ACCUDIRE IL VIRTUALE. SOURIAU LETTORE DI BERGSON

Christian Frigerio

This text explores the influence of Henri Bergson’s philosophy on Étienne Souriau, with particular reference to the cosmology of instauration, presented as a reversed Neoplatonism and therefore also as an inverted Bergsonism, and to the pluralism of modes of existence with which Souriau seeks to expand Bergson’s dualism to include a number of entities that his master’s conceptual schemes were unable to account for. The last section focuses, through a comparison with another Bergsonian, Gilles Deleuze, on the question of intensive modes of existence, the importance of which is emphasised by Souriau against Bergson, without, however, giving them their due space. The final suggestion is that it is by integrating Souriau’s and Deleuze’s reworkings of Bergsonism that the legacy of the philosopher of intuition and of élan vital can be most fruitfully endorsed.