ABSTRACT
Laughter is the nearest Bergson came to writing on aesthetics in any systematic way and its third chapter contains a short discussion of art, though mainly as a foil to contrast with his main subject, the comic (L, 150ff.). (See also CM, 159-63 (135-8). Time and Free Will discusses aesthetic feelings, from a rather different point of view (TF, 11-18).) We have seen earlier how his theory of perception as it occurs in everyday life is coloured by pragmatism. We perceive what we need to perceive in order to act. We perceive objects as bearers of certain general features rather than in their full individuality. We distinguish one man from another because we need to but unless we have the special training and purposes of a shepherd we cannot distinguish one sheep or goat from another. Language too, apart from proper names, shares this feature of generality (L, 153). It is in art that we escape from this pragmatism. The artist perceives things for their own sake and so sees their inner life appearing through their outward forms, though usually, because of human limitations, only in the case of one of his senses. So ‘art always aims at what is individual’ (L, 161).
