Film-Philosophy
Journal | Salon | Portal (ISSN 1466-4615)
Deleuze Special Issue
Vol. 5 No. 35, November 2001
Jinhee Choi
Bergson: Before the Deleuze
_The New Bergson_ Edited by John Mullarkey Manchester and New York: Manchester
University Press, 1999 ISBN 0719053803 hb; 0719055539
pb 235 pp. Henri Bergson, who had a great
influence on intellectuals and artists in Europe at the turn
of the century, has regained our attention during past
decades. This should be credited to Gilles Deleuze, who
resuscitates Bergson's philosophy within the humanities, and
especially film studies. However, we should admit that
Bergson's work has been more prominent in other disciplines
than in philosophy. _The New Bergson_, edited by John
Mullarkey, provides us with a new look at Bergson in light
of the relevance of his philosophy and ideas to contemporary
philosophy. The collection consists of five sections, that
include 13 essays on Bergson's methodology, ontology,
philosophy of mind, philosophy of biology, and, lastly,
philosophy of art -- essays that share the common goal of
making us aware of the importance of Bergson's philosophy.
They argue that it has been neglected, and for the need to
separate out what Bergson's philosophy really is, from what
Bergson's philosophy has given rise to in other fields. The
'new' Bergson refers to a Bergson whose philosophy deserves
to be re-examined in its own right. Mullarkey, in his Introduction, not
only recapitulates the key concepts in Bergson's philosophy,
including mobility, intuition, and intellect, but also
rectifies some of the dominant misconceptions of Bergson's
philosophy. One of the criticisms often addressed against
Bergson is that his philosophical method is non-systematic
and thus lacks theoretical rigor. Mullarkey points out that
such a criticism fails to tease out the metaphysical
implications of the method of Bergson's philosophy. For
Bergson's methodology reflects his philosophy of mobility
and duration. In other words, for Bergson, 'conceptualizing'
is itself a constant process of thinking, rather than simply
the process of fixation of concepts and categories to the
phenomenon in question. However, despite the goal of this
collection, some of the essays fail to situate Bergson's
philosophy within contemporary philosophy. Richard A. Cohen,
in his essay entitled 'Philo, Spinoza, Bergson: The Rise of
an Ecological Age', points out that Bergson marks a turning
point in Western intellectual history. He adopts historian
Harry Austryn Wolfson's periodization of Western history,
who divides it into three periods: the ancient, the
medieval, and the modern. As Cohen notes, according to
Wolfson each epoch can be characterized as 'separation of
reason and revelation', 'harmony of reason and revelation',
and 'domination of reason over revelation' (20-21), the
turning points of which are marked by Philo and Spinoza,
respectively. Cohen, however, disagrees with Wolfson's claim
that the medieval age is the period when reason and
revelation were harmonized. He adds a fourth, contemporary
period, and argues that it is during this period that the
true harmonization of reason and revelation is finally
reached. Furthermore he claims that this period was launched
with Bergson's ecological view of the world. However, one
might naturally wonder why we need to accept this
revisionist history over the standard one. That is, what is
the advantage of accepting the revisionist history? Why do
the philosophies of Philo, Spinoza, and Bergson bear more
significance than those of Aquinas or Augustine, or
Descartes or Hegel, on understanding the intellectual
history? Unless we are provided with answers for these
questions, it is hard to recognize the significance of
Bergson within the standard history of philosophy, as well
as in the revisionist one. As far as I can see, Cohen
provides no such answers. The second essay on Bergson's
methodology is written by Garrett Barden, in which he
examines Bergson's notion of duration in relation to
consciousness. Barden interprets 'duration' as the attention
to consciousness itself, namely, attention to oneself as
consciously enquiring. He argues that for Bergson attention
to consciousness is not equivalent to understanding; the
former is only a pre-requisite for the latter. Such
interpretation of duration, especially due to Barden's
wording -- such as 'I endure', or 'I am a being that
endures' (34) -- reminds us of the Cartesian cogito. I wish
that Barden had developed this view further and had shown
how the notion of duration, when it is applied to
consciousness, is similar to or dissimilar from Descartes's
notion of self. Obviously Bergson rejects Cartesian 'clear'
and 'distinct' ideas, upon which knowledge of the world
should be founded. However, it seems that given Barden's
reading, for both Bergson and Descartes the thinking or
enquiring self is necessary for the pursuit of further
understanding of the world as well as the self. If so, in my
view, the difference should rather be found in the nature of
self. For Bergson, as Barden suggests, the self is not a
metaphysical 'I', a substance that persists through changes,
but rather a subject in the process of changing. Two essays are devoted to Bergson's
ontology. I must say that Deleuze's essay, 'Bergson's
Conception of Difference', is just as confusing as Bergson's
own writing. However, Deleuze tries to tease out how the
notion of difference in Bergson's philosophy underlies other
concepts, such as matter, duration, elan vital, and memory.
Deleuze emphasizes the fact that difference is not a purely
relational property that is created by the difference among
objects or events. That is, difference is itself an entity
or tendency, as Deleuze calls it, that enables an object or
an event to diverge from others (49). The key notions in
Bergson's philosophy, then, can be recapitulated in relation
to 'difference'; matter is what does not differ from itself;
duration is what differs from itself; elan vital is the
differentiation of difference; memory is the coexistence of
degrees of difference. If I understand these definitions
correctly, matter refers to a substance that stays constant;
duration refers to the process of changing itself; elan
vital is the force that enables things to differentiate
themselves from others. However, it seems that the relation
between memory and difference is murky. Deleuze contends
that for Bergson difference is itself a tendency, not a
difference between two tendencies, and thus all apparent
external differences are in fact reduced to internal ones.
However, if memory presupposes the coexistence of degrees of
difference, we must postulate something, which enables us to
distinguish these (presumably) internal differences; if so,
there must exist external differences that differentiate
internal differences. Otherwise, his theory will fall into
an infinite regress. Moreover, this network of concepts gets
murkier when Deleuze introduces the notion of 'virtuality'.
Deleuze quotes Bergson, who says, 'the virtual is pure
recollection and pure recollection is difference' (55).
However, the former involves a contradiction. Virtuality is,
by definition, something that has not been actualized or
realized. If so, how can virtuality be recollection, the
main object of which is the past? Timothy S. Murphy makes an interesting
observation that Bergson's philosophy is parallel to the
conclusion drawn from the debate between Bohr and
Einstein/Podolsky/Rosen (EPR) on quantum mechanics. Murphy
first examines EPR's thought experiment on whether the
angular momentum of two-particle molecules can be determined
and preserved after they split, but before any signal passes
between the two. Their conclusion was that if the two
particles' momenta can be measured before they send a signal
to each other, then, unlike the claim made by quantum
mechanics, according to which their momenta are
indeterminate, the momenta of the two particles are already
predetermined right after they split. Bohr's response to
this thought experiment was that they neglected to consider
the fact that the measuring device itself consists of
molecules and particles, which are also governed by quantum
mechanics. Despite the complicated nature of this debate,
what Murphy draws out is that what quantum mechanics implies
is quite similar to Bergson's philosophy; it is impossible
to divide a process of movement or a process of change into
abstract time. However, the similarity pointed out by Murphy
seems to be merely superficial. Firstly, Murphy fails to
establish any direct correlation between Bohr's and
Bergson's intellectual projects. He openly admits that when
Einstein jumped into the re-heated debate on relativity and
quantum theory, the influence of Bergson's philosophy had
already been in decline. And secondly, if Murphy's goal is
to illuminate Bergson's philosophy through quantum
mechanics, his essay also fails in this respect. Most of the
essay is dedicated to the debate between Bohr and EPR, and
only briefly mentions at the end what kind of similarities
there might be, in terms of what quantum mechanics implies,
with Bergson's view. The section on Bergson's philosophy of
mind is the biggest section within the collection. There are
four essays, plus a correspondence between Bergson and John
Dewy. However, the main focus of this section is definitely
on Bergson's _Matter and Memory_, since three of the essays,
written by Frederic Worms, Marie Cariou and Eric Mathew,
place emphasis on the significance of the book for the
philosophy of mind. Although they differ from one another in
terms of range and focus, we can draw a general conclusion
from these essays. They argue that Bergson's philosophy of
mind goes beyond Cartesian dualism, and reconciles
materialism and idealism. According to Worms, what is
intriguing about Bergson's method is that he shifts the
dualist dichotomy between body and mind to the opposition
between the external world (matter) and consciousness
(memory). Cariou reaches a similar conclusion when she
argues that Bergson starts the enquiry into the mind/body
problem by asking, first, what is the role of action in
connecting the two, and thus marks a breakthrough within
philosophy of mind in terms of its methodology. Mathew
claims that Bergson's dualism makes the interaction between
the mind and the body truly united, rather than a mere
coincidence or a predetermined harmony. Given the
explanations above, Bergson's dualism can be said to belong
to property dualism -- that is, mind and body are two
properties of the same substance -- rather than to substance
dualism, in that matter and memory are two modes of a single
entity, i.e. duration. However, a question still remains: how
does Bergson's philosophy of action enable him to go beyond
idealism and materialism? Worms and Cariou take similar
lines of arguments when they claim that action presupposes
the *exteriority of the mind* (93). That is, if I understand
the metaphor correctly, action necessarily partakes of the
world. Mathew pays more attention to Bergson's evolutionary
account, that is, the primary function of human body is
action, and, to initiate an action, we need to consult both
the perception and memory, the latter of which belongs to
the realm of consciousness (127). However, these
characteristics still do not move Bergson's philosophy
beyond idealism, since they do not provide conclusive
reasons for how we are able to grasp reality. For idealism
does not necessarily deny the existence of the external
world; it only denies that we have direct access to the
world since we perceive the world only through ideas. Mathew
answers this question with an appeal to Bergson's notion of
intuition (128-9). That is, there exists a faculty that
enables us to experience ourselves as active beings and
makes the world immediately related to us. In other words,
intuition makes us coincide with the world. However, two
things come to mind immediately. First, if such faculty
exists, then it is true that we have the access to the
world. However, Bergson seems to beg the question here; you
cannot assume that such faculty exists without showing the
necessity of and the evidence for the existence of such
faculty. Second, it is also not clear how Bergson's emphasis
on action bears importance in resolving the problems faced
with idealism, if intuition is what leads us to experience
the world directly. We need to recall that, for Bergson,
what guides actions is intellect not intuition. Keith Ansell Pearson and P. A. Y.
Gunter touch on Bergson's philosophy of biology. Pearson
tries to situate Bergson's notion of creative evolution
within contemporary philosophy of biology, whereas Gunter
applies Bergson's ecological view to other subjects, such as
the mind/body problem, life, and society. I'll focus on
Pearson's essay, since it examines Bergson's view on
evolution in some depth. According to Pearson, the major
difference between Bergson's view and neo-Darwinism or
neo-Lamarckism is that Bergson defies the linear,
deterministic view of evolution. Firstly, Bergson's view
departs from the deterministic model in that for him
evolution is not 'a realization of the possible' but rather
'an actualization of the virtual' (150). The difference
between the two becomes intelligible only when we grasp the
nuances between possibility and virtuality. According to
Pearson, possibility implies the predetermined options,
whereas virtuality allows the possibility of going beyond
the fixed options. Thus, for Bergson the process of
evolution is an unpredictable process of invention rather
than determination (154). Secondly, Bergson differentiates
his view from finalism. Although Bergson acknowledges the
fact that evolution involves the process of
complexification, the trajectory of evolution does not
necessarily lead to an end. For the force that pushes the
evolution forward should not be found without but within,
namely, in the elan vital. Although this type of vitalism
lost its footing in contemporary philosophy of biology,
Pearson is good at portraying Bergson's contrast with
Darwinism and Lamarckism, and how his thought has left its
traces in the work of contemporary philosophers such as
Deleuze and Guattari. If we were to pick one area in which
the influence of Bergson had been most prominent, there is
no doubt it would be art. For instance, t is a well-known
fact that Bergson's philosophy had inspired French
avant-garde artists in the early 20th century. In their
essays, Mark Antliff and Paul Douglass examine the
significance that Bergson's philosophy bears on art; the
former focuses on Matisse, while the latter deals with
cinema. Antliff claims that Matisse was introduced to
Bergson's philosophy by Stewart Prichard, who interpreted
Matisse's work through a Bergsonian perspective. What
interests me more, however, is the latter essay, in which
Bergson's criticisms of the cinema are re-examined.
Bergson's critique of cinematographic method originated from
his critique of spatialization in conceptual schemes.
Bergson compared the way intellect comprehends mobility with
the technique of cinema. When a film is projected, at 24
frames per second, we see a movement projected on the
screen. According to Bergson, the intellect grasps mobility
in a similar manner. The intellect divides the mobile object
passing through distinct moments and apprehends mobility
only through synthesizing them. This merely reflects how the
intellect falls short of encompassing mobility as a concrete
duration. Deleuze, in his book _Cinema_, redeemed the status
of film from Bergson's criticism. However, he did so only by
replacing 'frame' with 'shot'. That is, according to
Deleuze, what Bergson meant by 'cutting' was shot, rather
than frame. If so, there is a way in which film can
challenge the fixated pattern of perception. That is,
through editing, film can represent multiple viewpoints
through which a single event is observed. However, Douglass
is correct in pointing out that Bergson was never ambiguous
about the word 'cut'; it refers to the frame, not a shot.
Douglass, however, finds a way to redeem cinema. Cinema can
rescue itself from the condemnation of Bergson through
self-reflexivity. In this respect, cinema does not need to
be privileged over other art forms. It seems to me that the debate over
Bergson's critique of cinema has been misguided so far. The
focus should not be on whether cinematographic technique can
be interpreted differently from the way Bergson views it.
Rather, it should have been focused on how cinema can
overcome the limitation of human perception and intellect. I
agree with Douglass that cinema, by challenging normal
perception and foregrounding the artificiality of the
process of film-making, enables us to see the gap between
the way the world is presented to us by the intellect, and
reality itself. Looking at Bergson's philosophy in a
new light is necessary to realize how severely Bergson's
ideas have been smeared in various disciplines. Although,
due to the enormous purview of Bergson's philosophy, it is
hard to handle all of his ideas under a single, simple
motto, the essays collected under this volume -- some of
whose analysis I agree with, and some I don't -- offer us
the opportunity to be exposed again to Bergson's intriguing
philosophy. University of Wisconsin-Madison,
USA Copyright © _Film-Philosophy_
2001 Jinhee Choi, 'Bergson: Before the
Deleuze', _Film-Philosophy_, Deleuze Special Issue, vol. 5
no. 35, November 2001
<http://www.film-philosophy.com/vol5-2001/n35choi>.
Save as Plain Text Document...Print...Read...Recycle
Join the Film-Philosophy salon,
and receive the journal articles via email as they are published. here
Film-Philosophy (ISSN 1466-4615)
PO Box 26161, London SW8 4WD, England
Contact: editor@film-philosophy.com
Back to the Film-Philosophy homepage
