The Radical Humanism of Henri Bergson.

This paper provides a preliminary exploration of the radical humanism of Henri Bergson for the purposes of international political theory.In his much neglected work, The Two Sources of Morality and Religion, Bergson argued for a political ideal of humanity as an 'open whole'.This ideal could only be realised through what he described as a 'sudden leap'. It is a fact, of course, that the modern development of the west has been politically predicated on the invocation of a universal ideal of humanity. Yet it is also a fact that each and every western discourse of humanity is demonstrably a projection of a culturally contingent conception of the human particular to western societies conceived, incoherently, in universal terms. This, Bergson argues, is an error deriving from the fact that western societies have attempted to conceive the difference between themselves and that of a society of humanity as a difference of degree. While between any particular society and a truly human society there must be a difference, Bergson argues, 'of kind and not simply one of degree'. If the ideal of humanity as an open whole is to be realised, the representative function of the social sphere has to be 'leaped' over.Thus it is imperative, on Bergson's account, that the idea of humanity not be objectified as if it were simply another society on a grander and more expansive scale which could be established simply by increasing the scale on which a particular regime for the protection of the 'rights of humanity' has already been established politically.This would imply that it cannot be accorded with the forms that are traditionally accorded 'humanity' within political theory and philosophy wherein socially and culturally contingent conceptions of the human have traditionally sought conditions for their universalisation and protection. Its properties cannot be given representation in accordance with principles of membership through which a distinction between the human and the non-human could be redrawn along lines of inclusion and exclusion. Indeed to say that such an ideal involves the embrace of 'all humanity' is not even sufficient, Bergson argues, since 'its love may extend to animals, to plants, to all nature. And yet no one of these things which would thus fill it would suffice'. This paper will provide an exploration of Bergson's humanism, subjecting it to critique and extension through the works of Gilles Deleuze and Antonio Negri. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]