Proustian Subjectivity in the Modernist Weltbild: Bergsonian Time meets Nihilism

The cultural backdrop of fin de siècle Paris shaped Proust's intellectual development in ways that both enhanced and constrained his philosophical vision. His associations with figures like Robert de Montesquiou and Jean Cocteau, while providing rich material for his observations on society and consciousness, ultimately reinforced his tendency toward insularity. This limitation becomes apparent when comparing his work to contemporaneous social philosophers who engaged more directly with the broader transformations of European society during the early twentieth century. The intellectual climate of Belle Époque Paris provided Proust with a rich tapestry of influences, from his friendships with artists like Jean Cocteau to his deep engagement with philosophers such as Nietzsche and Bergson. His immersion in elite social circles, while criticized for its narrow focus, gave him intimate access to the complex social dynamics and psychological patterns he would later dissect in his work. These relationships shaped his understanding of how identity forms through social interaction and memory, leading him to question conventional notions of stable selfhood.

Proust's relationship to German philosophy, particularly Nietzsche's work on memory and identity, reveals the tensions in his philosophical framework. While he echoed Nietzsche's skepticism toward objective truth, his treatment of memory often lapsed into nostalgic reverence rather than critical analysis. His appropriation of Bergsonian concepts of time and duration similarly demonstrated both the strengths and weaknesses of his approach—while he effectively illustrated these concepts through narrative, he failed to develop them into a coherent philosophical system. Proust's theoretical framework, while deeply influenced by German philosophy, developed in tension with emerging modernist literary techniques. His appropriation of Bergsonian concepts of time and duration reflected a broader modernist preoccupation with temporal fragmentation and subjective experience. However, where Joyce and Woolf would push these insights toward radical formal experimentation, Proust remained somewhat conservative in his narrative approach, suggesting the limits of his philosophical radicalism. This tension between innovative content and relatively traditional form mirrors the broader contradictions within early modernist literature's engagement with philosophical ideas.

Proust's philosophy can be characterized by his myopic pursuit of self-knowledge and the examination of subjective experience through memory. While Socratic, it is also deeply nostalgic, emotional, and focused on the individual's subjective, hedonistic experience of life. Proust's multidisciplinary approach incorporates elements of psychology (Freud and Jung were published at the same time he was), philosophy, and aesthetics. Proust moved in the intellectual and artistic circles of Paris, associating with influential figures such as painters, writers, and musicians. His critics contend that Proust's preoccupation with elite circles failed to address the concerns and experiences of a wider range of individuals. His friendships and acquaintanceship with individuals such as Robert de Montesquiou, Reynaldo Hahn, and Jean Cocteau provided him with diverse perspectives and artistic inspiration. Throughout his life, Proust struggled with his writing and devoted immense time and effort to perfecting his prose. Proust's voracious reading habits and intellectual curiosity allowed him to draw from a wide range of sources, including John Ruskin, Charles Baudelaire, and Gustave Flaubert. One of Proust's greatest influences was the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, who explored the concept of memory and its relationship to the construction of identity. Proust echoed Nietzsche's exploration, stating, "The memory of things past is not necessarily the memory of things as they were" (À la recherche du temps perdu). Proust argued, as did Nietzsche and Schopenhauer, that this memory is subjective. Proust explores the masks and roles imposed by society, challenging individuals to question the authenticity of their own identities and the societal expectations that shape them. Proust's writing also shows the influence of the French philosopher Henri Bergson, known for his theories of time and duration. Proust's notion of time as a fluid and non-linear entity, captured in his famous line, "The past is not simply the past, but a prism through which the subject filters and reshapes his present and future" (À la recherche du temps perdu), reflects Bergson's famous phrases about the elusiveness of time.

Proust's engagement with Bergson's philosophy of time is particularly significant in understanding his narrative structure. Bergson's concept of la durée—time as a continuous flow rather than a series of discrete moments—resonates deeply with Proust's exploration of memory. However, Proust's application of this concept is more literary than philosophical. He uses it to create a narrative that mirrors the way human consciousness operates, with memories and sensations interweaving in a non-linear fashion. This approach allows Proust to delve into the intricacies of human experience, but it also raises questions about the reliability of memory as a tool for understanding the self. While Bergson sought to develop a coherent philosophical system around these ideas, Proust's work remains rooted in the subjective and the personal, leaving his philosophical insights fragmented and open to interpretation.

Proust's focus on the elite circles of Parisian society has often been criticized as a limitation, but it also provided him with a unique vantage point. By observing the intricate social dynamics of the aristocracy and the bourgeoisie, Proust was able to explore themes of identity, desire, and power in a way that few other writers could. His characters are often caught in a web of social expectations and personal ambitions, struggling to reconcile their public personas with their private selves. This tension between appearance and reality is a recurring theme in Proust's work, reflecting his broader philosophical concerns about the nature of identity and the self. While his focus on the elite may seem narrow, it allows Proust to delve deeply into the psychological complexities of his characters, revealing universal truths about human nature.

Proust's exploration of memory and identity is also deeply tied to his own experiences and struggles. His lifelong battle with illness and his reclusive lifestyle shaped his understanding of the world and his place within it. Proust's work is often seen as a reflection of his own search for meaning and self-understanding, a quest that is both deeply personal and universally relatable. His emphasis on the subjective nature of memory and experience challenges readers to question their own perceptions of reality and identity. In this way, Proust's work transcends its historical and social context, offering insights that remain relevant to contemporary readers.

Camusian Absurdity and Proustian Subjectivity

"I cannot read Proust without feeling that I am taking a bath in someone else's dirty water." - Albert Camus

Perhaps no philosopher hated Proust more than Camus. He began his career in Proust's shadow, publishing The Stranger in 1942, so there was naturally a bit of professional jealousy here. Camus, known for his anti-existentialist and anti-Socratic philosophy, criticized Proust's approach as excessively self-indulgent and overly concerned with introspection. Camus argued that Proust's writing lacked engagement with the outside world and failed to address the larger existential questions that he considered more relevant. Perhaps this is also a recognition that Proust’s philosophy is related to Camus, and Camus had to distinguish himself from his predecessors, as both of these French authors were relativistic, Modernist, and deconstructivist in their subjectivity, which they both inherited from Nietzsche. There are still some existentialist elements in Proust, while Camus was enthusiastically anti-existentialist and anti-Socratic. While both are solipsistic and unable to posit a trans-personal reality in their subjectivism, Proust at least posits the possibility of knowing oneself. While his work contains elements of psychological realism, he also explores existentialist themes. The French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre recognized this aspect when he remarked, "Proust is the novelist of the existentialists" (Jean-Paul Sartre). Proust's exploration of the self, the nature of existence, and the search for meaning are consistent with existential concerns. Proust still has an essentially Socratic view of the self, despite his hero Nietzsche's hatred of Socrates and Jesus above all other historical figures. Like Camus, Proust emphasizes the tactile experience and sees this immediate experience of the material world as therapeutic.

Central to Proust's philosophy is the concept of involuntary memory, which he describes as the unexpected resurgence of past sensations triggered by sensory stimuli. Proust believed that these fleeting moments of memory contain profound truths about ourselves and our existence. The transformative power of memory constructs our understanding of the world and enables people to grasp the intricate connections between past and present. Proust's Nietzschean subjectivity centers on the idea that our perception of reality is shaped by individual experiences, memories, and emotions. He explores the transformative power of memory, emphasizing its subjective nature and its ability to reconstruct the past throughout all of his novels. His massive seven-part novel In Search of Lost Time exhibits this connectivity perfectly. The recognition and acceptance of the absurd differ between Camus and Proust. Camus believes in confronting and rebelling against the absurd, while Proust's characters navigate the absurd by delving into the depths of their subjective experiences, finding solace and meaning in their personal narratives. An Epicurean to the core, Camus advocated the avoidance of suffering at all costs and the sacrifice of everyone and everything for one's own benefit. Proust, a bit of a Stoic, argued for the redemptive nature of suffering: "We are cured of a suffering only by experiencing it fully." Camus advocates a personal revolt against the absurd, seeing all suffering as unreal, while Proust advocates accepting the impermanence of suffering and responding with art and emotion.

Camus's critique of Proust's introspective approach highlights a fundamental difference in their philosophical outlooks. For Camus, the absurd arises from the conflict between the human desire for meaning and the universe's indifference. His response to this conflict is to embrace rebellion and live authentically in the face of absurdity. Proust, on the other hand, finds meaning in the subjective experience of memory and the intricate web of personal associations that it creates. While Camus seeks to transcend the absurd through action and engagement with the world, Proust retreats into the labyrinth of memory, finding solace in the beauty and complexity of his own inner life. This divergence reflects a broader tension within modernist thought between engagement and introspection, action and reflection.

Proust's emphasis on involuntary memory as a source of truth also sets him apart from Camus. For Proust, these moments of memory are not merely nostalgic; they are revelatory, offering glimpses of a deeper reality that lies beneath the surface of everyday experience. This belief in the redemptive power of memory is central to Proust's philosophy, and it stands in stark contrast to Camus's rejection of any transcendent meaning. While Camus sees the absurd as a call to action, Proust sees it as an invitation to explore the depths of one's own consciousness. This difference in perspective underscores the richness and complexity of modernist thought, as well as the enduring relevance of both Proust and Camus to contemporary philosophical debates.

Proust's exploration of the absurd also raises questions about the nature of art and its role in human life. For Proust, art is not merely a reflection of reality; it is a means of transcending it. Through art, Proust seeks to capture the fleeting moments of beauty and truth that memory reveals, creating a lasting record of human experience. This view of art as a form of redemption is deeply rooted in Proust's philosophy, and it stands in contrast to Camus's more pragmatic approach. While Camus sees art as a way of confronting the absurd, Proust sees it as a way of transcending it. This difference in perspective highlights the enduring tension between art and philosophy, and the ways in which both can offer insights into the human condition.

Nietzsche's Subjectivity and Proust's Lyrical Hedonism

Aesthetics is severely underdeveloped in Proust compared to his protégé Nietzsche. Nietzsche's emphasis on the resonant power of the antinomies of the Apollonian and Dionysian in the Collective Unconscious and the irrational Will-to-Power contrasts with Proust's more introspective and individualistic approach to beauty. Nietzsche’s evolution of Goethe’s "urphänomen" emphasized the unity of different phenomena, where the individual aspects contribute to the overall beauty. Proust deviates from the field of objective aesthetics and simply locates beauty as an individual experience rather than a communication with a universal or transcendent reality. The experience of beauty leads Proust not to the divine, but to the sensual, a type of Epicureanism, so his aesthetic theory is paper-thin. It is merely a way to give life a type of localized meaning, but the “only question that matters” to Camus—why live instead of commit suicide—is unanswered in Proust. In The Prisoner, Proust writes of his renunciation of Nietzsche’s aesthetics:

"I had none of the scruples of those whose duty, like Nietzsche's, dictates that, in art as in life, they flee from the beauty that tempts them, and who tear themselves away from Tristan as they deny Parsifal and, through spiritual asceticism, from mortification to mortification manage, by following the bloodiest of paths of the cross, to rise to the pure knowledge and perfect adoration of the Postillon de Longjumeau. I realized how real Wagner's work is, when I saw again those insistent, fleeting themes that visit an act, only to return, and, at times distant, drowsy, almost detached, are, at other times, while remaining vague, so urgent and so close, so internal, so organic, so visceral that it seems less like the repetition of a motif than of a neuralgia."

There is a latent phenomenology in all his work, which can be seen as a response to the cold materialistic determinism of the intellectual systems in which he grew up. Like Camus, he sought to find meaning in a world disenchanted by the collapse of the subject-object paradigm, or as Nietzsche called it, the death of God in Europe.

Proust's engagement with Nietzsche's philosophy reveals both his admiration and his divergence from the German thinker. While Nietzsche sought to transcend the limitations of traditional morality and aesthetics through the concept of the Übermensch, Proust's focus remains firmly rooted in the individual's subjective experience. For Proust, beauty is not a universal ideal but a personal sensation, a fleeting moment of pleasure that can be captured and preserved through art. This emphasis on the individual's experience of beauty reflects Proust's broader philosophical concerns about the nature of identity and the self. While Nietzsche's aesthetics are rooted in a broader metaphysical framework, Proust's are more personal and introspective, reflecting his belief in the redemptive power of art and memory.

Proust's lyrical hedonism also sets him apart from Nietzsche's more radical approach to aesthetics. While Nietzsche sought to break free from the constraints of traditional morality and aesthetics, Proust's work is more concerned with exploring the nuances of human experience. His focus on the sensual and the ephemeral reflects a deep appreciation for the beauty of the everyday, as well as a belief in the transformative power of art. This approach to aesthetics is deeply personal and introspective, reflecting Proust's broader philosophical concerns about the nature of identity and the self. While Nietzsche's aesthetics are rooted in a broader metaphysical framework, Proust's are more personal and introspective, reflecting his belief in the redemptive power of art and memory.

Proust's exploration of beauty and aesthetics also raises questions about the role of art in human life. For Proust, art is not merely a reflection of reality; it is a means of transcending it. Through art, Proust seeks to capture the fleeting moments of beauty and truth that memory reveals, creating a lasting record of human experience. This view of art as a form of redemption is deeply rooted in Proust's philosophy, and it stands in contrast to Nietzsche's more radical approach. While Nietzsche sees art as a means of breaking free from the constraints of traditional morality and aesthetics, Proust sees it as a way of preserving and celebrating the beauty of the everyday. This difference in perspective highlights the enduring tension between art and philosophy, and the ways in which both can offer insights into the human condition.

Artistic Legacy

Proust was broadly read immediately and gained notoriety in his time. The English modernist writer Virginia Woolf was highly influenced by Proust's writing style and thematic exploration—she considered Proust's work to be a major inspiration for her own novel, To the Lighthouse. Woolf, while acknowledging Proust's genius, noted that his intricate descriptions and labyrinthine sentences could be overwhelming for readers. And certainly, his run-on sentences are difficult to follow. Sometimes these are a paragraph long. She argued that his writing style impeded the narrative flow and made it challenging to navigate the core themes of his works. The impact of Proust's literary corpus cannot be understated. His writings have gained a cult-like following, with devoted readers immersing themselves in his intricate narratives and reveling in his profound insights. One Frenchman, who died in 2023, had the symbol of the original publishing house used by Proust tattooed on his forehead, and before each meal, he would stand and recite a passage from Proust. This religious-like devotion, especially in France, reflects exactly what Dostoevsky predicted would happen in post-religious societies; new religions would always replace the old ones. Yet these new religions are even more insidious because they do not understand themselves as religions, as Dostoevsky argues. He helped develop the religion of postmodernism, as shown by his influence on Woolf and Michel Foucault, one of the fathers of postmodern deconstructivism, which replaces logos with power as the core animating force of human reality. Foucault wrote, "Proust's work is an immense labyrinthine system in which the most insignificant details of life are sometimes given symbolic meaning."

Proust's influence on modernist literature extends far beyond his immediate contemporaries. His intricate narrative style and exploration of memory and identity have inspired countless writers, from James Joyce to Samuel Beckett. Proust's ability to capture the nuances of human experience and his deep engagement with philosophical questions have made his work a touchstone for modernist and postmodernist thought. His influence can be seen in the works of writers as diverse as Thomas Mann, Marcel Proust, and even contemporary authors like Karl Ove Knausgård. Proust's legacy is not merely literary; it is also philosophical, as his work continues to inspire new generations of thinkers and writers.

Proust's impact on the development of modernist aesthetics cannot be overstated. His exploration of memory, identity, and the subjective nature of experience has reshaped the way we think about literature and art. Proust's work challenges traditional notions of narrative and form, pushing the boundaries of what literature can achieve. His intricate descriptions and labyrinthine sentences may be challenging, but they also offer a profound insight into the complexities of human consciousness. Proust's legacy is not merely literary; it is also philosophical, as his work continues to inspire new generations of thinkers and writers.
The impact of Proust's literary corpus cannot be understated. His writings have gained a cult-like following, with devoted readers immersing themselves in his intricate narratives and reveling in his profound insights. One Frenchman, who died in 2023, had the symbol of the original publishing house used by Proust tattooed on his forehead, and before each meal he would stand and recite a passage from Proust. This religious-like devotion, especially in France, reflects exactly what Dostoevsky predicted would happen in post-religious societies; new religions would always replace the old ones. Yet these new religions are even more insidious because they do not understand themselves as religions, as Dostoevsky argues. He helped develop the religion of postmodernism, as shown by his influence on Woolf and Michel Foucault, one of the fathers of postmodern deconstructivism, which replaces logos with power as the core animating force of human reality. Foucault wrote,

"Proust's work is an immense labyrinthine system in which the most insignificant details of life are sometimes given symbolic meaning."

To Look Upward is to Look Inward: Fulfillment of the Socratic Command through the Archetype of Self-Consciousness

Proust and Camus’ attempt at self-knowledge folds in on itself, and we end up with emotionalism, sentimentality, and lyricism in a solipsistic tautology. Proust and Camus’ philosophy is at its core poorly intellectualized solipsistic hedonism. Perhaps the clearest passage articulating this intellectualized hedonism is found in The Prisoner:

"Our desires are infinite, and yet we are confined within the limitations of our own existence. We long for freedom, for transcendence, but we are bound by the chains of our own desires. The only true freedom lies in accepting our captivity and finding solace in the beauty and depth of our own desires."

This resignation to captivity as a form of liberation reveals a fundamental contradiction: the elevation of desire as both prison and paradise. By conflating acceptance of limitation with transcendence, Proust reduces the Socratic imperative of self-examination to a narcissistic loop. The self becomes both the question and the answer, a closed system devoid of external referents. Camus, too, in his fixation on the absurd, traps consciousness within its own futility, framing rebellion as a form of aesthetic defiance rather than a path to genuine understanding.

The solipsism inherent in their philosophies mirrors the broader modernist crisis of meaning, where the collapse of transcendent frameworks leaves the self adrift in its own sensations. Where ancient traditions sought to align the individual with cosmic order, Proust and Camus enshrine the subjective experience as its own justification. The result is a hedonism masquerading as profundity, where the act of feeling substitutes for the labor of knowing.

The Socratic Oracle’s command goes unfulfilled in Proust, as it does in Nietzsche, who believed that there is no “self” to know in the first place. Likewise, Camus found the pursuit of self-awareness and self-knowledge to be the source of pain and suffering, and argues against it. Proust’s contemporary Chesterton noted that one should know the self but cannot through introspection: “One may understand the cosmos, but never the ego; the self is more distant than any star. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God; but thou shalt not know thyself.”

C.G. Jung would see a cosmic solution to this impossible task. He identifies a critical development from the selfless, unreflected God-image in Judaism through Clement of Alexandria, who understood the Self as a God-image with a psychological and reflective spirit. Clement of Alexandria wrote, "The greatest of all disciplines is to know oneself, for to know oneself is to know God." To Jung, this reality of the Self as a God-image is only realized in the individual consciousness through ritualistic living communion and relationship with the divine.

Jung’s framework transcends the binary of subject and object, proposing that the self is not merely an isolated entity but a microcosm of the divine. Ritual and symbol act as bridges between the personal and the archetypal, allowing the individual to participate in a reality larger than their own psyche. This stands in stark contrast to Proust’s inward spiral, which dissolves the transcendent into the ephemeral.

For Jung, the failure to engage with the archetype of the Self results in a spiritual atrophy. The modern obsession with rationality and materialism severs the connection to the numinous, leaving the psyche starved of its necessary nourishment. Without this dialogue with the transcendent, self-knowledge becomes a hall of mirrors, reflecting only fragments of a fractured whole.

Proust seeks self-knowledge but rejects the archetype of Self-Consciousness, and in doing so falls into a solipsistic circle ending in nothing but hedonism. The Christian fish symbol is but one image of the Adam Secundus, who is an apotheosis of all self-images preceding it, for "Christ is the Archetype of the Self." Hegel posited something very close: "Christ has reality as self-consciousness." Cardinal Newman understood this, writing: "Conscience is the aboriginal Vicar of Christ, a prophet in its information, a monarch in its peremptoriness."

In other words, consciousness contains both objective and subjective truth; the biologically ingrained Hero Myth is not an illusion of the mind but a precept of the truest truth. Jung writes in Aion:

"Everything hangs together with everything else. By definition, only absolute totality contains everything in itself, and neither need nor compulsion attaches it to anything outside... Which of us can improve himself in total isolation? Even the holy anchorite who lives three days' journey off in the desert not only needs to eat and drink but finds himself utterly and terribly dependent on the ceaseless presence of God. Only absolute totality can renew itself out of itself and generate itself anew. Through this teaching the One and All, the Greatest in the guise of the Smallest, God himself in his everlasting fires [Isaiah 33:14], may be caught like a fish in the deep sea... and that by a Eucharistic act of integration (called Teoqualo, 'God-eating' by the Aztecs), and incorporated into the human body."

The Eucharistic metaphor underscores the necessity of integration—not merely intellectual assent but a participatory union with the divine. This stands diametrically opposed to Proust’s passive surrender to desire, which lacks the transformative power of ritual. Where Proust’s narrator finds fleeting epiphanies in sensory recollection, Jungian wholeness demands an active engagement with symbols that recalibrate the soul.

Hegel’s Christ as “self-consciousness” and Newman’s “Conscience” as Vicar of Christ both point to a teleology of the self. The Hero Myth, far from being a primitive illusion, emerges as a psychological necessity—a blueprint for the individuation process. To reject this archetype is to deny the self its evolutionary trajectory toward the divine.

As Dostoevsky, a contemporary of both Nietzsche and Proust, details through intimate psychological portraiture, the materialist, subjectivist mind replaces the Idea of God (the transcendent point of reference and, in Christ, the Archetype of the Self) with socio-political presuppositions. This replacement of That-Which-Is-Highest with socio-political dogma results in a "possession" of the Anima or Animus, which eradicates the individual's ability to know oneself, forever stuck in a self-same tautology of consciousness.

Jung likewise argued that Freudian psychotherapy (which Proust was familiar with) was an important step but lacks a relationship with something transcendent that can actually heal the νοῦς, not simply mend it enough to function:

"No amount of explaining will make the ill-formed tree grow straight... Your picture of God or your idea of immortality is atrophied; consequently, your psychic metabolism is out of gear... Experience shows that many neuroses are caused by the fact that people blind themselves to their own religious promptings because of a childish passion for rational enlightenment... A religious attitude is an element in psychic life whose importance can hardly be overrated. And it is precisely for the religious outlook that the sense of historical continuity is indispensable... What we are pleased to call [an illusion] may be for the psyche a most important factor of life—something as indispensable as oxygen for the organism—a psychic actuality of prime importance... Everything that acts is actual."

Dostoevsky’s characters—Raskolnikov, Ivan Karamazov, Stavrogin—embody this psychic rupture. Their attempts to construct meaning through ideology or nihilism culminate in disintegration, illustrating Jung’s warning about the dangers of a severed transcendent connection. The “possession” by political or social dogma is not merely intellectual error but a spiritual malady, a substitution of the partial for the whole.

Freud’s reduction of the psyche to drives and repressed desires, while groundbreaking, ultimately chains the self to a deterministic framework. Jung’s critique is not a dismissal but a expansion: psychotherapy must acknowledge the soul’s hunger for the numinous. To heal the νοῦς requires more than adjusting to societal norms; it demands a reorientation toward the archetypal, where the self finds its reflection in the divine.

The modern predicament, as diagnosed by both Dostoevsky and Jung, is a crisis of substitution. When socio-political ideologies or materialist frameworks usurp the role of transcendent archetypes, the self loses its compass. The tautology of consciousness becomes a prison of its own making, echoing Proust’s resignation to desire-as-captivity. Only by restoring the dialogue with the transcendent can the circle be broken, allowing the self to emerge from its solipsistic cell into the light of genuine self-knowledge.