This article is transferred from | Practice & Text
Title: Bergsonism
Author: Jill Deleuze
Translator: An Jing
Publisher: Shanghai People's Publishing House
Publication date: May 2023
Chapter 1 Intuitiveness as a Method (excerpt)
Continuity, memory, and the impulse to life mark several major stages in Bergson's philosophy. The goal of this book is to determine the relationship between these three concepts and the progress they imply.
Intuition is the Bergsonian approach. Intuition is neither sentiment nor inspiration, nor sympathie. It is a well-designed approach, if not one of the most well-designed philosophical. Intuition has its strict rules, and these rules constitute what Bergson calls "precision" in philosophy. Bergson did emphasize this point: the intuition he understood at the methodological level already assumed continuity. "In our view, these are essential for a continuous expedition. Step by step, these investigations lead us to establish intuition as a philosophical method. Also, we hesitate for a long time when faced with the word intuitive. "He's giving Höffding
"You attach far more importance to the theory of intuition than to the theory of continuity. But it seems to me that the intuitive theory came into existence long after the extension theory. ”
However, both "first" and "second" have multiple meanings. Compared to stretching or remembering, intuition is definitely secondary. However, even though these concepts themselves refer to realities and experiences that are actually experienced, they do not provide us with any means of knowing these realities and experiences (with a precision similar to scientific precision). Curiously, if intuition as a method in the true Bagsonian sense does not exist, then the statement that "continuity is still 'intuitive' only in the usual sense" is possible. The fact is that Bergson established philosophy as an absolutely "precise" discipline by means of an intuitive approach, with the same precision in its field as science does in its field. It is also as sustainable and communicable as science. Moreover, from the perspective of cognition, without the methodological clue of intuition, the relationship between continuity, memory, and life impulse will never be defined. In all of these respects, we should give priority to the elucidation of intuition—a rigorous or precise method—in the first place.
The most general methodological question is: once we accept the notion that "a method essentially implies one or more médiations", can an intuition that first means immédiate know form a method? Bergson often interprets intuition as an acte simple. But in his view, simplicity (simplicité) does not exclude a qualitative and potential multiplicity (multiplicité qualitative etvirtuelle), nor does it exclude the different directions in which it is actualized. In this sense, intuition implies multiple meanings, implying multiple perspectives that are irreducible. Bergson fundamentally distinguishes between three kinds of activities, which prescribe the rules of method: the first involves the formulation and creation of problems; The second activity involves the discovery of true differences in nature; The third activity involves the understanding of real time, and it is precisely by showing how one means can be transitioned from one meaning to another and which meaning is "fundamental" that one should rediscover the intuition of the activity as a practical experience, with the aim of answering general methodological questions.
The first rule: let the problem itself be tested by truth and falsehood, expose false problems, and reconcile truth and creation at the level of the problem. In fact, we mistakenly believe that "true" and "false" only involve the solution of the problem, and only begin with the solution. It's a social prejudice (because society, and the language that communicates social directives to us, "gives" us ready-made problems [they're like taken out of the "administrative bin" of the town hall) and forces us to "solve" them. The free space we have is very limited). Moreover, this bias is developed in childhood and in school: it is the teacher in the school who "gives" problems, and the task of the student is to discover solutions to these problems. In this way, we are in a state of enslavement. True freedom consists in having the capacity to decide (pouvoir), to have the capacity to constitute the problem itself: this "demitheistic" capacity means both the elimination of false problems and the creative emergence of real problems. "For philosophy, as well as in other fields, the key to truth is to find the problem and ultimately ask the question, not to solve the problem. This is because a speculative problem has already been solved as soon as it is raised. In this regard, my understanding is that while the solution to the problem already exists, it may be hidden, or couverte: all that remains is to découvrir, that is, to reveal them. However, asking a question is not simply about discovering the problem, it is also about inventing it. Discovery is only directed at what already exists, whether it exists in reality or potentially; So, sooner or later, it will always come. Invention gives existence to something that does not exist, and which may never come. This is already true in mathematics, and even more so in metaphysics, where the effort to invent is often aimed at stimulating problems, with the aim of coining terms in order to formulate questions. Asking questions and solving problems are close to being equated here: really big problems are never raised only when they are solved. ”
Not only the entire history of mathematics supports Bergson. We can also compare the last sentence of Bergson's text quoted above with Marx's statement about practice: "Humans only propose problems that they can solve." In both cases, the key is neither to assert that "the problem is like a shadow of a pre-existing solution" (the whole context points to the opposite) or to assert that "only the problem matters". On the contrary, it is the solution that is important, but the problem is always solved according to the way in which it is proposed, according to the conditions under which it is prescribed, and according to the means and terminology that people have at their disposal in order to propose it. In this sense, the history of man is the history of the composition of problems, whether from a theoretical or practical perspective. Man makes his own history by posing problems, and to be aware of this activity is to be free. (It is true that in Bergson, the concept of problem has its supra-historical roots, which are found in life itself or in the impulse of life: life is fundamentally defined in the activity of overcoming obstacles, asking questions, and solving problems.) The construction of an organism is both the formulation and the solution of a problem. )
But how can we reconcile the constitutive force with the norm of truth in the question? If it is relatively simple to define truth or falsehood with a solution to a question when it is asked, it is very difficult to say what truth or falsehood means when one relates truth to falsehood with the formulation of the question. Bergson's major achievement lies precisely in his attempt to make an intrinsic definition of the "false" in the expression "false question". This gives rise to the supplementary rules to the general rules mentioned above.
Supplementary rules: There are two kinds of false questions, one is the "problèmes inexistants", which are characterized by the fact that their terms imply the confusion of "more" and "less"; The other is "problèmes malposés" (inappropriately asked questions), which are characterized by the fact that their terms represent a mixture that has not been properly analyzed.
With regard to the former type of problems, Bergson gives examples of non-existent problems, disordered problems, or possible problems (epistemic and existential problems); With regard to the latter type of problem, Bergson gives the example of the problem of freedom or the problem of intensité. He is very famous for his analysis in this area. In the first case, his analysis aims to show that the notions of "non-existence", "disorder" and "possibility" are not less content than the ideas of "existence", "order" and "reality", but more content. In fact, the notion of "non-being" contains first and foremost the notion of "being", in addition to a generalized negation-logical operation, and then a special psychological motivation for this operation (when a being does not meet our expectations and is merely the absence or absence of something that we grasp as something we care about). The idea of "disorder" already includes the idea of "order" in the first place, but also the negation of the idea of "order" and the motivation for this negation (when we encounter an order that is not what we expect). The idea of "possibility" has more content than the idea of "reality": "for it may only be reality plus a mental activity that, when completed, throws the image of reality back into the past", and it also contains the motive for this activity (when we confuse the generation of a reality in the universe with the successive succession of states in a closed system).
When we ask, "Why does something exist and not nothing?" Or, "Why does order exist and not disorder?" Or, "Why does this exist and not that (which is also possible)?" We fall into the same trap: we take "more" for "less", and what we do seems to be treating non-existence as something that exists first, disorder as something that exists before order, and possibility as something that exists before existence. It is as if existence will fill the void, and order will organize the prior disorder, and the first possibility will be realized. Existence, order, or existence is "true", while in the case of falsehood there is a fundamental illusion, a "true backward movement". Through this movement, existence, order, and existence are thought to precede themselves or to the creative activity that composes them, because their images are cast back into a possibility, a disorder, a non-being (all three are assumed to be "primordiaux]). This is a fundamental theme in Bergson's philosophy, which encapsulates Bergson's critique of the negation, of all the negative forms that are the source of the false problem.
The second type of false questions is inappropriately posed, and they seem to involve a different mechanism: this time the object is an inadequately analysed mixture of things that are intrinsically different are arbitrarily assembled in these mixtures. For example, someone might ask, "Can happiness be reduced to happiness?" But the word "happy" may encompass a number of distinct states, and they are in no way reducible to each other. The same is true of the concept of "happiness". If the terminology does not correspond to the various "articulations naturelles", then the problem is a false question that does not touch on the "nature of things". Bergson's analysis of this aspect is also very famous, for example, when he exposes intensity as a mixture that arises because people confuse the quality of sensation with the corresponding part of the musculature (espace musculaire) or the amount of physical cause that causes it to arise, that is, the concept of "intensity" implies an impure mixture of different natures, "How much is the sensation enhanced?" This kind of question will thus always point to an inappropriately asked question. The same is true of the question of freedom, since the concept implies the confusion of two different types of "multipliture": the complex of different items placed in space, and the complex of different states that merge with each other in the continuation.
Let's go back to the first type of false question. According to Bergson, "more" is perceived as "less". But Bergson sometimes says that "less" is taken for "more": if suspicion about an action is only superficially added to that action, but in fact proves an incomplete "half-will", then likewise the negation is not added to what it negates, but only proves the weakness of the subject who makes the negation. "We feel a will or thought with a divine creativity, a will or thought with a vast and boundless reality so abundant that the idea of 'absence of order' or 'absence of being' cannot even be flashed in the slightest. For this kind of will or thought, 'to manifest the possibility of absolute disorder, especially the possibility of nothingness' means that 'it itself may not exist at all', and this is a weakness that conflicts with its nature, which is force...... It's not more, it's less; It is a lack of will. Do these two statements (the former one says "there is more non-being than being" and the latter says "non-existence is less than being") contradict each other? If we take into account Bergson's following revelation of the "non-existent problem", then the answer is clearly no: thinking in terms of "more" and "less" is absurd anyway. The idea of "disorder" arises because people do not recognize the existence of two or more irreducible orders (e.g., the order of life and the order of machinery, one order is only present when the other order is not present), but only retains a general idea of "order". People are content to oppose this idea of order to disorder, and to think about the idea of order in relation to the idea of disorder. The notion of "non-being" arises because we do not grasp the different realities that are indefinitely interchangeable (indéfiniment), but rather mix them in a homogeneity of being (Êtreengénéral). All this being can do in general is to oppose nothingness and connect with nothingness. The idea of "possibility" arises because one does not grasp each being's novelty (nouveauté), but leads the whole of existence back to a pre-formed element (élément), that is, the emergence of any being is seen as a mere "realization" of that element.
In short, whenever one thinks in terms of "more" or "less", one has already overlooked the differences in nature between the two orders or between different beings and different beings. In this way, we understand how the first type of false problems ultimately depends on the second type of false problems: the idea of "disorder" arises from the general idea of "order" as a mixture that has not been properly analyzed, and so on. Moreover, the most general error of thinking, the common error of science and metaphysics, is to conceive everything in terms of "more" and "less", that is, to see only differences in degree or intensity, and ignore the differences in nature that exist in the deeper depths.
Thus, we fall prey to a fundamental illusion that corresponds to the two sides of the false problem. In fact, the very concept of "false questions" means that we are not fighting against mere errors (pseudo-solutions), but against something much more profound, that is, the illusions that drive us or in which we are immersed and cannot be separated from our condition. Bergson called it a mirage when he spoke of "possible throwbacks." Bergson borrowed one of Kant's ideas and reinvented it radically: it was Kant who showed that what emerges from the depths of reason is not error, but an inevitable illusion. All we can do with these illusions is eliminate their effects. Although Bergson prescribes the nature of false questions in a very different way, and although Kantian critique still seems to him to be a litany of inappropriately raised questions, his way of looking at illusion is still similar to Kant's. Illusion is rooted in the deepest depths of reason. Exactly, it is neither dispelled nor can it be dispelled, it can only be suppressed. We tend to think in terms of "more" and "less", that is, we tend to see only differences in degree where there are differences in nature. There is only one way to resist this intellectual tendency, that is, to provoke another tendency in the intellect – criticism. But where does this second tendency come from? Only intuition can stimulate and activate this second tendency, for it finds the difference in nature beneath the difference in degree, and also conveys to the intellect some criteria. These criteria allow reason to distinguish between real and false questions. Bergson makes it clear that the intellect is the faculté that asks questions, while the instinct is the faculté that finds the answer. But only intuition can determine which of the questions being asked are true and which are false, even if it forces reason to turn against itself.