Books: The Misuse of Mind
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Karin Stephen >> The Misuse of Mind
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This is why Bergson calls duration "creative."
No "two" positions in a creative process of duration can have an
identical past history, every "later" one will have more history,
every "earlier" one less. In a logical series, on the other hand,
there is no reason why the same term should not occur over and over
again at different points in the course of the series, since in a
logical series every term, being distinct from every other and only
joined to it by external relations, is what it is independently of its
position.
If Bergson is right therefore in saying that abstractions change as a
logical series while the actual facts change as a creative process of
duration, it follows that, while our descriptions and explanations may
contain repetitions the actual fact to which we intend these
explanations to apply, cannot. This, if true, is a very important
difference between facts and abstractions which common sense entirely
overlooks when it assumes that we are directly acquainted with common
qualities.
We have seen that this assumption is taken for granted in the account
which is ordinarily given (or would be given if people were in the
habit of putting their common sense assumptions into words) of how it
is that facts come to be classified: facts are supposed to fall into
classes because they share common qualities, that is because, in the
changing fact directly known, the same qualities recur over and over
again. There is no doubt that the fact with which we are directly
acquainted can be classified, and it is equally undeniable that this
fact is always changing, but if this change has the form of creative
duration then its classification cannot be based upon the repetition
of qualities at different "stages" in its course. It follows that
either the fact with which we are directly acquainted does not change
as a creative process, or else that we are quite wrong in assuming, as
we ordinarily do, that we actually know qualities directly and that it
is these qualities which form the basis of classification, and hence
of all description and explanation. We have already seen that this
assumption, though at first sight one naturally supposes it to be
based on direct acquaintance, may really depend not on any fact
directly known but on our preoccupation with explanation rather than
with mere knowing.
But if we never really are acquainted with qualities, if qualities
are, as Bergson says, mere abstractions, how come we to be able to
make these abstractions, and why do they apply to actual facts? If
classification is not based on common qualities discovered by analysis
and repeated over and over as actual facts directly known, on what is
it based? We certainly can classify facts and these abstract common
qualities, if abstractions they be, certainly correspond to something
in the facts since they apply to them: what is the foundation in
directly knowu fact which accounts for this correspondence between
abstractions and facts if it is not qualities actually given as part
of the facts? These questions are so very pertinent and at the same
time so difficult to answer satisfactorily that one is tempted to
throw over the view that the changing fact which we know directly
forms a creative duration. This view is impossible to express without
self-contradiction and it does not fit in with our accustomed habits
of mind: nevertheless if we do not simply reject it at once as
patently absurd but keep it in mind for a while and allow ourselves
time to get used to it, it grows steadily more and more convincing: we
become less and less able to evade these difficult questions by
accepting the common sense account of what we know directly as
consisting of a series of qualities which are repeated over and over,
and more and more driven to regard it as a process in creative
duration which does not admit of repetitions. There is no difficulty
in seeing, the moment we pay attention, that what we know directly
certainly does change all the time: but if we try to pin this change
down and hold it so as to examine it we find it slipping through our
fingers, and the more we look into the supposed stages, such as things
and qualities and events, by means of which common sense assumes that
this change takes place, the more it becomes apparent that these
stages are all of them mere arbitrary abstractions dragged from their
context in a continuous process, fictitious halting places in a stream
of change which goes on unbroken. Unbiassed attention to the actual
fact cannot fail to convince us that what we know directly changes as
a process and not by a series of stages.
The creativeness of this process is perhaps at first not quite so
obvious, but if we look into the fact once more, with the object of
observing repetitions in it, we realize that we cannot find any. It is
true that you can pick out qualities which at first appear to recur:
you may, for example, see a rose and then a strawberry ice cream, and
you may be inclined to say that here you saw the quality pink twice
over. But you can only say that what you saw was the same both times
by abstracting what we call the colour from the whole context in which
it actually appeared on the two different occasions. In reality the
colour is not known in isolation: it has its place, in the whole
changing fact in a particular context which you may describe in
abstract terms as consisting of the shape and smell and size of the
object together with all the rest of your state of mind at the moment,
which were not the same on the two different occasions, while further
this pink colour was modified on each occasion by its position in the
whole changing fact which may again be described in abstract terms by
saying, for instance, that the pink on the occasion of your seeing the
strawberry ice cream, coming after the pink on the occasion of your
seeing the rose, had a peculiar flavour of "seen before" which was
absent on the previous occasion. Thus although, by isolating "parts"
of the whole process of changing which you know directly, you may
bring yourself for a moment to suppose that you are acquainted with
repetitions, when you look at the whole fact as it actually is, you
see that what you know is never the same twice over, and that your
direct experience forms, not a series of repetitions, but a creative
process.
But, once you grant that the fact which you know directly really
changes, there is, according to Bergson, no getting away from the
conclusion that it must form a creative process of duration. For he
thinks that creative duration is the only possible way in which the
transition between past and present, which is the essential feature of
change and time, could be accomplished: all passing from past to
present, all change, therefore, and all time, must, he says, form a
creative process of duration. The alternative is to suppose that time
and change form logical series of events in temporal relations of
before and after, but, according to Bergson, this not only leaves out
the transition altogether but is, even as it stands, unintelligible.
The argument is this.
If time and change are real, then, when the present is, the past
simply is not. But it is impossible to see how, in that case, there
can be any relation between past and present, for a relation requires
at least two terms in between which it holds, while in this case there
could never be more than one term, the present, ipso facto, abolishing
the past. If, on the other hand, the past is preserved, distinct from
the present, then temporal relations can indeed hold between them, but
in that case there is no real change nor time at all.
This dilemma all follows, of course, from regarding "past" and
"present" as mutually exclusive and distinct, and requiring to be
united by external relations, in short as terms in a logical series:
for Bergson himself this difficulty simply does not arise since he
denies that, within the actual changing fact directly known, there are
any clear cut logical distinctions such as the words "past" and
"present" imply. But when it comes to describing this changing fact
distinct terms have to be employed because there are no others, and
this creates pseudo-problems such as this question of how, assuming
past and present to be distinct, the transition between them ever can
be effected. The real answer is that the transition never is effected
because past and present are, in fact, not distinct.
According to Bergson a very large proportion of the problems over
which philosophers have been accustomed to dispute have really been
pseudo-problems simply arising out of this confusion between facts and
the abstractions by which we describe them. When once we have realized
how they arise these pseudo-problems no longer present any
difficulties; they are in fact no longer problems at all, they melt
away and cease to interest us. If Bergson is right this would go far
to explain the suspicion which, in spite of the prestige of
philosophy, still half unconsciously colours the feeling of the "plain
man" for the "intellectual," and which even haunts the philosopher
himself, in moments of discouragement, the suspicion that the whole
thing is trivial, a dispute about words of no real importance or
dignity. If Bergson is right this suspicion is, in many cases, all too
well founded: the discussion of pseudo-problems is not worth while.
But then the discussion of pseudo-problems is not real philosophy: the
thinker who allows himself to be entangled in pseudo-problems has lost
his way.
In this, however, the "intellectuals" are not the only ones at fault.
"Plain men" are misled by abstractions about facts just as much, only
being less thorough, their mistake has less effect: at the expense of
a little logical looseness their natural sense of fact saves them from
all the absurdities which follow from their false assumptions. For the
"intellectual" there is not this loophole through which the sense of
fact may undo some of the work of false assumptions: the
"intellectual" follows out ruthlessly the implications of his original
assumptions and if these are false his very virtues lead him into
greater absurdities than those committed by "plain men."
One of the most important tasks of philosophy is to show up the
pseudo-problems so that they may no longer waste our time and we may
be free to pursue the real aim of philosophy which is the reconquest
of the field of virtual knowledge. Getting rid of the pseudo-problems,
however, is no easy task: we may realize, for example, that the
difficulty of seeing how the transition between past and present ever
can be effected is a pseudo-problem because in fact past and present
are not distinct and so no transition between them is needed. But
since we have constantly to be using words which carry the implication
of distinctness we are constantly liable to forget this simple answer
when new problems, though in fact they all spring from this
fundamental discrepancy between facts and the abstractions by which we
describe them, present themselves in some slightly different form.
The notion of duration as consisting of "parts" united by "creative
synthesis" is a device, not for explaining how the transition from
past to present really takes place (this does not need explaining
since, "past" and "present" being mere abstractions, no transition
between them actually takes place at all), but for enabling us to
employ the abstractions "past" and "present" without constantly being
taken in by their logical implications. The notion of "creative
synthesis" as what joins "past" and "present" in a process of duration
is an antidote to the logical implications of these two distinct
terms: creative synthesis, unlike logical relations, is not external
to the "parts" which it joins; "parts" united by creative synthesis
are not distinct and mutually exclusive. Such a notion as this of
creative synthesis contradicts the logical implications contained in
the notion of parts. The notion of "parts" united by "creative
synthesis" is really a hybrid which attempts to combine the two
incompatible notions of logical distinction and duration. The result
is self-contradictory and this contradiction acts as a reminder
warning us against confusing the actual changing fact with the
abstractions in terms of which we describe it and so falling into the
mistake of taking it for granted that this changing fact must form a
series of distinct stages or things or events or qualities, which can
be repeated over and over again.
At the same time there is no getting away from the fact that this
changing fact lends itself to classification and that explanations in
terms of abstractions really do apply to it most successfully. We are
therefore faced with the necessity of finding some way of accounting
for this, other than by assuming that the facts which we know directly
consist of qualities which recur over and over again.
CHAPTER III
MATTER AND MEMORY
WE have seen that, according to the theory of change which is
fundamental for Bergson's philosophy, the changing fact which we know
directly is described as a process of becoming which does not contain
parts nor admit of repetitions. On the other hand this changing fact
certainly does lend itself to analysis and classification and
explanation and, at first sight at any rate, it is natural to suppose
that whatever can be classified and explained must consist of
qualities, that is distinct parts which can be repeated on different
occasions. The problem for Bergson, if he is to establish his theory
of change, is to show that the fact that a changing process can be
analysed and classified does not necessarily imply that such a process
must consist of distinct qualities which can be repeated. Bergson's
theory of the relation of matter to memory suggests a possible
solution of this problem as to how it is possible to analyse and so
apply general laws to and explain duration: it becomes necessary,
therefore, to give some account of this theory.
Like all other descriptions and explanations, such an account must, of
course, be expressed in terms of abstractions, and so is liable to be
misunderstood unless the false implications of these abstractions are
allowed for and discounted.
According to Bergson the only actual reality is the changing fact
itself, everything else is abstraction: this reality however is not
confined to the fragment called "our present experience" which is in
the full focus of consciousness and is all that we usually suppose
ourselves to know directly; it includes besides everything that we are
in a sense aware of but do not pay attention to, together with our
whole past: for Bergson, in fact, reality coincides with the field of
virtual knowledge, anything short of this whole field is an
abstraction and so falsified. Even to say "we know this fact" is
unsatisfactory as implying ourselves and the fact as distinct things
united by an external relation of knowing: to say "the fact is
different from the abstraction by which it is explained" similarly
implies logically distinct terms in an external relation of
difference, and so on. If Bergson is right in claiming that the actual
fact is non-logical then obviously all attempts to describe it, since
they must be expressed in terms of abstractions, will teem with false
implications which must be discounted if the description is to convey
the meaning intended.
Bergson's claim is that if we allow ourselves to attend to the
changing fact with which we are actually acquainted we are driven to a
theory of reality different from the theory of things and relations
accepted by common sense. The two abstractions by means of which he
attempts to express this new theory are matter and memory. In the
actual fact Bergson would hold that both these notions are combined by
synthesis in such a way as no longer to be distinct, or rather, for
this implies that they started distinct and then became merged, it
would perhaps be better to say that these two notions are abstractions
from two tendencies which are present in the actual fact. In the
actual fact they combine and, as it were, counteract one another and
the result is something different from either taken alone, but when we
abstract them we release them from each other's modifying influence
and the result is an exaggeration of one or other tendency which does
not really represent anything which actually occurs but can be used,
in combination with the contrary exaggeration, to explain the actual
fact which may be described as being like what would result from a
combination of these two abstractions.
We will take matter first.
Matter, for Bergson, is an exaggeration of the tendency in reality,
(that is in the actual changing fact directly known) towards logical
distinctness, what he calls "spatiality." His use of the word "matter"
in this sense is again, perhaps, like his use of the word "space,"
rather misleading. Actual reality, according to him, is never purely
material, the only purely material things are abstractions, and these
are not real at all but simply fictions. Bergson really means the same
thing by "matter" as by "space" and that is simply mutual distinctness
of parts and externality of relations, in a word logical complexity.
Matter, according to this definition of the word, has no duration and
so cannot last through any period of time or change: it simply is in
the present, it does not endure but is perpetually destroyed and
recreated.
The complementary exaggeration which, taken together with matter,
completes Berg-son's explanation of reality, is memory. Just as matter
is absolute logical complexity memory is absolute creative synthesis.
Together they constitute the hybrid notion of creative duration whose
"parts" interpenetrate which, according to Bergson, comes nearest to
giving a satisfactory description of the actual fact directly known
which is, for him, the whole reality.
The best way to accustom one's mind to these two complementary
exaggerations, matter and memory, and to see in more detail the use
that Bergson makes of them in explaining the actual facts, will be to
examine his theory of sensible perception, since it is just in the act
of sensible perception that memory comes in contact with matter.
The unsophisticated view is that in sensible perception we become
acquainted with things which exist whether we perceive them or not,
and these things, taken all together, are commonly called the material
world. According to Bergson's theory also sensible perception is
direct acquaintance with matter. The unsophisticated view holds
further, however, that this material world with which sensible
perception acquaints us is the common sense world of solid tables,
green grass, anger and other such states and things and qualities, but
we have already seen that this common sense world is really itself
only one among the various attempts which science and common sense are
continually making to explain the facts in terms of abstractions. The
worlds of electrons, vibrations, forces, and so on, constructed by
physics, are other attempts to do the same thing and the common sense
world of "real" things and qualities has no more claim to actual
existence than have any of these scientific hypotheses. Berg-son's
matter is not identified with any one of these constructions, it is
that in the facts which they are all attempts to explain in terms of
abstractions, the element in the facts upon which abstractions are
based and which makes facts classifiable and so explicable.
The words by which we describe and explain the material element in the
facts in terms of series of distinct stages or events in external
relations would leave out change if their implications were followed
out consistently, but it is only a few "intellectuals" who have ever
been able to bring themselves to follow out this implication to the
bitter end and accept the conclusion, however absurd. Since it is
obvious that the facts do change the usual way of getting round the
difficulty is to say that some of these stages are "past" and some
"present," and then, not clearly realizing that the explanations we
construct are not really facts at all, to take it for granted that a
transition between past and present, though there is no room for it in
the logical form of the explanation, yet somehow manages actually to
take place. Bergson agrees that change does actually take place but
not as a transition between abstractions such as "past" and "present."
We think that "past" and "present" must be real facts because we do
not realize clearly how these notions have been arrived at. Once we
have grasped the idea that these notions, and indeed all clear
concepts, are only abstractions, we see that it is not necessary to
suppose that these abstractions really change at all. Between the
abstractions "the past" and "the present" there is no transition, and
it is the same with events and things and qualities: all these, being
nothing but convenient fictions, stand outside the stream of actual
fact which is what really changes and endures.
Matter, then, is the name which Bergson gives to that element in the
fact upon which the purely logical form appropriate to abstractions is
based. The actual facts are not purely logical but neither are they
completely interpenetrated since they lend themselves to
classification: they tend to logical form on the one hand and to
complete inter-penetration on the other without going the whole way in
either direction. What Bergson does in the description of the facts
which he offers is to isolate each of these tendencies making them
into two separate distinct abstractions, one called matter and the
other mind. Isolated, what in the actual fact was blended becomes
incompatible. Matter and mind, the clear cut abstractions, are
mutually contradictory and it becomes at once a pseudo-problem to see
how they ever could combine to constitute the actual fact.
The matter which Bergson talks about, being what would be left of the
facts if memory were abstracted, has no past: it simply is in the
present moment. If there is any memory which can retain previous
moments then this memory may compare these previous moments with the
present moment and call them the past of matter, but in itself, apart
from memory, (and so isolated in a way in which this tendency in the
actual fact never could be isolated) matter has no past.
Noticing how very different the actual facts which we know directly
are from any of the material worlds by which we explain them, each of
which lays claim to being "the reality with which sensible perception
acquaints us," some philosophers have put forward the view that in
sensible perception we become acquainted, not with matter itself, but
with signs which stand for a material world which exists altogether
outside perception. This view Bergson rejects. He says that in
sensible perception we are not acquainted with mere signs but, in so
far as there is any matter at all, what we know in sensible perception
is that matter itself. The facts which we know directly are matter
itself and would be nothing but matter if they were instantaneous. For
Bergson, however, an instantaneous fact is out of the question: every
fact contains more than the mere matter presented at the moment of
perception. Facts are distinguished from matter by lasting through a
period of duration, this is what makes the difference between the
actual fact and any of the material worlds in terms of which we
describe them: matter, is, as we have said, only an abstraction of one
element or tendency in the changing fact which is the sole reality:
memory is the complementary abstraction. Apart from the actual fact
neither matter nor memory have independent existence. This is where
Berg-son disagrees with the philosophers who regard the facts as signs
of an independent material world, or as phenomena which misrepresent
some "thing" in "itself" which is what really exists but which is not
known directly but only inferred from the phenomena. For Bergson it is
the fact directly known that really exists, and matter and memory,
solid tables, green grass, electrons, forces, the absolute, and all
the other abstract ideas by which we explain it are misrepresentations
of it, not it of them.
Even Bergson, however, does not get away from the distinction between
appearance and reality. The fact is for him the reality, the
abstraction the appearance. But then the fact which is the reality is
not the fact which we ordinarily suppose ourselves to know, the little
fragment which constitutes "our experience at the present moment."
This is itself an abstraction from the vastly wider fact of our
virtual knowledge, and it is this wider field of knowledge which is
the reality. Abstraction involves falsification and so the little
fragment of fact to which our attention is usually confined is not, as
it stands, reality: it is appearance. We should only know reality as
it is if we could replace this fragment in its proper context in the
whole field of virtual knowledge (or reality) where it belongs. What
we should then know would not be appearance but reality itself. It is
at this knowledge, according to Bergson, that philosophy aims.
Philosophy is a reversal of our ordinary intellectual habits:
ordinarily thought progresses from abstraction to abstraction steadily
getting further from concrete facts: according to Bergson the task of
philosophy should be to put abstractions back again into their context
so as to obtain the fullest possible knowledge of actual fact.
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