[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
Time and Free Will: An essay on the
Immediate Data of Consciousness
AUTHOR'S PREFACE
WE necessarily express ourselves by means of words and we usually think in terms of
space. That is to say, language requires us to establish between our ideas the same sharp
and precise distinctions, the same discontinuity, as between material objects. This
assimilation of thought to things is useful in practical life and necessary in most of the
sciences. But it may be asked whether the insurmountable difficulties presented by certain
philosophical problems do not arise from our placing side by side in space phenomena
which do not occupy space, and whether, by merely getting rid of the clumsy symbols
round which we are fighting, we might not bring the fight to an end. When an illegitimate
translation of the unextended into the extended, of quality into quantity, has introduced
contradiction into the very heart of, the question, contradiction must, of course, recur in the
answer.
The problem which I have chosen is one which is common to metaphysics and psychology,
the problem of free will. What I attempt to prove is that all discussion between the
determinists and their opponents implies a previous confusion
(xxiv) of duration with extensity, of succession with simultaneity, of quality with quantity:
this confusion once dispelled, we may perhaps witness the disappearance of the objections
raised against free will, of the definitions given of it, and, in a certain sense, of the problem
of free will itself. To prove this is the object of the third part of the present volume : the
first two chapters, which treat of the conceptions of intensity and duration, have been
written as an introduction to the third.
H. BERGSON.
February, 1888.
Chapter 1: The Intensity of Psychic States
IT is usually admitted that states of consciousness, sensations, feelings,
passions, efforts, are capable of growth and diminution; we are even told
that a sensation can be said to be twice, thrice, four times as intense
? as
another sensation of the same kind. This latter thesis, which is maintained
by psychophysicists, we shall examine later ; but even the opponents of
psychophysics do not see any harm in speaking of one sensation as being
more intense than another, of one effort as being greater than another, and in
thus setting up differences of quantity between purely internal states.
Can there be
quantitative
differences in
conscious states?
Common sense, moreover, has not the slightest hesitation in giving its
verdict on this point ; people say they are more or less warm, or more or less
sad, and this distinction of more and less, even when it is carried over to the
region of subjective facts and unextended objects, surprises nobody. But this
involves a very obscure point and a much more important problem than is
usually supposed.
When we assert that one number is greater than
(2) another number or one body greater than another
body, we know very
well what we mean. For in both cases we allude to unequal spaces, as shall
be shown in detail a little further on, and we call that space the greater
which contains the other. But how can a more intense sensation contain one
of less intensity ? Shall we say that the first implies the second, that we
reach the sensation of higher intensity only on condition of having first
passed through the less intense stages of the same sensation, and that in a
certain sense we are concerned, here also, with the relation of container to
contained ? This conception of intensive magnitude seems, indeed, to be
that of common sense, but we cannot advance it as a philosophical
explanation without becoming involved in a vicious circle. For it is beyond
doubt that, in the natural series of numbers, the later number exceeds the
earlier, but the very possibility of arranging the numbers in ascending order
arises from their having to each other relations of container and contained,
so that we feel ourselves able to explain precisely in what sense one is
greater than the other. The question, then, is how we succeed in forming a
series of this kind with intensities, which cannot be superposed on each
other, and by what sign we recognize that the members of this series
increase, for example, instead of diminishing : but this always comes back
to the-inquiry, why an intensity can be assimilated to a magnitude.
Such differences
applicable to
magnitudes but
not to intensities
(3)
It is only to evade the difficulty to distinguish, as is usually done, between
two species of quantity, the first extensive and measurable, the second
intensive and not admitting of measure, but of which it can nevertheless less
be said that it is greater or less than
.
another intensity. For it is recognized
thereby that there is something common to these two forms of magnitude,
since they are both termed magnitudes and declared to be equally capable of
increase and diminution. But, from the point of view of magnitude, what can
there be in common between the extensive and the intensive, the extended
and the unextended ? If, in the first case, we call that which contains the
other the greater quantity, why go on speaking of quantity and magnitude
when there is no longer a container or a contained? If a quantity can
increase and diminish, if we perceive in it, so to speak, the
less
inside the
more, is
not such a quantity on this very account divisible, and thereby
extended ? Is it not then a contradiction to speak of an inextensive quantity ?
But yet common sense agrees with the philosophers in setting up a pure
Alleged
distinctions
between two
kinds of
quantity:
extensive and
intensive
magnitude.
intensity as a magnitude, just as if it were something extended. And not only
do we use the same word, but whether we think of a greater intensity or a
greater extensity, we experience in both cases an analogous impression ; the
terms " greater " and " less " call up in both cases the same idea.
(4) If we now ask ourselves in what does this idea consist, our
consciousness still offers us the image of a container and a contained. We
picture to ourselves, for example, a greater intensity of effort as a greater
length of thread rolled up, or as a spring which, in unwinding, will occupy a
greater space. In the idea of intensity, and even in the word which expresses
it, we shall find the image of a present contraction and consequently a future
expansion, the image of something virtually extended, and, if we may say
so, of a compressed space. We are thus led to believe that we translate the
intensive into the extensive, and that we compare two intensities, or at least
express the comparison, by the confused intuition of a relation between two
extensities. But it is just the nature of this operation which it is difficult to
determine.
The solution which occurs immediately to the mind, once it has entered
upon this path, consists in defining the intensity of a sensation, or of any
state whatever of the ego, by
the number and magnitude of the objective,
and therefore measurable, causes which have given rise to it. Doubtless, a
more intense sensation of light is the
one which has been obtained, or is
obtainable, by means of a larger number of luminous sources, provided they
be at the same distance and identical with one another. But, in the immense
majority of cases, we decide about
Attempt to
distinguish
intensities by
objective causes.
But we judge of
intensity without
knowning
magnitud or
nature of the
cause.
(5) the intensity of the effect without even knowing the nature of the cause,
much less its magnitude indeed, it is the very intensity of the effect which
often leads us to venture an hypothesis as to the number and nature of the
causes, and thus to revise the judgment of our senses, which at first
represented them as insignificant. And it is no use arguing that we are then
comparing the actual state of the ego with some previous state in which the
cause was perceived in its entirety at the same time as its effect was
experienced. No doubt this is our procedure in a fairly large number of cases
; but we cannot then explain the differences of intensity which we recognize
between deep-seated psychic phenomena, the cause of which is within us
and not outside. On the other hand, we are never so bold in judging the
intensity of a psychic state as when the subjective aspect of the phenomenon
is the only one to strike us, or when the external cause to which we refer it
does not easily admit of measurement. Thus it seems evident that we
experience a more intense pain at the pulling out of a tooth than of a hair ;
the artist knows without the possibility of doubt that the picture of a master
affords him more intense pleasure than the signboard of a shop ; and there is
not the slightest need ever to have heard of forces of cohesion to assert that
we expend less effort in bending a steel black than a bar of iron. Thus the
comparison of two intensities is usually made without the least appreciation
of the
(6) number of causes, their mode of action or their extent.
Attempt to
distinguish
intensities by
atomic
movements But
it is the sensation
which is given in
consciousness,
and not the
movement.
There is still room, it is true, for an hypothesis of the same nature, but more
subtle. We know that mechanical, and especially kinetic, theories aim at
explaining the visible and sensible properties of bodies by well defined
movements of their ultimate parts, and many of us foresee the time when the
intensive differences of qualities, that is to say, of our sensations, will be
reduced to extensive differences between the changes taking place behind
them. May it not be maintained that, without knowing these theories, we
have a vague surmise of them, that behind the more intense sound we guess
the presence of ampler vibrations which are propagated in the disturbed
medium, and that it is with a reference to this mathematical relation, precise
in itself though confusedly perceived, that we assert the higher intensity of a
particular sound ? Without even going so far, could it not be laid down that
every state of consciousness corresponds to a certain disturbance of the
molecules and atoms of the cerebral substance, and that the intensity of a
sensation measures the amplitude, the complication or the extent of these
molecular movements ? This last hypothesis is at least as probable as the
other, but it no more solves the problem. For, quite possibly, the intensity of
a sensation bears witness to a more or
(7) less considerable work accomplished in our organism ; but it is the
sensation which is given to us in consciousness, and not this mechanical
work. Indeed, it is by the intensity of the sensation that we judge of the
greater or less amount of work accomplished: intensity then remains, at least
apparently, a property of sensation. And still the same question recurs : why
do we say of a higher intensity that it is greater ? Why do we think of a
greater quantity or a greater space ?
Perhaps the difficulty of the problem lies chiefly in the fact that we call by
the same name, and picture to ourselves in the same way, intensities which
are very different in nature, e.g. the intensity of a feeling and that of a
sensation or an effort. The effort is accompanied by a muscular sensation,
and the sensations themselves case' are connected with certain physical
conditions which probably count for something in the estimate of their
intensity : we have here to do with phenomena which take place on the
surface of consciousness, and which are always connected, as we shall see
further on, with the perception of a movement or of an external object. But
certain states of the soul seem to us, rightly or wrongly, to be self-sufficient,
such as deep joy or sorrow, a reflective passion or an aesthetic emotion Pure
intensity ought to be more easily
Different kinds
of intensities. (1)
deep-seated
psychic states (2)
muscular effort.
Intensity is more
easily definable
in the former
case.
(8) definable in these simple cases, where no extensive clement seems to be
involved. We shall see, in fact, that it is reducible here to a certain quality or
shade which spreads over a more or less considerable mass of psychic
states, or, if the expression be preferred, to the larger or smaller number of
simple states which make up the fundamental emotion.
For example, an obscure desire gradually becomes a deep passion. Now,
you will see that the feeble intensity of this desire consisted at first in its
appearing to be isolated and, as it were, foreign to the remainder of your
inner life. But little by little it permeates a larger number of psychic
elements, tingeing them, so to speak, with its own colour and lo! your
outlook on the whole of your surroundings seems now to have changed
radically. How do you become aware of a deep passion, once it has taken
hold of you, if not by perceiving that the same objects no longer impress
you in the same manner ? All your sensations and all your ideas seem to
brighten up: it is like childhood back again. We experience something of the
kind in certain dreams, in which we do not imagine anything out of the
ordinary, and yet through which there resounds an indescribable note of
originality. The fact is that, the further we penetrate into the depths of
consciousness, the less right we have to treat psychic phenomena as things
which are set side
Take, for
example, the
progress of a
desire
(9) by side. When it is said that an object occupies a large space in the soul
or even that it fills it entirely, we ought to understand by this simply that its
image has altered the shade of a thousand perceptions or memories, and that
in this sense it pervades them, although it does not itself come into view.
But this wholly dynamic way of looking at things is repugnant to the
reflective consciousness, because the latter delights in clean cut distinctions,
which are easily expressed in words, and in things with well-defined
outlines, like those which are perceived in space. It will assume then that,
everything else remaining identical, such and such a desire has gone up a
scale of magnitudes, as though it were permissible still to speak of
magnitude where there is neither multiplicity nor space 1 But just as
consciousness (as will be shown later on) concentrates on a given point of
the organism the increasing number of muscular contractions which take
place on the surface of the body, thus converting them into one single
feeling of effort, of growing intensity, so it will hypostatize under the form
of a growing desire the gradual alterations which take place in the confused
heap of co-existing psychic states. But that is a change of quality rather than
of magnitude.
What makes hope such an intense pleasure is the fact that the future, which
we dispose of to our liking, appears to us at the same time under a multitude
of forms, equally attractive and equally
(10) possible. Even if the most coveted of these becomes realized, it will be
necessary to give up the others, and we shall have lost a great deal. The idea
of the future, pregnant with an infinity of possibilities, is thus more fruitful
than the future itself, and this is why we find more charm in hope than in
possession, in dreams than in reality.
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
zanotowane.pl doc.pisz.pl pdf.pisz.pl audipoznan.keep.pl
Time and Free Will: An essay on the
Immediate Data of Consciousness
AUTHOR'S PREFACE
WE necessarily express ourselves by means of words and we usually think in terms of
space. That is to say, language requires us to establish between our ideas the same sharp
and precise distinctions, the same discontinuity, as between material objects. This
assimilation of thought to things is useful in practical life and necessary in most of the
sciences. But it may be asked whether the insurmountable difficulties presented by certain
philosophical problems do not arise from our placing side by side in space phenomena
which do not occupy space, and whether, by merely getting rid of the clumsy symbols
round which we are fighting, we might not bring the fight to an end. When an illegitimate
translation of the unextended into the extended, of quality into quantity, has introduced
contradiction into the very heart of, the question, contradiction must, of course, recur in the
answer.
The problem which I have chosen is one which is common to metaphysics and psychology,
the problem of free will. What I attempt to prove is that all discussion between the
determinists and their opponents implies a previous confusion
(xxiv) of duration with extensity, of succession with simultaneity, of quality with quantity:
this confusion once dispelled, we may perhaps witness the disappearance of the objections
raised against free will, of the definitions given of it, and, in a certain sense, of the problem
of free will itself. To prove this is the object of the third part of the present volume : the
first two chapters, which treat of the conceptions of intensity and duration, have been
written as an introduction to the third.
H. BERGSON.
February, 1888.
Chapter 1: The Intensity of Psychic States
IT is usually admitted that states of consciousness, sensations, feelings,
passions, efforts, are capable of growth and diminution; we are even told
that a sensation can be said to be twice, thrice, four times as intense
? as
another sensation of the same kind. This latter thesis, which is maintained
by psychophysicists, we shall examine later ; but even the opponents of
psychophysics do not see any harm in speaking of one sensation as being
more intense than another, of one effort as being greater than another, and in
thus setting up differences of quantity between purely internal states.
Can there be
quantitative
differences in
conscious states?
Common sense, moreover, has not the slightest hesitation in giving its
verdict on this point ; people say they are more or less warm, or more or less
sad, and this distinction of more and less, even when it is carried over to the
region of subjective facts and unextended objects, surprises nobody. But this
involves a very obscure point and a much more important problem than is
usually supposed.
When we assert that one number is greater than
(2) another number or one body greater than another
body, we know very
well what we mean. For in both cases we allude to unequal spaces, as shall
be shown in detail a little further on, and we call that space the greater
which contains the other. But how can a more intense sensation contain one
of less intensity ? Shall we say that the first implies the second, that we
reach the sensation of higher intensity only on condition of having first
passed through the less intense stages of the same sensation, and that in a
certain sense we are concerned, here also, with the relation of container to
contained ? This conception of intensive magnitude seems, indeed, to be
that of common sense, but we cannot advance it as a philosophical
explanation without becoming involved in a vicious circle. For it is beyond
doubt that, in the natural series of numbers, the later number exceeds the
earlier, but the very possibility of arranging the numbers in ascending order
arises from their having to each other relations of container and contained,
so that we feel ourselves able to explain precisely in what sense one is
greater than the other. The question, then, is how we succeed in forming a
series of this kind with intensities, which cannot be superposed on each
other, and by what sign we recognize that the members of this series
increase, for example, instead of diminishing : but this always comes back
to the-inquiry, why an intensity can be assimilated to a magnitude.
Such differences
applicable to
magnitudes but
not to intensities
(3)
It is only to evade the difficulty to distinguish, as is usually done, between
two species of quantity, the first extensive and measurable, the second
intensive and not admitting of measure, but of which it can nevertheless less
be said that it is greater or less than
.
another intensity. For it is recognized
thereby that there is something common to these two forms of magnitude,
since they are both termed magnitudes and declared to be equally capable of
increase and diminution. But, from the point of view of magnitude, what can
there be in common between the extensive and the intensive, the extended
and the unextended ? If, in the first case, we call that which contains the
other the greater quantity, why go on speaking of quantity and magnitude
when there is no longer a container or a contained? If a quantity can
increase and diminish, if we perceive in it, so to speak, the
less
inside the
more, is
not such a quantity on this very account divisible, and thereby
extended ? Is it not then a contradiction to speak of an inextensive quantity ?
But yet common sense agrees with the philosophers in setting up a pure
Alleged
distinctions
between two
kinds of
quantity:
extensive and
intensive
magnitude.
intensity as a magnitude, just as if it were something extended. And not only
do we use the same word, but whether we think of a greater intensity or a
greater extensity, we experience in both cases an analogous impression ; the
terms " greater " and " less " call up in both cases the same idea.
(4) If we now ask ourselves in what does this idea consist, our
consciousness still offers us the image of a container and a contained. We
picture to ourselves, for example, a greater intensity of effort as a greater
length of thread rolled up, or as a spring which, in unwinding, will occupy a
greater space. In the idea of intensity, and even in the word which expresses
it, we shall find the image of a present contraction and consequently a future
expansion, the image of something virtually extended, and, if we may say
so, of a compressed space. We are thus led to believe that we translate the
intensive into the extensive, and that we compare two intensities, or at least
express the comparison, by the confused intuition of a relation between two
extensities. But it is just the nature of this operation which it is difficult to
determine.
The solution which occurs immediately to the mind, once it has entered
upon this path, consists in defining the intensity of a sensation, or of any
state whatever of the ego, by
the number and magnitude of the objective,
and therefore measurable, causes which have given rise to it. Doubtless, a
more intense sensation of light is the
one which has been obtained, or is
obtainable, by means of a larger number of luminous sources, provided they
be at the same distance and identical with one another. But, in the immense
majority of cases, we decide about
Attempt to
distinguish
intensities by
objective causes.
But we judge of
intensity without
knowning
magnitud or
nature of the
cause.
(5) the intensity of the effect without even knowing the nature of the cause,
much less its magnitude indeed, it is the very intensity of the effect which
often leads us to venture an hypothesis as to the number and nature of the
causes, and thus to revise the judgment of our senses, which at first
represented them as insignificant. And it is no use arguing that we are then
comparing the actual state of the ego with some previous state in which the
cause was perceived in its entirety at the same time as its effect was
experienced. No doubt this is our procedure in a fairly large number of cases
; but we cannot then explain the differences of intensity which we recognize
between deep-seated psychic phenomena, the cause of which is within us
and not outside. On the other hand, we are never so bold in judging the
intensity of a psychic state as when the subjective aspect of the phenomenon
is the only one to strike us, or when the external cause to which we refer it
does not easily admit of measurement. Thus it seems evident that we
experience a more intense pain at the pulling out of a tooth than of a hair ;
the artist knows without the possibility of doubt that the picture of a master
affords him more intense pleasure than the signboard of a shop ; and there is
not the slightest need ever to have heard of forces of cohesion to assert that
we expend less effort in bending a steel black than a bar of iron. Thus the
comparison of two intensities is usually made without the least appreciation
of the
(6) number of causes, their mode of action or their extent.
Attempt to
distinguish
intensities by
atomic
movements But
it is the sensation
which is given in
consciousness,
and not the
movement.
There is still room, it is true, for an hypothesis of the same nature, but more
subtle. We know that mechanical, and especially kinetic, theories aim at
explaining the visible and sensible properties of bodies by well defined
movements of their ultimate parts, and many of us foresee the time when the
intensive differences of qualities, that is to say, of our sensations, will be
reduced to extensive differences between the changes taking place behind
them. May it not be maintained that, without knowing these theories, we
have a vague surmise of them, that behind the more intense sound we guess
the presence of ampler vibrations which are propagated in the disturbed
medium, and that it is with a reference to this mathematical relation, precise
in itself though confusedly perceived, that we assert the higher intensity of a
particular sound ? Without even going so far, could it not be laid down that
every state of consciousness corresponds to a certain disturbance of the
molecules and atoms of the cerebral substance, and that the intensity of a
sensation measures the amplitude, the complication or the extent of these
molecular movements ? This last hypothesis is at least as probable as the
other, but it no more solves the problem. For, quite possibly, the intensity of
a sensation bears witness to a more or
(7) less considerable work accomplished in our organism ; but it is the
sensation which is given to us in consciousness, and not this mechanical
work. Indeed, it is by the intensity of the sensation that we judge of the
greater or less amount of work accomplished: intensity then remains, at least
apparently, a property of sensation. And still the same question recurs : why
do we say of a higher intensity that it is greater ? Why do we think of a
greater quantity or a greater space ?
Perhaps the difficulty of the problem lies chiefly in the fact that we call by
the same name, and picture to ourselves in the same way, intensities which
are very different in nature, e.g. the intensity of a feeling and that of a
sensation or an effort. The effort is accompanied by a muscular sensation,
and the sensations themselves case' are connected with certain physical
conditions which probably count for something in the estimate of their
intensity : we have here to do with phenomena which take place on the
surface of consciousness, and which are always connected, as we shall see
further on, with the perception of a movement or of an external object. But
certain states of the soul seem to us, rightly or wrongly, to be self-sufficient,
such as deep joy or sorrow, a reflective passion or an aesthetic emotion Pure
intensity ought to be more easily
Different kinds
of intensities. (1)
deep-seated
psychic states (2)
muscular effort.
Intensity is more
easily definable
in the former
case.
(8) definable in these simple cases, where no extensive clement seems to be
involved. We shall see, in fact, that it is reducible here to a certain quality or
shade which spreads over a more or less considerable mass of psychic
states, or, if the expression be preferred, to the larger or smaller number of
simple states which make up the fundamental emotion.
For example, an obscure desire gradually becomes a deep passion. Now,
you will see that the feeble intensity of this desire consisted at first in its
appearing to be isolated and, as it were, foreign to the remainder of your
inner life. But little by little it permeates a larger number of psychic
elements, tingeing them, so to speak, with its own colour and lo! your
outlook on the whole of your surroundings seems now to have changed
radically. How do you become aware of a deep passion, once it has taken
hold of you, if not by perceiving that the same objects no longer impress
you in the same manner ? All your sensations and all your ideas seem to
brighten up: it is like childhood back again. We experience something of the
kind in certain dreams, in which we do not imagine anything out of the
ordinary, and yet through which there resounds an indescribable note of
originality. The fact is that, the further we penetrate into the depths of
consciousness, the less right we have to treat psychic phenomena as things
which are set side
Take, for
example, the
progress of a
desire
(9) by side. When it is said that an object occupies a large space in the soul
or even that it fills it entirely, we ought to understand by this simply that its
image has altered the shade of a thousand perceptions or memories, and that
in this sense it pervades them, although it does not itself come into view.
But this wholly dynamic way of looking at things is repugnant to the
reflective consciousness, because the latter delights in clean cut distinctions,
which are easily expressed in words, and in things with well-defined
outlines, like those which are perceived in space. It will assume then that,
everything else remaining identical, such and such a desire has gone up a
scale of magnitudes, as though it were permissible still to speak of
magnitude where there is neither multiplicity nor space 1 But just as
consciousness (as will be shown later on) concentrates on a given point of
the organism the increasing number of muscular contractions which take
place on the surface of the body, thus converting them into one single
feeling of effort, of growing intensity, so it will hypostatize under the form
of a growing desire the gradual alterations which take place in the confused
heap of co-existing psychic states. But that is a change of quality rather than
of magnitude.
What makes hope such an intense pleasure is the fact that the future, which
we dispose of to our liking, appears to us at the same time under a multitude
of forms, equally attractive and equally
(10) possible. Even if the most coveted of these becomes realized, it will be
necessary to give up the others, and we shall have lost a great deal. The idea
of the future, pregnant with an infinity of possibilities, is thus more fruitful
than the future itself, and this is why we find more charm in hope than in
possession, in dreams than in reality.
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]