IF THE METAPHOR GETS JAMMED: "SOMEWHERE" BETWEEN BERGSON AND HEIDEGGER

The article proposes an interpretation of the notion of familiarity through a cross-reading of the mode of philosophical enquiry in Bergson and Heidegger. The argument builds on two examples of short-circuited metaphors. The first metaphor, that of Bergsons swimmer, is structurally flawed, and for this very reason allows one to think of the impossibility of the passage from land to water. The second, that of the fish on dry land by Heidegger, appears in an unexpected place, namely precisely where Heidegger ontologically separates the human being from the animal. The need to think about the mode of questioning is shared by the two authors and is fruitful in identifying the difference between the adventure of philosophy and an adventurous philosophy. The figure of the Charlot, as Jankelevitch renders it, accompanies the investigation of the quelque part, which does not resolve itself in the identification of a spatial elsewhere, but rather in a reflection on interiority that does not leave temporality unscathed.