in the same direction as art’

This entire chapter is devoted to understanding and considering all the theoretical consequences of an absolutely essential sentence that Bergson uttered at a conference in Madrid in 1916 and which, curiously, is almost never quoted. Philosophy is not art‘, he said, ’but it has deep affinity with art". Bergson's daughter was a sculptor, and she was mute, so it is not impossible that this led Bergson to reflect on the possibility of a language that, by dispensing with words, avoids the pitfall of pre-established meanings, of the agreed-upon meaning of words. But far from confining himself to the non-verbal arts (sculpture, painting, photography, music), which he refers to specifically, Bergson is not afraid to compare the work of the philosopher to that of the novelist, the poet or even the playwright. We are not so far from Nietzsche's famous ‘We artists…’.