'difference.' And similarly the formulas of mathematics, mechanics, physics, etc., while they are cases of logical systems, have each their special superadded and distinguishing characters. The abstract logical system is non-temporal; but a temporal system may nevertheless be a case of a logical system, provided the time character be introduced. Hence it is absurd to say, as Bergson says, that "when the mathematician calculates the future state of a system at the end of a time t, there is nothing to prevent him from supposing that the universe vanishes from this moment till that, and suddenly reappears. It is the t-th moment only that counts - and that will be a mere instant. What will flow on in the interval, that is to say, real time, does not count, and cannot enter into the calculation." I can make nothing of this unless the author is regarding t merely as a number. But as a matter of fact t is a number of units of time, hence an interval, or extended flow; and multiplying this factor into the formula means that the whole process has continued through that interval — it means that the lapse of time is counted, is expressly brought into the calculation. Or, consider the same author's contention that to conceive time is to spacialize it. Again he is misled by supposing that because time is conceived as orderly, it is therefore nothing but order. Such an intellectualism would indeed be vicious. Bare logical order is static; and can never of itself express time. But it is an utterly different matter to regard time, like space and number, as a case of order, having the specific time quale over and above the properties of order. 'Position,' 'interval,' 'before' and 'after,' are then to be taken in the temporal sense; and the terms of the series are to be taken, not as bare logical terms, still less as spacial points, but as instants possessing a unique time-character of their own. Creative Evolution, p. 22. For a fuller discussion of Bergson's theory of time, cf. below, pp. 255-261. 89. Radical anti-intellectualism betrays, in short, a misapprehension of the analytical method. This method The Misunder- means simply the discrimination and specificastanding Con- tion of the detail of experience. It has led to cerning Analysis the discovery of certain elements and relationships that possess a remarkably high degree of generality, such, e.g., as those of logic and mathematics. But while these elements and relationships, because of their generality, serve to make things commensurable on a comprehensive scale, and are consequently of a peculiar importance in knowledge, it does not follow that intellectualism aims to abolish everything else. That which has logical form is not pure form. Furthermore, it is entirely incorrect to suppose that analysis imposes the relational and orderly arrangement regardless of the subject matter. The analytical method is neither an accident nor a prejudice. It arises from the fact that the subject matter with which science and philosophy deal is complex. And this is virtually admitted in every reference to it which anti-intellectualistic writers make. Continuity,' 'Continuity,' 'duration,' 'activity' and 'life' present, even in the most immediate experience of them which it is possible to obtain, an unmistakable multiplicity of character. They may be divided, and their several characters abstracted and named in turn; and simply because they contain variety. The anti-intellectualist is apparently ready to admit their multiplicity, but balks at admitting their "distinct multiplicity." But "distinctness" and "indistinctness" are psychological and not ontological differences. An "indistinct multiplicity" is simply a multiplicity that is as yet but imperfectly known — a distinct multiplicity qualified by an incompleteness of discrimination. Or is the anti-intellectualist troubled by the consideration that the concepts of analysis are not exact enough; that they over-simplify nature by trying to express it in 1 Bergson: op. cit., p. xiv. terms of a few broad types? Thus it may be contended that the boundaries of bodies are never absolutely straight or circular, or that no orbit is perfectly elliptical. But note what this criticism implies. It is based either on the fact that there is a sensible discrepancy between the form attributed to natural bodies in exact science, and the actual form of these bodies; or on the presumption that such a discrepancy would appear were our methods of study to be improved. In either case, the discrepancy in question is an analytical discrepancy, a difference of the same definite character as the terms compared. If natural boundaries or orbits are not of a relatively simple geometrical character, then it must be because they are of a more complex geometrical character; if not a straight, then a broken line, if not circular or elliptical, then curved in some other way. Such considerations as these, therefore, do not tell in the least against the analytical method, or cast doubt on the relational structure of reality. that Precedes Analysis 10. But anti-intellectualism is involved in a more serious error. Not only does it misunderstand the view which it attacks; but it puts forth a claim of its own which is unfounded, the claim, namely, to the The Supposed immediate apprehension of a fused and inarticuSuperiority of the Immediacy late unity. It exploits the common error of 'pseudo-simplicity.' This error consists, as we have seen, in projecting a verbal or subjective simplicity into the object. The single word 'life,' e.g., is used to refer to the complex thing, life. It is then assumed that behind the various characters of life, or infusing them, there must be a corresponding unity. Or, at the outset of inquiry, life is a problematic unity, a bare that, a something to be known; and it is assumed that this simple quale, this merging of elements, not-yet-but-tobe-distinguished, must somehow be among the elements themselves. There are two ways of unifying experience. One way is to carry analysis through, and discover the connections of the parts, and the articulate structure of the whole. The other is to reverse the operation, to carry it back to its vanishing point to the bare word or the bare feeling of attention. In the second case the experience is simplified by the disappearance of the object! A perfect simplicity, an ineffable unity, is attained at the point where the object drops out altogether. But then knowledge has ceased; and the experience, what there is of it, is of no cognitive significance whatsoever. In Thus Bergson says: "The more we succeed in making ourselves conscious of our progress in pure duration, the more we feel the different parts of our being enter into each other, and our whole personality concentrate itself in a point.”1 What Bergson is here describing is, I am convinced, the disappearance of cognition into an experience which is not an experience of anything at all. Such a unification may be obtained by falling asleep, or by auto-hypnosis. It throws no light whatever on the nature of anything. My experience of life has dissolved; but nothing follows concerning the nature of life. I have simply closed my eyes to it. I have blurred and blotted out my knowledge of life; but life is not therefore blurred or extinct. the twilight all things are gray; in ignorance all things are simple. Bergson speaks of the "feeling of duration," as "the actual coinciding of ourself with it"; and this, he says, admits of degrees. But I am not more alive when I feel duration than I was before when I thought it. The difference is that, whereas I formerly knew duration, or something of it, now I know comparatively nothing; I simply am duration. Duration itself is neither more nor less complex than it was before; my knowledge only has been simplified to the point of disappearance. Bergson speaks of an instinctive sympathy which, if it "could extend its object and also reflect upon itself," "would give us the key to vital operations." But I believe that it is safe to say that in proportion as there is reflection 1 Creative Evolution, p. 201. Ibid., pp. 200, 176. upon instinct, its complexity is manifest; and that in proportion as instinct is simple it has escaped experience altogether, and is, so far as cognition is concerned — nothing. § 11. The pragmatist critique of intellectualism, like the pragmatist theory of truth, tends to assume one or the The Subjectivis. other of two forms. Using Dewey's term tic Version of "immediatism" to express this pragmatist doctrine positively rather than negatively, we may say that there is a subjectivistic or idealistic version, and a realistic version, of immediatism. Immediatism The crucial issue upon which the idealistic and realistic versions of immediatism divide is whether the activity of the intellect is creative or selective. Does the intellect generate concepts, or does it discover them? If we are to judge from the Creative Evolution, Bergson regards the intellect as an artificer. In other words, ideas, things, and objects express, not the environment, but the agent. It is by no means clear that this is consistent with the Bergson view, that intellect is a means of adaptation. "If," as he himself says, "the intellectual form of the living being has been gradually modelled on the reciprocal actions and reactions of certain bodies and their material environment, how should it not reveal to us something of the very essence of which these bodies are made?" But this query does not prevent Bergson from deriving "intellectual form" from the intellect itself. The origin of it is to be looked for "in the structure of our intellect, which is formed to act on matter from without, and which succeeds by making, in the flux of the real, instantaneous cuts, each of which becomes, in its fixity, endlessly decomposable. . . . This complexity is the work of the understanding." In other words, the relational texture, the grain of things, is generated by intellect. Given matter, not-yetintellectualized, is pure flux, in its own substance as simple, smooth, and undivided as the life which acts on 1 Ibid., Introduction, p. xi, p. 250 (italics mine). |