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Henri Bergson
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Henri Bergson
Key Writings
Edited by
KEITH ANSELL PEARSON
and
JOHN MULLARKEY
Melanges translated by
MELISSA McMAHON
continuum
NEW YORK • LONDON
CONTINUUM
The Tower Building, 11 York Road, London SE1 7NX
370 Lexington Avenue, New York, NY 10017-6503
Abbreviations vii
Chronology of Life and Works viii
Introduction 1
Mind-Energy
Memory of the Present and False Recognition 141
Brain and Thought: A Philosophical Illusion 157
Creative Evolution
The Endurance of Life 171
Mechanism and Finalism 187
Life as Creative Change 191
Melanges
Good Sense and Classical Studies 345
Letter to G. Lechalas 354
Bergson-James Correspondence 357
Letter to Harald Hoffding 366
Letter to Floris Delattre 369
Message to the Descartes Congress, 1937 372
Notes 376
Index 395
Abbreviations
CE Creative Evolution
CM The Creative Mind
DS Duration and Simultaneity, with Reference to Einstein's Theory
EP Ecrits et Paroles
M Melanges
MEa Mind-Energy
MM Matter and Memory
OE Oeuvres
RDM Revue des Deux Mondes
TSMR The Two Sources of Morality and Religion
TFW Time and Free Will: An Essay on the Immediate Data of
Consciousness
Chronology of Life and Works
1932 Publishes his last major work, The Two Sources of Morality and
Religion.
1933 A collection of essays, La Pensee et le Mouvant (The Creative Mind],
published.
1937 February: Bergson prepares a will that prohibits the posthumous
publication of any unedited papers.
1940 Bergson offered exemption from anti-Semitic regulations promul-
gated by the Nazis, but refuses and registers in Paris as a Jew.
1941 3 January: Bergson dies from a severe cold and is buried in the
cemetery of Garches on the outskirts of Paris.
This page intentionally left blank
Introduction
(1) To conceive of time in terms of duration and to insist that time not be
confused with space.
(2) To forge a distinction between two kinds of multiplicity, the contin-
uous (virtual) and the discrete (actual).
(3) To approach questions of metaphysics in terms of diverse planes of
experience and different fields of knowledge.
(4) To demonstrate the need to situate the theory of knowledge in the
wider context of a theory of life.
as the following reveals: 'In reality, life is of the psychological order, and it is
of the essence of the psychical to enfold a confused plurality of interpene-
trating terms' (CE, p. 257). The contrast he is making is with space, in which
the multiplicity posited or found therein will be of a distinct kind, that is, one
made up of discrete elements or components that are related to one another in
specific terms, namely, relations of juxtaposition and exteriority. Bergson
argues that 'abstract unity' and 'abstract multiplicity' are determinations of
space and categories of the understanding (that is, they are schemas imposed
upon the real in order to make it something uniform, regular, and calcul-
able for us). He then goes on to argue that what is psychical in nature cannot
entirely correspond with space or fit neatly into categories of the under-
standing (take, for example, the question: is a person at any moment one
or manifold?).
In his first published work Time and Free Will (TFW] Bergson had
sought to show that the actuality of our psychic states presupposes a virtual
multiplicity of duration. The different degrees of a mental state correspond
to qualitative changes, changes that do not admit of simple measure or num-
ber. When we ordinarily speak of time we think of a homogeneous medium
in which our conscious states are placed alongside one another as in space,
and so form a discrete multiplicity. The question is whether the multiplicity
of our psychic states resembles the multiplicity of the units of number and
whether duration has anything to do with space. If time is simply a medium
in which our conscious states are strung out as a discrete series that can be
counted, then time would indeed be space. The question Bergson poses is
whether time can legitimately be treated as such a medium.
It is in chapter 2 of JFWthat Bergson will make central to his argument
the distinction between two kinds of multiplicity. This material has been
extracted from the book and is presented here in full. The distinction Bergson
draws between the discrete and the continuous represents a reworking of a
distinction initially introduced by the mathematician G. B. Riemann, who
had utilized the distinction in his 1854 Habilitationsschrift entitled 'On he
hypotheses which provide the grounds for geometry'. Riemann forged a
distinction between a discrete multiplicity or manifoldness that contains the
principle of its metrical division (the measure of one part is given by the num-
ber of elements in a multiplicity) and a continuous multiplicity in which the
metrical principle is located in the binding forces which act upon it. Definite
or distinct portions of a multiplicity are distinguished by a mark or a bound-
ary. In the case of both multiplicities, therefore, we are dealing with an issue
of 'Quanta'. In the case of a discrete magnitude we make the comparison
with quantity by counting, and in the case of a continuous one by measur-
ing. The measure consists either in the superposition of the magnitudes to
be compared (which requires a means of using one magnitude to act as the
standard for another) or, where this is not possible, comparing two magni-
tudes when one is a part of the other (in this case it is possible only to
Introduction 3
determine the more or less and not the how much). This makes for an
interesting case of magnitudes since it refers us to ones that cannot be treated
independently of position or as ever expressible in terms of a unit, but rather
as 'regions in a manifoldness'.
Gilles Deleuze has argued that Bergson was well aware of the contribution
of Riemann and that an indirect engagement with him informs the treat-
ment of Relativity in Duration and Simultaneity (DS] (Deleuze 1991, p. 39).
Bergson's contribution is to transform the nature of the distinction between
the two multiplicities by linking the continuous with the realm of duration.
Deleuze's claim is that:
for Bergson, duration was not simply the indivisible, nor was it the
nonmeasurable. Rather, it was that which divided only by changing in
kind, that which was susceptible to measurement only by varying its
metrical principle at each stage of the division. Bergson did not confine
himself to opposing a philosophical vision of duration to a scientific
conception of space but took the problem into the sphere of two kinds of
multiplicity. He thought that the multiplicity proper to duration had, for
its part, a 'precision' as great as that of science; moreover, that it should
react upon science and open up a path for it that was not necessarily the
same as that of Riemann and Einstein, (ibid., p. 40)
IS TIME SPACE?
Are states of consciousness external to one another and spread out in time as
a spatial medium? Looked at from the perspective of pure duration our states
4 Henri Bergson: Key Writings
can be seen to permeate and melt into one another without precise outlines
and without any affiliation with number, in which past and present states
form a whole, 'as happens when we recall the notes of a tune, melting, so to
speak, into one another' (TFW, p. 100; see below, p. 60). These are involved
in qualitative changes that disclose a 'pure heterogeneity'. When we
interrupt the rhythm of a tune by perhaps dwelling longer than is customary
on one note, it is not the exaggerated length that signals the mistake to us
but rather the qualitative change caused in the whole of the piece of music.
Note that the mental image thus shaped implies the perception, no longer
successive, but simultaneous, of a before and after, and that it would be a
contradiction to suppose a succession which was only a succession, and
which nevertheless was contained in one and the same instant. (TFW; see
below, p. 60)
The important point is this: we could not introduce order into terms
without first distinguishing them and then comparing the places they
occupy. As Bergson writes, 'if we introduce an order in what is successive,
the reason is that succession is converted into simultaneity and is projected
into space' (p. 102; see below, p. 60). Moreover, since the idea of a reversible
series in duration, even of a certain order of succession in time, itself implies
the representation of space, it cannot be used to define it.
Reducing time to simple movement of position is to confuse time with
space. It is this confusion between motion and the space traversed which
explains the paradoxes of Zeno. The interval between two points is infinitely
divisible, and if motion is said to consist of parts like those of the inter-
val itself, then the interval can never be crossed. But the truth of the matter
is different:
Introduction 5
each of Achilles' steps is a simple indivisible act ... after a given number
of these acts, Achilles will have passed the tortoise. The mistake of the
Eleatics arises from their identification of this series of acts, each of which
is of a definite kind and indivisible, with the homogeneous space which
underlies them. (p. 113; see below, p. 65)
Because this space can be divided and put together again according to any
kind of abstract law, the illusion arises that it is possible to reconstruct the
movement of Achilles not with his step but with that of the tortoise. In truth,
we have only two tortoises that agree to make the same kind of steps or
simultaneous acts so never to catch one another. Let us now take the paradox
of the flying arrow which at any point is not in flight. If the arrow is always at
a point, when is it ever in flight or mobile? Instead, we might ask, what is it in
this example that leads us to saying that the arrow is at any point in its course?
(admittedly, it might be, but only in the sense of it passing and stopping
at a particular point, at which point it would come to rest and its flight would
cease). Within any posited motionless trajectory it is possible to count as
many immobilities as we like. What we fail to see is that 'the trajectory is
created in one stroke, although a certain time is required for it; and that
although we can divide at will the trajectory once created, we cannot divide its
creation, which is an act in progress and not a thing' (CE, p. 309).
The key insight concerns the difference between extensity and intensity:
the space traversed is a matter of extension and quantity (it is divisible), but
the movement is an intensive act and a quality. Bergson is insistent that it is
'through the quality of quantity that we form the idea of quantity without
quality', not the other way round. Qualitative operations are even at work in
the formation of numbers (the addition of a third unit to two others alters
the nature, the rhythm, of the whole, even though our spatial habits lead us
to disregard the significance of these qualitative aspects) (TFW, p. 123; see
below, p. 70).
Bergson contrasts psychic time with clock time. It is the latter that treats
time as a magnitude (pp. 107-8; see below, p. 63). Motion, however, in so far
as it is a passage from one point to another, 'is a mental synthesis, a psychic
and therefore unextended process ... If consciousness is aware of any-
thing more than positions, the reason is that it keeps the successive positions
in mind and synthesizes them' (p. I l l ; see below, p. 64). The conclusion is
reached in TFW that 'the interval of duration exists only for us and on
account of the interpenetration of our conscious states'. Outside ourselves we
find only space, and consequently nothing but simultaneities, 'of which we
could not even say that they are objectively successive, since succession can
only be thought through comparing the present with the past' (p. 116; see
below, p. 67). The qualitative impression of change cannot, therefore, be felt
outside consciousness. Duration and motion are not objects but 'mental
syntheses' (p. 120; see below, p. 68). In our consciousness, states permeate
6 Henri Bergson: Key Writings
one another, imperceptibly organize themselves into a whole, and bind the
past to the present. Conceived as a virtual, qualitative multiplicity, this
duration 'contains number only potentially, as Aristotle would have said'
(p. 121; see below, p. 69). Does this mean that duration, conceived as a pure
heterogeneity, is simply an aspect of consciousness, that is, is it something
solely phenomenological or psychological and peculiar to the way in which
we experience the world?
This restriction of duration to consciousness is one that Bergson will seek
to overcome in subsequent texts. This requires breaking down the form/
matter opposition that structures his account of mind and the world in
TFW. Even in this work Bergson is already aware of the problems connected
with any account which construes the relation between mind and world in
terms of a form simply being imposed upon matter: 'assuming that the
forms alluded to, into which we fit matter, come entirely from the mind, it
seems difficult to apply them constantly to objects without the latter soon
leaving their mark on them ... forms applicable to things cannot be entirely
our own work . . . if we give much to matter we probably receive something
from it ...' (p. 223). It is in Matter and Memory (MM} that Bergson wll
provide a very different account of matter and perception. He now seeks to
show that the real is made up of both extensity and duration, but this 'extent'
is not that of some infinite and infinitely divisible space, the space of a
receptacle, that the intellect posits as the place in which and from which
everything is built. It is necessary, then, to separate a concrete extension,
diversified and organized at the same time, from 'the amorphous and inert
space which subtends it' (MM, p. 187). This is the space that we divide
indefinitely and within which we conceive movement as a multiplicity of
instantaneous positions. Homogeneous space is not, then, logically anterior
to material things but posterior to them.
— Semjon!
— Hä?
Semjon virkkoi:
— En osaa mitään.
Semjon oli ihmeissään ja sanoi:
— Mihail.
VI
Päivä meni, toinen tuli, viikot kuluivat, ja sitten meni vuosi umpeen.
Mihail asui yhä vielä Semjonin luona tehden hänelle työtä. Pian
sanoivat kaikki, ettei matkojen päässä ollut parempaa suutaria kuin
Semjonin uusi oppipoika; kukaan ei muka osannut tehdä niin siistiä
ja kestävää työtä. Kaikkialta ympäristöstä tuli ihmisiä Semjonin
luokse teettämään itselleen saappaita, joten suutari sai kootuksi
itselleen jonkin verran omaisuutta.
Poika toi heti käärön. Herra otti sen häneltä, laski pöydälle ja
sanoi:
— Avaa se!
— Otetaanko?
Mihail vastasi:
— Kyllä ne ovat valmiit silloin kun pitääkin.
— Hyvä on!
Ja Matrjona sanoi:
VII
Matrjona tuli pöydän ääreen. Hän katseli, kuinka Mihail teki työtä,
ja oli ihmeissään. Hän ymmärsi jonkin verran suutarinammattia ja
huomasi, ettei Mihail leikannut nahasta varsisaappaita, vaan kevyitä,
matalia kenkiä.
Matrjona aikoi kysyä häneltä, mitä hän oikein tekee, mutta ajatteli
kuitenkin: »Ehkä minä en ymmärrä, miten ylhäisille tehdään
saappaita. Mihail tietää varmaan sen paremmin. Parasta, etten
sekaannu koko asiaan.»
Hän oli tuskin alkanut nuhdella, kun joku koputteli ulko-oven ripaa.
He katsoivat ulos ikkunasta ja näkivät miehen ratsun selässä
pysähtyneen mökin ulkopuolelle ja sitovan kiinni hevostaan. He
avasivat oven: ylhäisen herran renkipoika astui sisään.
— Hyvää päivää!
— Kun läksi teiltä, niin matkalla kuoli rekeen. Kun oli päästy kotiin
ja tultiin auttamaan herraa pois reestä, makasi tämä kuolleena ja
kankeana. Saimme hänet suurella vaivalla nostetuksi pois reestä.
Rouva lähetti minut sitten tänne: — Sano suutarille, että herra, joka
äskettäin kävi siellä ja jätti sinne nahkaa, ei enää tarvitse saappaita;
saappaiden sijaan olisi kiireesti ommeltava tohvelipari ruumiille.
Odota, kunnes tohvelit ovat valmiit, ja tuo ne mukanasi! Sen takia
minä olen nyt tullut tänne ja odotan, kunnes tohvelit valmistuvat.
VIII
— Hyvää päivää!
— Mikäpäs siinä! Ei sitä ole meillä vielä koskaan tehty kenkiä näin
pienille lapsille, mutta osataanhan ne tehdä. Minkälaiset vain
määräätte. Tältä minun apulaiseltani syntyy millainen kenkä tahansa.
Hän oli yksin, kun lapset syntyivät, ja yksin, kun veti viimeisen
henkäyksensä.
Ja Mihail vastasi:
Ja Semjon virkkoi:
Ja Mihail vastasi:
Lapset liikahtelivat äitinsä vieressä, mutta äiti oli niin heikko, ettei
jaksanut ottaa heitä rintaansa vasten. Kun äiti näki minut, ymmärsi
hän, että Jumala oli minut lähettänyt noutamaan hänen sieluaan.
Hän itki ja virkkoi minulle: »Jumalan enkeli! Mieheni on vastikään
haudattu, hän jäi kaatuvan puun alle. Minulla ei ole sisarta, ei tätiä
eikä isoäitiä; ei ole ketään, joka voisi kasvattaa lapseni isoiksi. Älä
ota sieluani, anna minun elää, jotta voisin elättää ja kasvattaa
lapsiani. Ilman isää ja ilman äitiä he eivät voi elää.» Tein kuten hän
pyysi, ja panin toisen lapsista hänen rintaansa vasten ja toisen
hänen käsivarrelleen ja liidin ylös Jumalan luo. Tulin Jumalan luo ja
sanoin: En voi ottaa tuon äidin sielua. Isän surmasi kaatuva puu
metsässä, ja äiti synnytti kaksoset ja rukoilee, etten ottaisi hänen
sieluansa. Hän sanoo: 'Anna minun kasvattaa lapseni suuriksi! Ilman
isää ja ilman äitiä he eivät voi elää.' Ja niin jätin ottamatta tuon äidin
sielun. — Ja Herra sanoi minulle: 'Mene, tuo hänen sielunsa! Sinä
tulet käsittämään kolme sanaa: tulet ymmärtämään, mitä ihmisissä
on, mitä ihmisille ei ole annettu, ja mistä ihmiset elävät. Kun olet sen
oppinut, saat palata taivaaseen. Liidin jälleen maailmaan ja otin
äidiltä sielun.
XI
Mitä ihmisissä on, sen minä jo tiesin. Nyt minulle selvisi, mitä
ihmisille ei ole annettu. Ihmisten ei ole annettu tietää, mitä he
ruumistaan varten tarvitsevat. Ja minä hymyilin toisen kerran. Sillä
minä iloitsin, kun näin toverini enkelin ja kun Jumala oli ilmaissut
minulle toisenkin sanan.
XII
Ja enkelin yltä putosivat maalliset vaatteet, ja hän verhoutui valoon,
niin ettei ihmissilmä voinut häneen katsoa. Ja hän puhui kovemmalla
äänellä, ja tuntui kuin se ääni olisi tullut taivaasta eikä hänestä. Ja
enkeli sanoi: