Bergson's Philosophy of Self-Overcoming Thinking Without

Bergson’s Philosophy of Self-Overcoming Thinking without Negativity or Time as Striving Messay Kebede Bergson’s Philosophy of Self-Overcoming Messay Kebede Bergson’s Philosophy of Self-Overcoming Thinking without Negativity or Time as Striving Messay Kebede Department of Philosophy University of Dayton Dayton, OH, USA ISBN 978-3-030-15486-8 ISBN 978-3-030-15487-5 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-15487-5 Library of Congress Control Number: 2019934098 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifcally the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microflms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specifc statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. 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Cover credit: PhotoAlto sas/Alamy Stock Photo This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland CONTENTS 1 Introduction 1 2 Intuitive Knowledge via the Inversion of Intelligence 11 Action and Intuition 12 Bergsonism and Theories of Knowledge 18 Epistemological Divergence 25 Intuitive Knowledge as Ideal Genesis 34 Inversion and False Problems 39 Crossing Limitations 42 3 Duration and Self-Striving 51 In Search of True Time 51 Towards a Dynamic Conception of Time 54 Continuity Versus Discontinuity 58 Duration and Consciousness 64 Duration as the Stuff of Reality 67 Duration as Effort 70 Beyond Free Will and Determinism 75 4 Life as the Inversion of Materiality 87 Being and Nothingness 88 The Negativity of Action 92 Controversy Over Negativity 95 v vi CONTENTS Negation Without Nothingness 99 The Striving of Self-Limitation 102 Unity Versus Analysis 110 Transcending Finalism and Mechanism 113 The Oneness of Life 118 Enduring Striving in Lieu of the Eternal 124 5 Perception and the Genesis of the Subject 133 The Contradictions of Representational Theories of Perception 134 From the Material to the Psychic 137 From Pure to Concrete Perception 141 Materiality and the Notion of Image 148 Bergson and Phenomenology: The Issue of the Subject 156 The Mechanism of Perception 161 Limitation and Perception 169 6 Memory and the Being of the Subject 175 Memory and Action 175 On the Conservation and Nature of Memory 178 Deleuze and Bergson 187 Intentionality and the Continuity of Consciousness 194 The Actualization of Memory 199 On the Unity of Mind and Body 207 7 Mysticism or the Overstepping of Nature 215 Halt Versus Stage 216 Duality of Source and Self-Overcoming 223 Moral Obligation and Social Conservativism 228 The Natural Society 235 Opening the Natural 241 Overdetermination and Progress 249 Problems of Modernity and the Revaluation of Values 256 8 Conclusion 273 Index 279 ABOUT THE AUTHOR Messay Kebede, Ph.D. is a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Dayton, Ohio (USA). His areas of research include social and political philosophy, African philosophy, continental philosophy, and Bergson. He has published many articles and books related to these areas, for example Africa’s Quest for a Philosophy of Decolonization, Radicalism and Cultural Dislocation in Ethiopia, Ideology and Elite Conficts: Autopsy of the Ethiopian Revolution, and his articles, “From Perception to Subject: The Bergsonian Reversal,” “Beyond Dualism and Monism: Bergson’s Slanted Being,” “L’élan bergsonien ou la matière comme ascèse de la vie,” “Being and Nothingness versus Bergson’s Striving Being.” vii CHAPTER 1 Introduction Among philosophies qualifed as great, Bergsonism is probably the philosophy that shows the least settled fate. After enjoying wide national and international popularity at the turn of the twentieth century, its infuence reaching, beyond the philosophical feld, to scientists, art- ists, and theologians, it became the target of sustained criticisms from different philosophical circles. The criticisms emanated from such vari- ous sources as phenomenologist and existential thinkers, neo-Marxist, positivist, and neo-Kantian schools, as well as Catholic scholars. These criticisms were all the more amplifed as they drew on the author- ity of prominent and popular thinkers like Jean-Paul Sartre, Bertrand Russel, Jacques Maritain, Gaston Bachelard, Georges Politzer, and oth- ers, who wrote targeted essays denouncing Bergsonism. These writ- ings exposed the irrational inspiration of the philosophy and tied it to the other alleged defaults of Bergsonism, such as social conservatism, anti-science stand, mystic ramblings, vitalist credo, etc. The criticisms were so ferocious that they precipitated the whole philosophy into what one author does not hesitate to depict as “philosophical obsoles- cence.”1 Most remarkable, though, is that the decline of the philosophy is progressively coming to an end, as evidenced by the recent “increas- ing interest in Bergsonian philosophy” and “the rising tide of essays, books, courses and conferences” devoted to it.2 The scholars who are instrumental in this resurgence all suggest that Henri Bergson’s eclipse was caused by readings that failed to pay attention to the originality of the work, perhaps because he resented the use of an esoteric lexicon. © The Author(s) 2019 1 M. Kebede, Bergson’s Philosophy of Self-Overcoming, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-15487-5_1 2 M. KEBEDE The proof is that Gilles Deleuze, the philosopher who contributed most to the revival of Bergsonism, did nothing else but disclose how Bergson’s thinking imparts to traditional concepts new and groundbreaking direc- tions. To the impact of misreading, one must add the provocative side of Bergsonism. Indeed, the philosophy touches on subjects that usually are taboos for philosophers because they categorize them as manifesta- tions of irrationality, such as intuitive knowledge, mysticism, and psychi- cal research. As a result, everything looks as though irrationality, far from being an allegation, is defantly claimed by Bergson himself. This study hopes to contribute to Bergson’s revival by providing a perspective that gives an insight into the originality and strength of his work. It rests on the central thesis that Bergson’s notion of time, that is, time as duration, is the other name for a conception of being as self-overcoming. The provided perspective does not adhere to the order of invention by following the sequence of publication of Bergson’s books. Rather, it demonstrates the centrality of the notion of self- overcoming by using the method of logical derivation. It thus shows that all Bergson’s basic concepts, such as intuitive knowledge, creation, the virtual and the actual, the vital élan, the closed and the open society, are all instances of self-overcoming, and that the famous Bergsonian oppositions (quantity/quality, space/time, matter/memory, freedom/ determinism, etc.) are not contradictory because they are analytic, objec- tifed views on the indivisible dynamics governing the overstepping of limitations.3 In other words, my contention is that most of the criticisms addressed to the notion of duration originate from the diffculty in understanding time in terms other than chronology, despite Bergson’s insistence that it is being in the making and, as such, one that equally excludes the no more and the not yet. To think in duration is to think being without holes and latencies, that is, without negativity. Being is means being is becoming, not in a passing time, but “in a present which is thick, and furthermore, elastic, which we can stretch indefnitely back- ward by pushing the screen which masks us from ourselves farther and farther away.”4 If we can stretch it indefnitely, it is because it rolls up on itself so that it is made rather than being undone or flling gaps. To have a good idea of the groundbreaking impact of Bergson’s notion of duration, no better way exists than to show how the notion fuses crucial attributes of reality that philosophers often considered as incompatible. I have in mind the problem that philosophy faced since its inception, namely, the relation of being with movement and change. 1 INTRODUCTION 3 Though the relation is undeniable, philosophers found it diffcult to apprehend without transgressing the principle of non-contradiction. Indeed, the condition for that which is to cease to be and for that which is not to come into being is the granting of some kind of reality to non-being. But nothing is nothing or, as Parmenides puts it, “never shall it be proven that not-being is.”5 Accordingly, there is no possible transition from being to not being or from not being to being. Once the ontological impasse was admitted, two alternatives remained to avoid the extreme solution of the rejection of movement and change. The one alternative was to insert some emptiness or lack into being, thereby conceiving of change as realization, development, be it through the actualization of potentialities or the dialectical resolution of inner contradictions.

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