson et Freud: la “recherche psychique” et l’“exploration de l’inconscient”’, in Bergson et Freud, ed. by Brigitte Sitbon (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2014), pp. 197–215.
  75. Weber, Max, ‘Beitrag zur Werturteildiskussion im Ausschuß des Vereins für Sozialpolitik’, in Max Weber-Gesamtausgabe, I/12: Verstehende Soziologie und Werturteilsfreiheit. Schriften und Reden 1908–1917, ed. by J. Weiß und S. Frommer (Tübingen: Mohr, 2018), pp. 329–82.
  76. Weininger, Otto, Über die letzten Dinge (Munich: Matthes & Seitz Verlag, 1997).
  77. Worms, Frédéric, ‘Bergson et James, lectures croisées’, Philosophie, 64 (1999), pp. 5468.
    [Google Scholar]
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