BERGSON, Henri (1859-1941)
Autograph letter signed “H. Bergson” [to Félix Sartiaux]
N.p, 6 Dec[ember] 1916, 2 pages in-8 on laid paper
“I have always said, for my part, that the Kantian moral […] was extraordinarily overrated”
Fact sheet
BERGSON, Henri (1859-1941)
Autograph letter signed “H. Bergson” [to Félix Sartiaux]
N.p, 6 Dec[ember] 1916, 2 pages in-8 on laid paper
Fold marks, tiny spots
Unpublished letter from Bergson delivering a lapidary judgment on Kantian morality
“Monsieur,
Je vous remercie de l’aimable envoi de cet intéressant ouvrage. Vous avez serré d’aussi près que possible les idées morales de Kant, et vous avez montré avec force ce qu’elles ont d’arbitraire. J’ai toujours dit, pour ma part, que la morale Kantienne (dans ce qu’elle a d’intelligible pour moi) était extraordinairement surfaite. Je dispose de si peu d’instants que je n’ai pas pu lire votre livre aussi attentivement que je l’aurais voulu.
J’y reviendrai. Mais dès maintenant je tiens à vous envoyer mes compliments, avec l’assurance de mes sentiments très distingués.
H. Bergson”
Henri Bergson is a French philosopher. Among his entire work, the four main are the Essay on the Immediate Data of Consciousness, Matter and Memory, Creative Evolution and The Two Sources of Morality and Religion. Bergson was elected to the French Academy in 1916 and was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1927. His pacifist ideas influenced the drafting of the statutes of the League of Nations.
Kantian ethics refers to a deontoligical ethical theory developed by German philosopher Immanuel Kant that is based on the notion that: “It is impossible to think of anything at all in the world, or indeed even beyond it, that could be considered good without limitation except a good will.”