substantiality and causality () || causality and time. some remarks on bergson’s metaphysics

Damian LeszczyńskiCausality and Time. Some Remarks onBergson’s Metaphysics

1 IntroductionCartesiandualismwhich introduced substantial dichotomyof the extensional andmental, enabled in this way – paradoxically – a spatial or geometrical treatmentof mind (consciousness, self). This spatial apprehension was in addition basedon mechanistic intuitions and led to a very inaccurate concept of mind or con-sciousness. What was the cause? The main point was that these analysis in mostof the cases ignored the temporal nature of consciousness, treating time as thesubsequent parameter of space.

In modern philosophy the ultimate example of this attitude was the associa-tionism of David Hume that had a strong in�uence on the 20th century psychol-ogy and psychological philosophy. According to this standpoint, the relations oc-curing in consciousness between impressions and ideas (that is representations)have analogical nature as the relations between objects in space and are ruledby analogical principles: resemblance, contiguity and cause and e�ect. We cansay that Hume proposed real Newtonian mechanics of mind and its consequencewas the elimination of the self as a substantial subject and the center that couldorganize phenomena revolving in an empty space of mind.

Immanuel Kant recognized the essence of this issue. According to him, theconcept or intuition of space (extension) is not a feature of things but one of theforms of our cognition – forms that we impose on the things or in which we graspthem. These forms are – as Kant said – subjective and structural conditions of allpossible knowledge. Kant knows that consciousness itself – as the source of spa-tiality – has a di�erent character and is connectedwith temporality. Nevertheless,Kant did not develop temporal analysis of mind because in his project he neededintuition of time as some kind of parameter or speci�c dimension that would con-stitute the framework of possible experience. Therefore he treated it mainly as aform of an object rather than a feature of subject and did not explicate the essen-tial di�erence between time as the form of intuition (time as parameter analogicalto space) and time as the distinctive feature of a subject. On the basis of his systemof categories lies a typical modern conception of spatialised time and categories

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that have in fact associationistic character. In a general form Kant’s idea of mindis close to Hume.

2 Causality and spaceThis kind of spatial and mechanistic idea of consciousness – its internal and ex-ternal relations – was generally accepted inmodern philosophy. One of its promi-nent critics wasHenri Bergson. In his �rst two books and early articles we can �ndinteresting analysis of modern connection between mind and space. His startingpoint is Kant’s idea of causality and its relation to the spatial form of cognition.

In Bergson’s view, our idea of causality, similar to other concepts or cate-gories describing relations, is based on some spatial geometrical scheme inwhichevery phenomenon is presented as extensive. This scheme may be regarded assome kind of an apriorical form of cognition in the Kantian sense, although it israther closer to Cassirer’s or Poincaré’s modi�ed version where these aprioricalschemes or structures are treated as operational or functional. This spatial cogni-tive structure is a condition of possibility (in a transcendental sense) to perceiveor rather construct some relationships between these phenomena. Those relation-ships may be understood in Hume’s manner, as causality, resemblance and con-tiguity, or in Kant’s manner – as inherence and subsistence (substance and acci-dent), causality and dependence (cause and e�ect) and community (reciprocity).This structure also makes individuation of the objects possible. Bergson suggeststhat it is also a condition of possibility to use other categories, especially of quan-tity. Our common sense and scienti�c cognition is based on that spatial schemeor structure.

Our basic cognitive processes consist of representing things in spatial exten-sion which makes a description of our world (e.g. Kantian’s “nature”), using cat-egories of relation and quantity, possible. It is important to emphasize that anepistemological view of these processes needs to avoid dualism of a conceptualscheme and pure material facts – a third dogma of empiricism, as Davidson says.In reality, the facts are presented as already interpreted and embraced in a spatialform.

Bergson in many ways agrees with Kant that our cognition is a process inwhichwe embrace thematter of experience in some subjective forms, but hemod-i�es this proposition by making a signi�cant point. In opposition to Kant, whosaid that all our cognitive processes depend on this subjective, spatial structure,Bergson insists that not all cognitive processes are relative andwe have somenon-relative and non-spatial cognition, for example intuitive cognition. The spatial



Causality and Time | 167

subjective form is not a necessary condition for all knowledge. It is necessary onlyon the level of everyday experience, in our natural attitude and scienti�c knowl-edge which is relative to our practical, social and vital demands. This form can beregarded as some kind of convention in Henri Poincaré’s sense, similar to a typeof geometry which we choose to describe our world (we commonly choose Eu-clidean geometry but we can choose also non-Euclidean geometry, for exampleelliptical or hyperbolical). The structure that Kant reconstructed is not the onlyform of knowledge but one of many forms among which we can �nd also otherforms – as Ernst Cassirer pointed out. Bergson thinks that the alternative way ofcognition is the intuitive and immediate knowledge. It is problematicwhether thatintuitive knowledge is pure and free from subjective conditions or based on somealternative structure. I think this is an issue to be discussed.

Kant, as we know, describing our structure of knowledge says that there isnot only a spatial form of cognition but also a temporal one. It means that ourcognition is based on some fourth-dimensional structure or subjective formwhichallowsus to localize each thing in somepoint of space-time continuum.HereBerg-son oncemore agrees with Kant but also modi�es his ideas. In Bergson’s opinion,the time Kant talks about is not a real time but some geometrical time modelledon space and treated as an additional dimension of space. The symbolic image ofthat geometrical time is a straight line with points which illustrates passing in-stants (moments). In short, our image of temporality and our temporal structureof cognition has a fundamentally spatial character. Time is a subsequent parame-ter of space and it is measured in the same way as space. In the light of Poincaré’sinterpretation of Kantian philosophy, we can say that spatio-temporal structurehas in its basis a topological nature and uses a mathematical induction to createsynthetic a priori propositions and reasoning.

3 Non-spatiality and temporality ofconsciousness

The issues discussed above – the unnecessary character of spatial cognitive struc-ture and spatial nature of our typical perception of time – are connected. Now weshould ask a question: if not all cognition needs a spatial form, what kind of ex-perience can be performed without this form? Bergson’s answer is that this kindof experience is being performed when we direct our re�ection to our conscious-ness and precisely to the duration of our consciousness. This duration – durée

reele – is a real, non-spatial time, which Bergson calls pure creativity, quality andcontinuity.




It does not mean that our consciousness is always perceived without media-tion of a spatial structure. Bergson says that in everyday and practical life wemustuse a spatial form of cognition which is necessary to survive (his interpretationhas a biological and evolutional character). So we usually see our consciousnessin a spatial form and also our duration is presented to us in this spatial way as alinear time. But we can transcend this form of cognition and make some kind ofreduction of our natural attitude, we can put demands of everyday life in bracketsandmake some epoche in Husserlian sense. By doing that, we can descend to thelevel of immediate and non-spatial experience.

Bergson claims that this immediate experience of duration of consciousnessis something common, although rather temporary and usually we do not pay at-tention to that kind of experience. There are some examples which show that thisexperience is possible – themost extreme examples are that of people who are ontheir death bed and in one moment they see images of their whole life. But thereare also some more conventional examples showing the insu�ciency of a typicalspatial vision of consciousness and the necessity of an alternative, non-spatialview. They are connected with two kinds of multiplicity and two kinds of quantitydescribed by Bergson. Let us present some examples.

(a) Permeation. In Essai sur les donnés immédiates (English translation: Timeand Free Will) Bergson writes that we usually imagine permeation as a processin which one body penetrates another and molecules of one body squeeze intoanother. Therefore, we usually use a spatial scheme to imagine that kind of situ-ation. But if we re�ect on our present state of consciousness we can see that, infact, permeation has a very di�erent nature. The good example is the permeationof various sounds in one instant – the sounds that are very close to us and thesounds of background that play a role of “soundtrack” to our mental activity. An-other example is the permeation of di�erent qualities – images, sounds, smellsand experiences of touch. Yet another example is the permeation of present sen-sations, images and thoughts and some images of future andmemories –we knowthat all of thempermeate one another butwe also feel that this permeation cannotbe expressed in spatial, extensive and geometrical terms.¹

1 Conf. Bergson (2001), 88–90. “As amatter of fact, each of us makes a distinction between thesetwo kinds of multiplicity whenever he speaks of the impenetrability of matter. We sometimes setup impenetrability as a fundamental property of bodies, known in the same way and put on thesame level as e.g. weight or resistance. But a purely negative property of this kind cannot be re-vealed by our senses; indeed, certain experiments in mixing and combining things might leadus to call it in question if our minds were not already made up on the point. Try to picture onebody penetrating another: you will at once assume that there are empty spaces in the one which




(b) Multiplicity and unity – again, it is usually imagined in a spatial form,but we can think about some other kind of multiplicity which is simultaneously aunity, that is a musical chord. According to Bergson, it is a very typical exampleof a temporal, qualitative and non-spatial phenomenon. Our sense of di�erencebetween two kinds of chords – for example, D-major and d-minor – is that kind ofnon-spatial phenomenon.

(c) Sequence and continuity – a good examplewould be anothermusical phe-nomenon, that ismelody.Melody is usually illustrated as a sequence of notes com-ing one after another, but, according to Bergson, it is a continuity of a very di�er-ent kind. We can say that melody has some extension from moment a to momentb, but in fact it is not spatial or quasi-spatial extension – it is a temporal durationand our experience of speci�c melody is pure temporal (it would be interesting tostudy Strawson’s analysis of the world of sound from this perspective and also theproblem of the possibility to construct spatial image of the world without visualexperiences, only on the basis of auditory sensations).

will be occupied by the particles of the other; these particles in their turn cannot penetrate oneanother unless one of them divides in order to �ll up the interstices of the other; and our thoughtwill prolong this operation inde�nitely in preference to picturing two bodies in the same place.Now, if impenetrability were really a quality of matter which was known by the senses, it is notat all clear why we should experience more di�culty in conceiving two bodies merging into oneanother than a surface devoid of resistance or a weightless �uid. In reality, it is not a physical buta logical necessity which attaches to the proposition: Two bodies cannot occupy the same placeat the same time. The contrary assertion involves an absurdity which no conceivable experiencecould succeed in dispelling. In a word, it implies a contradiction. But does not this amount torecognizing that the very idea of the number 2, or, more generally, of any number whatever, in-volves the idea of juxtaposition in space? If impenetrability is generally regarded as a quality ofmatter, the reason is that the idea of number is thought to be independent of the idea of space.We thus believe that we are adding something to the idea of two or more objects by saying thatthey cannot occupy the same place: as if the idea of the number 2, even the abstract number,were not already, as we have shown, that of two di�erent positions in space! Hence to assert theimpenetrability of matter is simply to recognize the inter-connexion between the notions of num-ber and space, it is to state a property of number rather than of matter. Yet, it will be said, do wenot count feelings, sensations, ideas, all of which permeate one another, and each of which, forits part, takes up the whole of the soul? Yes, undoubtedly; but, just because they permeate oneanother, we cannot count them unless we represent them by homogeneous units which occupyseparate positions in space and consequently no longer permeate one another. Impenetrabilitythus makes its appearance at the same time as number; and when we attribute this quality tomatter in order to distinguish it from everything which is not matter, we simply state under an-other form the distinction established above between extended objects, to which the conceptionof number is immediately applicable, and states of consciousness, which have �rst of all to berepresented symbolically in space”.




(d) Di�culties with imagining and comparing some conventional units oftime (spatialised time). Let us try to image one minute which has to come or nexthour or year – future, past or present. Again, we usually do it by using spatialscheme and putting under our images some measure based on some events-points or thoughts-points, which are ordered in a straight line. When I try toimagine today’s time between 9 and 10 am I automatically think about some ac-tivities or actions but those actions are not identical with the past duration of myconsciousness. We can refer here to examples of dreams or lucid dreams and spe-ci�c dream-time characterizing theworld of dreams. In Bergson’s view, the natureof those experiences consists of their qualitative intensity and not quantitativeextensity.

(e) A similar example – division of present duration, e.g. distinguishing bor-ders of instants. According to Bergson, duration has a continuous nature, not dis-crete, but it is not a spatial continuity which can be freely divisible.

(f) A problem of identicalness and uniqueness.Whenwe try to describe statesof our consciousness we usually create some conventional units, relations andcategories using a spatial scheme. But they cannot capture a creative characterof duration which makes each moment unique and incomparable with one an-other – because their nature consists in their intensity (it is hard to compare, forexample, our morning boredom with evening melancholy).

To summarize, we can say that Bergson’s aim is to show that the relations weestablish between phenomena, measures and divisions we make (in Humean orKantian style) are incommensurable or incongruent with our immediate experi-ences concerning the duration of our consciousness. In other words, the spatialscheme of cognition, which is useful and comfortable in everyday life and in sci-enti�c research, is not appropriate when we want to grasp the real nature of con-sciousness or mind.

If we cannot correctly grasp the states of our consciousness with the use ofspatial structure of cognition, we cannot describe themwith the categories whichare based on this spatial structure – also the category of causality. If the relation ofcausality may only apply to spatial and extensive phenomena, we can attribute itto consciousness onlymetaphorically. In our consciousness there are some, otherthan causal, relations or processes – these are some temporal processes and re-lations which characterize, as Bergson says, “creativity”. The essential feature ofconsciousness is, according to Bergson, free will. This freedom describes a situa-tion in which a conscious subject is a sovereign author of his actions. We can saythat this is some kind of causality but not mechanical, acting in spatial environ-




ment, but causality of a di�erent kind. In this point Bergson seems to be closer toAristotle and classical philosophy than to Galileo, Newton and modern thought.

4 The problem of causal relation between theworld and mind

The �rst discussed problem was linked with the possibility of a spatial approachto consciousness and, in consequence, a possibility of its casual description (andprecisely – this kind of causation that we deal with in relation to phenomena ofthe so called external world or material phenomena). The second problem refersto a possibility of an adequate description of the relationship between conscious-ness and the world in terms of causality. The essential question is associated withtraditional views on the relation between the world and mind described by theconcepts of “externality” or “transcendence”.

A relationship between a subject (consciousness, mind) and an object (real-ity, world) is usually viewed as a relation between the “internal” and the “exter-nal” (especially in epistemology we have the idea of a cognitive relation as someact “transcending” the “immanent” subject or some kind of presence of a “tran-scendent” object in a “immanent” subject). In Bergson’s views, the immanence-transcendence, the internal-external opposition canonlybemetaphorical andnotdescriptive. If the world is “external”, the mind cannot be “internal”, except thematerialistic view which identi�es mind with brain – brain is “internal” in theworld but also is a part of “external” world. Both terms are concerned with rela-tions in space– if themindwas internal, itwouldbe in space and, in consequence,have an extension. But if the mind has no extension, there is nothing “external”or “transcendent” to it in a spatial sense (although we may understand the term“transcendent” in a non-spatial way, as Roman Ingarden pointed out). In short,if we do not accept materialistic and reductive views (and there are many reasonsto reject them), we cannot describe the relationship between consciousness andreality in spatial terms and we cannot simply explain the mind-body problem.

That was of course an old di�culty connected with traditional Cartesian du-alism, but in Bergson’s version it has a new dimension. If we cannot describe therelationship between the mind and the world in spatial terms, we also cannot de-scribe it using traditional categories because they are based on spatial forms ofcognition and make sense only in connection with them. From this perspective,a traditional statement about a causal relation between neuronal states of brainand states ofmind are doubtful. The brain as an extensive object (that is the imageof brain as extensive) is part of theworld and is situated in space (even if the space




is only a transcendental form of sensibility). But consciousness is not situated inspace. And because only spatial and extensive things can be part of a causal re-lation, so that relation cannot exist between the brain (as spatial and extensive)and the mind (as non-spatial and only intensive).

Another of Bergson’s argument sounds like this: our brain is only an extensiveimage among other images appearing in consciousness. Similarly, our nervoussystem is only the extensive image in space presented to our mind. So we cannottreat those images as the causes of our consciousness in which those images arepresented. Subjective images cannot create subject that has that images. Bergsonwrote about it inMatière et Mémoire:

The a�erent nerves are images, the brain is an image, the disturbance travelling through thesensory nerves and propagated in the brain is an image too. If the image which I term cere-bral disturbance really begot external images, it would contain them in one way or another,and the representation of thewholematerial universewould be implied in that of thismolec-ular movement. Now to state this proposition is enough to show its absurdity. The brain ispart of the material world; the material world is not part of the brain. Eliminate the imagewhich bears the name material world, and you destroy at the same time the brain and thecerebral disturbance which are parts of it. Suppose, on the contrary, that these two images,the brain and the cerebral disturbance, vanish: ex hypothesi you e�ace only these, that isto say very little, an insigni�cant detail from an immense picture. The picture in its totality,that is to say the whole universe, remains. To make of the brain the condition on which thewhole image depends is in truth a contradiction in terms, since the brain is by hypothesisa part of this image. Neither nerves nor nerve centres can, then, condition the image of theuniverse.²

It is interesting that this mistake is widely present in contemporary philosophy ofmind in which a concept of representation plays a central and important role.

5 ConclusionThis is only an outline of some interesting issues that arise when we carefully an-alyze Bergson’s ideas. It is important to notice that Bergson’s vision of mind is op-posite not only to traditionalmodern philosophy (fromDescartes to Kant) but alsoto the contemporary (that is 20th century) philosophy – from Husserl and Carnapto the newest conceptions of philosophy inspired by cognitive sciences. Contem-porary philosophy of mind, especially its widely used concept of representation,is in fact some kind of intellectual regress and return to simplistic ideas of Locke,

2 See, Bergson (2007), 3–4.




Hume and the philosophers of French Enlightenment. This philosophy proposessomewhat naive image of mind as a kind of a bucket (in Popper’s words) in whichrepresentations are moving like Newtonians masses ruled by elementary laws ofassociation. From this perspective, I think, studying Bergsonian’s idea can be in-tellectually refreshing.

Summary: The modern concept of mind or consciousness, deeply rooted inCartesian division between thinking mind and extensional world, paradoxicallyhas in many respects spatial and geometric character. The most typical examplesof it can be found in Hume’s associationism as well as in Kant’s theory of theform of cognition. In this article I presented some critical remarks on that conceptwhich were inspired by the early works of Henri Bergson, especially his analysisof the connection between ideas of causality and space.

BibliographyBergson, H. (2001), Time and Free Will. An Essay on the Immediate Data of Consciousness,

translated by F.L. Pogson, New York: Dover Publications.Bergson, H. (2007), Matter and Memory, translated by N. M. Paul and S. Palmer, New York:

Cosimo Classics.



substantiality and causality () || causality and time. some remarks on bergson’s metaphysics

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