Chapter 77 Chapter 28 Bergson

I Henri Bergson is the most important French philosopher of this century.He influenced William James and Whitehead, and had a considerable influence on French thought.Soler was an ardent advocate of syndicalism and wrote a book called "Reelection on Violence" (Reelection on Violence). Find grounds.In the end, however, Sorel abandoned syndicalism and became a monarchist.The main influence of Bergson's philosophy was on the conservative side, and this philosophy harmonized smoothly with the movement that culminated in the Vichy government.But Bergson's irrationalism has aroused widespread interest that has nothing to do with politics, such as George Bernard Shaw, whose Back to Methuse A lah is pure Bergsonism.Politics aside, we must examine its purely philosophical side.I have given some detail to Bergson's irrationalism, because it is an excellent example of the rebellion against reason that began with Rousseau and has continued to come to dominate the lives and minds of the world more and more widely. field.

Classification of schools of philosophy is usually done either by method or by result: "empirical" philosophy and "transcendental" philosophy are grouped according to method, "realistic" philosophy and "conceptual" philosophy On the "philosophy" is according to the classification of results.However, attempts to classify Bergson's philosophy by either of these two classifications seem to have seldom yielded good results, since his philosophy cuts across all accepted genus boundaries. But there is another method of classifying various schools of philosophy, which is less precise, but which may be more useful to non-philosophical people; the principle of division in this method is to divide according to the main desires that motivate philosophers to think philosophically.In this way there is a distinction between the philosophy of feeling born of the love of happiness, the theoretical philosophy born of the love of knowledge, and the philosophy of practice born of the love of action.

Emotional philosophy includes all philosophy that is basically optimistic or pessimistic, all philosophy that proposes a solution of salvation or attempts to prove that there is no possibility of salvation; most of the philosophy of religion belongs to this category.Theoretical philosophy contains most of the large systems; For although the lust for knowledge is rare, it has been the source of most of the best in philosophy.Practical philosophies, on the other hand, are those philosophies that regard action as the highest good, happiness as an effect and knowledge as a mere means to accomplish effective activity.This type of philosophy would have been common among Western Europeans, had philosophers been ordinary people; in fact, it has been rare until very recently;

In fact, the main representatives of this philosophy are the pragmatists and Bergson.In the rise of this type of philosophy we can see, like Bergson himself, the revolt of the modern man of action against the prestige of Greece, and especially of Plato; and cars, Dr. Schiller is clearly going to do so.The modern world needs such a philosophy, so its success is not unexpected. Bergson's philosophy is different from most previous philosophical systems in that it is dualistic: According to him, the world is divided into two fundamentally different parts, life on the one hand, and matter on the other, or rather something inactive that the intellect regards as matter.The entire universe is a conflict between two opposite movements, that is, the life that climbs up and the matter that falls down.Life is a great force, a great vital impulse, born at one stroke from the beginning of the world, which, meeting the obstacles of matter, strives to make a way among matter, and gradually learns to use matter by organization; Like the wind, it is divided into currents in different directions by the obstacles it encounters; it is partly subdued by it precisely by making the adaptations that matter forces it to do; yet it always retains its ability to move freely, always striving to find new The way out is always to seek greater freedom of movement among some opposing material barriers.

Evolution is basically not explained by adaptation to the environment; adaptation can only be explained by the twists and turns of evolution, which are like the twists and turns of a road leading to a town through a hilly country.But the analogy doesn't quite fit; there are no towns at the end of the road that evolution has traveled, and there are no definite goals.Mechanism and teleology have the same shortcoming: they both assume that there is nothing fundamentally new in the world.Mechanism regards the future as contained in the past, while teleology believes that the goal to be achieved can be known in advance, so it denies that the result contains any fundamental new things.

Bergson, though more sympathetic to teleology than to mechanism, contradicted both, arguing that evolution, like the work of an artist, is truly creative.An impulse to action, an indefinite demand, is pre-existing, but until the demand is satisfied it is impossible to know the nature of that thing which will satisfy it.Let us suppose, for example, that blind animals have some vague desire to be aware of objects before they come into contact with them.The resulting efforts culminated in the creation of the eye.Vision satisfies this desire, but vision was unimaginable in advance.Because of this, evolution cannot be predicted, and determinism cannot refute advocates of free will.

Bergson fills out this outline by describing the actual development of life on Earth. The first division of the life flow is divided into plants and animals; the purpose of plants is to accumulate power in the storehouse, and the purpose of animals is to use power to make sudden and fast movements.But at a later stage a new dichotomy arose among the animals: Instinct and reason are somewhat separated.The two are by no means entirely separate from each other, but in general reason is the misfortune of man, while instinct at its best is found in ants, bees, and Bergsons.The division between reason and instinct is crucial in his philosophy, and a large part of his philosophy is like Sanford and Merton, where instinct is the good boy and reason is the bad boy.

Instinct at its best is called intuition.He said, "What I mean by intuition is that instinct that has become selfless, self-conscious, able to meditate on its own object and expand that object without limit."What he says about intellectual activity is not always easy to follow, but we must do our best to understand Bergson's philosophy if we want to understand it. The intellect or intellect, "when out of the hands of nature, has for its principal object the inorganic solid"; it can form distinct ideas only of discontinuous and immovable things; its concepts, like bodies in space, are external to each other, and have the same stability.The intellect separates in space and fixes in time; it does not come to contemplate evolution, but to represent becoming as a succession of states. "The intellect is characterized by an innate incapacity to comprehend life"; geometry and logic are typical products of the intellect, strictly applicable to solid bodies, but in other cases reasoning must be checked by common sense, and common sense, Bergson is right , is a very different matter from reasoning.It seems as if the solid was something that the mind created on purpose to apply its intellect, just as the mind created a chess-board on which to play chess.According to him, the origin of the intellect and the origin of material objects are related to each other; both are developed by mutual adaptation.

"It must be the same process which, out of a material containing matter and intellect, separates both." This idea of ​​physical and intellectual growth at the same time is ingenious and worth understanding. In general, I think, what is meant is this: the intellect is the faculty of seeing things separate from each other, and matter is that which separates into different things.In fact, there are no separate solid objects, but only an endless flow of becoming in which nothing becomes, and what this nothing becomes is also nothing.But generation may be an upward movement or a downward movement: if it is upward movement, it is called life, if it is downward movement, it is the so-called matter that is mistaken by reason.I imagine the universe as a cone, with the Absolute at the apex, because upward motion brings things together, and downward motion separates things, or at least seems to separate them.In order for the upward movement of the mind to pass through the downward movement of the falling bodies which have fallen on the mind, the mind must make paths between the falling bodies; Streams are cut into separate objects.Reason may be likened to a man who cuts up meat at a table, but it has a characteristic of imagining that a chicken is itself a chicken cut into loose pieces with a cleaver.

Bergson says, "The intellect always behaves as if it were fascinated by the contemplation of inert matter. The intellect is life looking outward, placing itself outside itself, in order to actually dominate disorganized It is the natural course of action to take this course in principle".If we are allowed to add another metaphor to the many metaphors used to illustrate Bergson's philosophy, let's say that the universe is a huge mountain railway, life is an upward train, and matter is a downward train.Sanity is watching the descending train pass by the ascending train we are on.The apparently nobler ability to focus on our own train is instinct or intuition.It is also possible to jump from one train to another; it happens when we fall prey to automatic habits, which is the essence of the comic element.Or we can divide ourselves into two parts, one part ascending and one descending; then only the descending part is comedic.But intellect itself is not a descending movement, but only the observation of a descending movement by an ascending movement.

According to Bergson, the intellect, which separates things, is a dream; our whole life is supposed to be active, but the intellect is not active, but purely contemplative.When we dream, he says, our selves are scattered, our past is broken into fragments, and things that are actually interpenetrating are seen as separate solid units: the hyperspace degenerates into spatiality, which is nothing but Separation.Hence the whole intellect, since it works to separate, has a geometrical tendency; And logic, which discusses concepts that are completely external to each other, is really a consequence of geometry guided by materiality.Spatial intuition is needed behind both deduction and induction; "the movement that has spatiality at the end sets not only the deductive but the inductive faculty along its course, and indeed, the whole intellectual faculty."This movement creates in the mind the above faculties, and in turn creates the order of things which the intellect sees in the mind.Thus, logic and mathematics do not represent active mental endeavors, but merely a somnambulism in which the will ceases to function and the mind ceases to be active.Therefore, incapacity for mathematics is a mark of beauty— Fortunately, this is a very common mark. Just as intellect is related to space, so instinct or intuition is related to time.Unlike most writers, Bergson regarded time and space as very different, which is a distinctive feature of Bergson's philosophy.The characteristic of matter, space, is produced by the division of influx, which division is really an illusion, useful in practice within a certain limit, but very misleading in theory. On the contrary, time is an essential characteristic of life or spirit."Wherever something survives, there is a recorder that is noting time, exposed somewhere," he said.But the time mentioned here is not mathematical time, that is, it is not a homogeneous collection of instants external to each other.Mathematical time, according to Bergson, is really a form of space; the time of vital importance to life is what he calls duration.This concept of duration is a basic concept in his philosophy; it has already appeared in his earliest work "Time and  free Will", and we must understand it if we want to understand his system. .However, this is a very difficult concept to understand.I personally don't quite understand it, so while the concept is undoubtedly worth explaining, I can't hope to explain it that well. According to him, "Pure duration is the form that our states of consciousness take when our ego lets itself exist, that is, when the ego restrains its present state from previous states".Pure duration makes past and present an organic whole, in which there is interpenetration and indiscriminate succession. "Within our ego there is succession without reciprocal exteriority; outside the ego, i.e., in pure space, there is reciprocal exteriority without reciprocal exteriority." "The question about the subject and the object, about the distinction and unity of the two, should be raised not from the perspective of space, but from the perspective of time."In the duration in which we see ourselves acting, there are elements which are not connected; but in the duration in which we act, our states merge into one another.That which is furthest from and least impermeable to exteriority is the pure duration in which the past is filled with a wholly new present.But at this moment our will is strained to the extreme; we must pick up the past that is about to slip off and insert it into the present without any divisions.There are moments like this when we truly possess ourselves, but those moments are rare.Duration is the very stuff of reality itself, reality is eternal becoming, never something made. Duration manifests itself especially in memory, where the past remains in the present.Therefore, the theory of memory is very important in Bergson's philosophy. The book Matter and Memory seeks to illustrate the relationship between mind and matter; since memory "is precisely the intersection of mind and matter," and by analyzing memory, the book asserts that both mind and matter are real . There are, he says, two fundamentally different things commonly called memory; a distinction between the two which Bergson strongly emphasizes.He said: "The past survives in two distinct forms: first, in the form of motor mechanisms; second, in the form of independent memories".For example, a person is said to remember a poem if he can recite it, that is, if he has acquired some habit or mechanism enabling him to repeat a previous action.But, at least theoretically, he could repeat the poem without any recollection of previous occasions when he read it; thus, no awareness of past events is involved in such memories.Only the second kind of memory is really memory, and this memory is expressed in his recollection of the occasions when he read the poem, and each occasion is unique each time, and it is dated.In this case, he thought, there could be no question of habit, since each event happened only once and must be immediately impressed.He points out that, in a sense, everything that happens to us is remembered, but usually only the useful stuff enters consciousness.According to him, the apparent defect of memory is not really a defect of the mental element of memory, but of the motor mechanism which turns memory into action.He further supports this view by discussing facts about brain physiology and amnesia, from which it is thought that true memory is not a function of the brain.The past must be acted upon by matter and imagined by the mind.Memory is not an emanation of matter; indeed, if by matter we mean that which is grasped in concrete perceptions, which always occupy a certain duration, it would be closer to the truth to say that matter is an emanation of memory. "In principle, memory must be a faculty that is absolutely independent of matter. Then, if spirit is a reality, it is on this occasion, that is, in the phenomenon of memory, that we can come into contact with it experimentally." Bergson puts the position of pure perception at the opposite end from pure memory, and he takes a hyperrealistic standpoint regarding pure perception.He said: "In pure perception, we are actually placed outside ourselves, and we touch the reality of objects in direct intuition".He regards perception and its object so completely identical that he almost refuses to call perception a mental matter at all.He said: "Pure perception is the lowest level of spirit--mind without memory, which is really a part of that matter as we understand it." Pure perception consists of actions that are beginning, and its reality lies in its initiative.This is how the brain is related to perception, because the brain is not a means of action.The function of the brain is to limit our mental life to things that are actually useful.Presumably, without the brain, everything would be perceived, but in reality we only perceive things that arouse our concern. "The body always turns to action, and its fundamental function is to limit the spiritual life for action."In fact, the brain is the means of selection. It is time to return now to the subject of instinct or intuition as opposed to reason. It is necessary to talk about duration and memory first, because Bergson's discussion of intuition is based on his theory of duration and memory.In the present human race, intuition is the fringe or penumbra of intellect: it has been forced out of the center because it is less useful in action than intellect, but intuition has a more subtle use of its own, and it would be better to restore it to a lesser degree. prominent position.Bergson wanted to turn the intellect "inwardly towards itself, to awaken the potentialities of intuition that have hitherto slumbered within it".He likened the relation of instinct to intellect to that of sight to touch.The intellect, according to him, does not give knowledge of remote things; indeed, the function of science, he says, is to explain all perception from the point of view of touch. "Instinct alone," he says, "is remote knowledge. It has the same relation to the intellect as sight has to the sense of touch." We may note, in passing, that Bergson, in many passages, shows himself to be a man of great visual imagination. A strong person always thinks through visual images. The fundamental characteristic of intuition is that it does not divide the world into separate things, as the intellect does; although Bergson does not use the words "synthetic" and "analytical," we might as well speak of intuition as not analytical but is comprehensive.It apprehends multiplicity, but a multiplicity of interpenetrating processes, not of spatially external objects.Actually, things don't exist: "Things and states are nothing but our mind's perception of becoming. There are no things, only actions".Although this view of the universe is difficult and unnatural to the intellect, it is easy to understand and natural to the intuition.Memory may be taken as an example of the meaning of these words, for in memory the past survives into the present and penetrates into the present.Without the spirit, the world would be dying and rising again; the past would have no reality, therefore there would be no past.What makes past and future real, and thus creates true duration and true time, is memory and its associated desires.Only intuition can comprehend this fusion of past and future, which are always external to the intellect, as if spatially external to each other.Guided by intuition, we understand that "form is but a momentary perception of change" and that philosophers "will see the material world merged again into a single flow." Closely connected with the virtues of intuition are Bergson's liberties and his celebration of action.He says, "In effect, the living being is the center of action. A living being represents a certain sum of contingencies entering the world, that is to say, a certain number of possible actions".The argument against free will rests in part on the assumption that the intensity of a mental state is a quantity whose value can be measured, at least in theory; Bergson attempts to refute this notion in Chapter 1 of Time and Free Will.According to him, in part, the determinists rely on the confusion of true duration with mathematical time; Bergson sees mathematical time as actually a form of space.Moreover, determinists, in part, rest their claim on the unwarranted assumption that if the state of the brain is fixed, the state of the mind is theoretically determined. Bergson is willing to admit that the opposite is true, namely, that the state of the mind is determined by the state of the brain, but he regards the mind as more differentiated than the brain, so that he thinks that many different states of the mind can correspond to the brain. of a state.He asserts that true freedom is possible: "When our actions emanate from our whole personality, when these actions express the whole personality, when they share with the whole personality that incompatibility sometimes seen between the artist and his work. We are free when we are similar in name and form." In the foregoing overview I have largely tried to confine myself to Bergson's views without mentioning the reasons he gave in support of them.This is easier with Bergson than with most philosophers, since he usually does not give reasons for his opinions, but relies on their inherent charm and the evocative power of a well-written pen.Like an advertiser, he relies on vivid and varied statements, on superficial interpretations of many obscure facts.Analogies and similes, in particular, form a large part of the overall method he employs in presenting his ideas to his readers.There are more life metaphors to be found in his writings than any poet I know of.Life, he said, is like a cannonball like this: it explodes into pieces, and the pieces are cannonballs.Life is like a bundle.At first it was "a tendency to accumulate in cisterns, especially as the green parts of vegetation accumulate".However, this cistern must be filled with boiling water erupting with steam; "the streams must be constantly gushing out, and each stream falling back is a world."He added, "Life in its whole appears to be one gigantic wave, spreading outwards from a center, and being arrested almost on its whole circumference, transformed into oscillations: only at one point is the obstacle overcome. , the impact force passed freely".Second, life is compared to a cavalry charge, which is the climax of the metaphor. "All organic matter, from the lowest to the highest, from the first origin of life to our own period, and in all places and at all times, has demonstrated an impulse which is the opposite of the motion of matter, itself Indivisible. All living things are joined together, and all are moved by the same great propulsion. Animals occupy the supremacy of plants, and man crosses the animal kingdom, and in space and time, all human beings are one vast army , galloping behind each of us, left, right, and left, this sweeping assault can overwhelm all resistance, sweep away many obstacles, and perhaps even break through death." But a dispassionate critic who feels himself a mere spectator, perhaps an unsympathetic spectator, of the onslaught that puts man above the animal kingdom will find it hard to compete with this exercise. Tolerant.When he is told that thinking is only a means of action, an impulse to avoid obstacles in the field of battle, he feels that such an opinion is befitting a cavalry officer and not a philosopher, because philosophy The man is, after all, the business of thinking: he will feel that amidst the passion and clamor of violent movements there is no room for the feeble music of reason, no leisure for fair contemplation, in which, not through disturbance, It is the pursuit of greatness through the reflected universe.He may then be tempted to ask whether there is any reason at all to admit such a turbulent view of the universe.If I am right, if he asks this question, he will find no grounds for admitting this view of the universe, either in the universe or in the writings of Mr. Bergson. II Bergson's philosophy is not just an imaginative and poetic view of the universe. In this regard, the two foundations of Bergson's philosophy are his theory of space and time.His theory of space is necessary to his accusation against reason, and if he fails against reason, reason succeeds against him, for there is a merciless struggle between the two.His theory of time was necessary for his proof of freedom, for his escape from what William James called a "closed universe," for his theory of perpetual circulation in which nothing flows is necessary, and is necessary for all that he says about the relationship between mind and matter.It is therefore appropriate, in commenting on his philosophy, to concentrate our attention on these two doctrines.If these two doctrines are true, the petty errors and contradictions which any philosopher is bound to do not matter very much; Criticism of the imaginative epic.Since space theory is the simpler of the two, I will start with it. Bergson's theory of space is fully and explicitly stated in his "Time and Free Will", so it belongs to the earliest part of his philosophy.In the first chapter he asserts that the larger and the smaller imply space, since he sees the larger as something that contains the smaller at all.He offers no reason, good or bad, in support of this view; he simply exclaims, as if in plain reductioadabsurdum: "As if there were no diversity in what Even when there is no space, you can still talk about size!" Apparently contrary instances, such as pleasure and pain, caused him great difficulty, yet he never doubted and never examined the conclusions from which he proceeded. In the next chapter he makes the same argument about numbers.He said: "As soon as we try to imagine numbers, and not only numerals or numerical words, we have to resort to extended mental images", and "every clear idea of ​​​​numbers implies spatial vision. mental image".These two sentences are enough to show that Bergson does not understand what numbers are, and he himself has no clear concept of numbers. I intend to prove this point below.His following definition also shows this point: "Numbers can be generally defined as unit groups, or more precisely, as a synthesis of one and many". In discussing these statements, I am compelled to ask the reader to bear with me for a moment, and to note some distinctions which may at first appear pedantic, but are in fact of the utmost importance.There are three completely different things that Bergson has confused in the above statement, namely: (1) Number—a general concept applicable to individual numbers; (2) individual numbers; (3) groups to which individual numbers apply.Bergson said that numbers are groups of units, and it is the last term that he defines.The Twelve Apostles, the Twelve Tribes of Israel, December, and the Twelve Signs of the Zodiac are all unit groups, but none of them is the number "twelve", let alone the general number that should be according to the above definition.Obviously the number "twelve" is something that is common to all these groups, but not to others, such as the eleven-man cricket team.Therefore, the number "twelve" is neither a group of twelve things, nor something common to all groups; while the number in general is one of "twelve" or "eleven" or any other number. properties, but not properties of groups of twelve or eleven things. Thus, when we imagine, as Bergson puts it, "with recourse to extended images" the twelve dots obtained, say, from a roll of a pair of sixes, we still do not get the word "twelve". The mental image of numbers.In fact, the number "twelve" is more abstract than any mental image.Before we can talk about understanding the number "twelve", we must first know what the different groups of twelve units have in common, and because this is abstract, it is impossible to describe it in our hearts thing.Bergson only managed to make his theory of numbers plausible by confusing a particular group with its number of terms, and this number with numbers in general. This confusion is the same as the following.If we confuse a particular youth with adolescence, and adolescence with the general notion of a "period of life," and then maintain that, since youth has two legs, adolescence must have two legs, "the period of life" The general concept of "period" must have two legs.This confusion is of great importance, because as soon as it is seen, it is clear that the theory that numbers or individual numbers can describe their mental images in space is untenable.This not only denies Bergson's theory of numbers, but also his more general theory that all abstract ideas and all logic are derived from space. But, leaving aside the question of numbers, are we to admit Bergson's claim that all pluralities of discrete units imply space?He examines some of the cases that seem to contradict this view, such as the succession of sounds.He said that when we hear the footsteps of a pedestrian on the street, we suspend his sequential position in our minds. When we hear the sound of a bell, we either imagine the clock swinging back and forth, or arrange the successive sounds in an ideal space.But these words are merely the autobiographical account of a man of visual imagination, illustrating what we said earlier, that Bergson's insights depended on the predominance of his vision.There is no logical necessity to arrange the strikes of a clock in imaginary space, and I think most people count the strikes of clocks with no spatial aids at all.Bergson, however, gives no reason for the notion that space is necessary.He assumes this is obvious, and immediately applies this insight to time.Where, he says, there seem to be distinct times external to one another, the times are imagined spread out in space; , so I can't count them. He now takes the notion that all separateness implies space to be settled, and uses it deductively to show that whenever it is evident that there is separateness, space is implied, however few other reasons for such a conjecture may be.Abstract ideas, for example, are clearly mutually exclusive: white is not the same as black, healthy is not the same as sick, virtuous is not the same as the foolish.Hence all abstractions imply space; and therefore logic, which uses abstractions, is a branch of geometry, and the intellect rests entirely on his hypothetical habit of imagining things as juxtaposed in space.This conclusion is the basis of Bergson's entire charge against the intellect, and, so far as we have found it, is based entirely on the mistaking for the necessity of thought an individual idiosyncrasy, by which I mean the mental juxtaposition of successors and successors. together are depicted as spreading out on a line.The example concerning numbers shows that, if Bergson is right, we can never acquire abstract ideas which are supposed to be so full of space; The fact that he is an abstract idea seems sufficient proof that he was wrong in regarding the intellect as impregnated with space. One evil consequence of an anti-intellectual philosophy like Bergson's is that it thrives on intellectual error and confusion.This philosophy, therefore, prefers bad thinking to good thinking, asserts that all temporary difficulties are insoluble, and regards all foolish mistakes as showing the bankruptcy of reason and the victory of intuition.Bergson's writings contain many references to mathematics and science which, to the unwary reader, may seem to have greatly strengthened his philosophy.I am not well qualified to criticize his various explanations regarding science, especially biology and physiology.But with regard to mathematics, he deliberately adopts traditional fallacies in his explanations rather than adopting the more recent views that have been popular among mathematicians for nearly eighty years.In this matter he follows the example of most philosophers.During the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, calculus as a method was well developed, but it was supported by many fallacies and a great deal of confused thinking about its foundations.Hegel and his disciples seized on these fallacies and confusions as a basis for trying to prove that all mathematics is self-contradictory.Thus Hegel's treatment of these problems entered into the prevailing thought of philosophers, and long after the mathematicians had eliminated all the difficulties on which the philosopher relied still exists.只要哲学家的主要目的是说明靠耐心和详细思考什么知识也得不到，而我们反倒应该以“理性”为名（如果我们是黑格尔主义者），或以“直觉”为名（如果我们是柏格森主义者），去崇拜无知者的偏见——那么数学家为了除掉黑格尔从中得到好处的那些谬误而做的工作，哲学家就会故意对之保持无知。 除了我们已经谈的数的问题以外，柏格森接触到数学的主要一点是，他否定他所谓的对世界的“电影式的”描述。在数学中，把变化、甚至把连续变化理解为由一连串的状态构成；反之，柏格森主张任何一连串的状态都不能代表连续的东西，事物在变化当中根本不处于任何状态。他把认为变化是由一连串变化中的状态构成的这种见解称作电影式的见解；他说，这种见解是理智特有的见解，然而根本是有害的。 真变化只能由真绵延来解释；真绵延暗含着过去和现在的相互渗透，而不意味着各静止状态所成的一个数学的继起。这就是他所说的非“静的”而是“动的”宇宙观。这个问题很重要，尽管困难我们也不能不管。 柏格森的立场可以拿芝诺关于箭的议论来说明，在对他的批评方面我们要讲的话由此也可以得到恰当说明。芝诺议论，因为箭在每一瞬间无非是在它所在的地方，所以箭在飞行当中总是静止的。初看来，这个议论可能不像是十分有力的议论。当然，人会这样讲：箭在一个瞬间是在它所在的地方，但在另一个瞬间是在另外的地方，这正是所谓的运动。的确，如果我们一定要假定运动也是不连续的，由运动的连续性便产生某些困难之点。如此得出的这些难点，长期以来一直是哲学家的老行当的一部分。但是，如果我们像数学家那样，避开运动也是不连续的这个假定，就不会陷入哲学家的困难。假若一部电影中有无限多张影片，而且因为任何两张影片中间都夹有无限多张影片，所以这部电影中决不存在相邻的影片，这样一部电影会充分代表连续运动。那么，芝诺的议论的说服力到底在哪里呢？ 芝诺属于爱利亚学派，这个学派的目标是要证明所谓变化这种事情是不会有的。对世界应采取的自然看法是：存在着发生变化的物件；例如，存在着一支时而在此、时而在彼的箭。哲学家们把这个看法对分，发展出来两种誖论。爱利亚派的人讲，有物件而没有变化；赫拉克利特和柏格森讲，有变化而没有物件。爱利亚派的人说有箭，但是没有飞行；赫拉克利特和柏格森说有飞行，但是没有箭。双方各反驳对方，来进行辩论。“静”派的人讲，说没有箭是多么可笑！“动”派的人讲，说没有飞行是多么可笑！那位站在中间主张也有箭也有飞行的不幸者，被参与辩论的人认成是否定二者；他于是就像圣西巴斯蒂安一样，一侧被箭刺穿，另一侧被箭的飞行刺穿。但是我们仍然没有发现芝诺的议论的说服力何在。 芝诺暗中假定了柏格森的变化论的要义。那就是说，他假定当物件在连续变化的过程中时，即便那只是位置的变化，在该物件中也必定有某种内在的变化状态。该物件在每一瞬间必定和它在不变化的情况下有本质的不同。他然后指出，箭在每一瞬间无非是在它所在的地方，正像它静止不动的情况一样。因此他断定，所谓运动状态是不会有的，而他又坚持运动状态是运动所不可少的这种见解，于是他推断不会有运动，箭始终是静止的。 所以，芝诺的议论虽然没有触及变化的数学解释，初看之下倒像驳斥了一个同柏格森的变化观不无相似的变化观。 那么，柏格森怎样来对答芝诺的议论呢？他根本否认箭曾在某个地方，这样来对答。在叙述了芝诺的议论之后，他回答道：“如果我们假定箭能够在它的路径的某一点上，芝诺就说得对。而且，假如那支运动着的箭同某个不动的位置重合过，他也说得对。但是那支箭从来不在它的路径的任何一点上。” 对芝诺的这个答复，或者关于阿基里兹与龟的一个极类似的答复，在他写的三部书中都讲了。柏格森的见解坦白说是誖论的见解；至于它是不是讲得通，这个问题要求我们讨论一下他的绵延观。他支持绵延观的唯一理由就是讲变化的数学观“暗含着一个荒谬主张，即运动是由不动性做成的”。但是这种看法表面上的荒谬只是由于他叙述时用的词句形式，只要我们一领会到运动意味着“关系”，这种荒谬就没有了。 例如，友谊是由作朋友的人们做成的，并不是由若干个友谊做成的；家系是由人做成的，并不是由一些家系做成的。同样，运动是由运动着的东西做成的，并不是由一些运动做成的。运动表示如下事实：物件在不同时间可以在不同地点，无论时间多么接近，所在地点仍可以不同。所以，柏格森反对运动的数学观的议论，说到底化成为无非一种字眼游戏。有了这个结论，我们可以进而评论他的绵延说。 柏格森的绵延说和他的记忆理论有密切关联。按照这种理论，记住的事物残留在记忆中，从而和现在的事物渗透在一起：过去和现在并非相互外在的，而是在意识的整体中融混起来。他说，构成为存在的是行动；但是数学时间只是一个被动的受容器，它什么也不做，因此什么也不是。他讲，过去即不再行动者，而现在即正在行动者。但是在这句话中，其实在他对绵延的全部讲法中都一样，柏格森不自觉地假定了普通的数学时间；离了数学时间，他的话是无意义的。说“过去根本是不再行动者”（他原加的重点），除了指过去就是其行动已过去者而外还指什么意思呢？“不再”一语是表现过去的话；对一个不具有把过去当作现在以外的某种东西这个普通过去概念的人来说，这话是没有意义的。因此，他的定义前后循环。他所说的实际上等于“过去就是其行动在过去者”。作为一个定义而论，不能认为这是一个得意杰作。同样的道理也适用于现在。据他讲，现在即“正在行动者”（他原加的重点）。但是“正在”二字恰恰引入了要下定义的那个现在观念。现在是和曾在行动或将在行动者相对的正在行动者。 那就是说，现在即其行动不在过去、不在未来而在现在者。这个定义又是前后循环的。同页上前面的一段话可以进一步说明这种谬误。他说：“构成为我们的纯粹知觉者，就是我们的方开始的行动……我们的知觉的现实性因而在于知觉的能动性，在于延长知觉的那些运动，而不在于知觉的较大的强度： 过去只是观念，现在是观念运动性的。”由这段话看来十分清楚：柏格森谈到过去，他所指的并不是过去，而是我们现在对过去的记忆。过去当它存在的时候和现在在目前同样有能动性；假使柏格森的讲法是正确的，现时刻就应该是全部世界历史上包含着能动性的唯一时刻了。在从前的时候，曾有过一些其他知觉，在当时和我们现在的知觉同样有能动性、同样现实；过去在当时决不仅仅是观念，按内在性质来讲同现在在目前是一样的东西。可是，这个实在的过去柏格森完全忘了；他所说的是关于过去的现在观念。实在的过去因为不是现在的一部分，所以不和现在融混；然而那却是一种大不相同的东西。 柏格森的关于绵延和时间的全部理论，从头到尾以一个基本混淆为依据，即把“回想”这样一个现在事件同所回想的过去事件混淆起来。若不是因为我们对时间非常熟悉，那么他企图把过去当作不再活动的东西来推出过去，这种做法中包含的恶性循环会立刻一目了然。实际上，柏格森叙述的是知觉与回想——两者都是现在的事实——的差异，而他以为自己所叙述的是现在与过去的差异。只要一认识到这种混淆，便明白他的时间理论简直是一个把时间完全略掉的理论。 现在的记忆行为和所记忆的过去事件的混淆，似乎是柏格森的时间论的底蕴，这是一个更普遍的混淆的一例；假如我所见不差，这个普遍的混淆败坏了他的许多思想，实际上败坏了大部分近代哲学家的许多思想——我指的是认识行为与认识到的事物的混淆。在记忆中，认识行为是在现在，而认识到的事物是在过去；因而，如果把两者混淆起来，过去与现在的区别就模糊了。 在一部《物质与记忆》中，自始至终离不了认识行为与认识到的对象的这种混淆。该书刚一开头解释了“心象”，这种混淆便暗藏在“心象”一词的用法中。在那里他讲，除各种哲学理论而外，我们所认识的一切都是“心象”构成的，心象确实构成了全宇宙。他说：“我把诸心象的集合体叫做物质，而把归之于一个特定心象即我的肉体的偶发行动的同一些心象叫做对物质的知觉”。可以看到，据他的意见，物质和对物质的知觉是由同样一些东西构成的。他讲，脑髓和物质宇宙的其余部分是一样的，因此假如宇宙是一个心象，它也是一个心象。 由于谁也看不见的脑髓按普通意义来讲不是一个心象，所以他说心象不被知觉也能存在，我们是不感觉惊异的；但是，他后来又说明，就心象而言，存在与被有意识地知觉的差别只是程度上的差别。另外一段话也许能说明这一点，在那段话里他说：“未被知觉的物质对象，即未被想像的心象，除了是一种无意识的心的状态而外，还会是什么呢？”最后他说：“一切实在都和意识有一种相近、类似，总而言之有一种关系——这就是通过把事物称做'心象'这件事实本身我们向观念论让步的地方。”然而他仍旧讲，他是从还没有介绍哲学家的任何假说之前讲起的，打算这样来减轻我们一开始的怀疑。他说：“我们要暂时假定我们对关于物质的各种理论及关于精神的各种理论毫无所知，对关于外部世界的实在性或观念性的议论毫无所知。这里我就在种种心象的面前。”他在为英文版写的新序言中说：“我们所说的'心象'是指超乎观念论者所谓的表象以上、但是够不上实在论者所谓的事实的某种存在——是一种位于'事实'和'表象'中途的存在。” 在上文里，柏格森心念中的区别我以为并不是想像作用这一精神事件与作为对象而想像的事物之间的区别。他所想的是事物的实际与事物的表现之间的区别。至于主体与客体的区别，即以进行思考、记忆和持有心象的心为一方，同以被思考、被记忆或被描绘心象的对象为另一方之间的区别——就我所能理解的来说，这个区别在他的哲学中是完全没有的。不存在这种区别，是他真正假借于观念论的地方；而且这是非常不幸的假借。从刚才所讲的可以知道，就“心象”来说，由于不存在这种区别，他可以先把心象讲成中立于精神和物质之间，然后又断言脑髓尽管从来没有被描绘成心象，仍是一个心象，随后又提出物质和对物质的知觉是同一个东西，但是未被感知的心象（例如脑髓）是一种无意识的心的状态；最后，“心象”一词的用法虽然不牵涉任何形而上学理论，却仍旧暗含着一切实在都和意识有“一种相近、类似，总而言之有一种关系”。 所有这些混淆都是由于一开始把主观与客观混淆起来造成的。主观——思维或心象或记忆——是我里面现存的事实； 客观可以是万有引力定律或我的朋友琼斯或威尼斯的古钟塔。主观是精神的，而且在此时此地。所以，如果主观和客观是一个，客观就是精神的，而且在此时此地：我的朋友琼斯虽然自以为是在南美，而且独立存在，其实是在我的头脑里，而且依靠我思考他而存在；圣马可大教堂的钟塔尽管很大，尽管事实上四十年前就不再存在了，仍然是存在的，在我的内部可以见到它完整无损。这些话决不是故意要把柏格森的空间论和时间论滑稽化，仅仅是打算说明那两个理论实际的具体意义是什么。 主观和客观的混淆并不是柏格森特有的，而是许多唯心论者和许多唯物论者所共有的。许多唯心论者说客观其实是主观，许多唯物论者说主观其实是客观。他们一致认为这两个说法差别很大，然而还是主张主观和客观没有差别。我们可以承认，在这点上柏格森是有优点的，因为他既乐意把客观和主观同一化，同样也乐意把主观和客观同一化。只要一否定这种同一化，他的整个体系便垮台：首先是他的空间论和时间论，其次是偶然性是实在的这个信念，然后是他对理智的谴责，最后是他对精神和物质的关系的解释。 当然，柏格森的哲学中有很大一部分，或许是他的大部分声望所系的那一部分，不依据议论，所以也无法凭议论把它推翻。他对世界的富于想像的描绘，看成是一种诗意作品，基本上既不能证明也不能反驳。莎士比亚说生命不过是一个行走的影子，雪莱说生命像是一个多彩玻璃的圆屋顶，柏格森说生命是一个炮弹，它炸裂成的各部分又是一些炮弹。假若你比较喜欢柏格森的比喻，那也完全正当。 柏格森希望世界上实现的善是为行动而行动。一切纯粹沉思他都称之为“作梦”，并且用一连串不客气的形容词来责斥，说这是静态的、柏拉图式的、数学的、逻辑的、理智的。 那些对行动要达到的目的想望有些预见的人，他这样告诉人家：目的预见到了也没有什么新鲜，因为愿望和记忆一样，也跟它的对象看成是同一的。因而，在行动上我们注定要做本能的盲目奴隶：生命力从后面不休止、不间断地推我们向前。 我们在沉思洞察的瞬间，超脱了动物生命，认识到把人从禽兽生活中挽救出来的较伟大的目标；可是在此种哲学中，这样的瞬间没有容留余地。那些觉得无目的的活动是充分的善的人，在柏格森的书里会找到关于宇宙的赏心悦目的描绘。但是在有些人看来，假如要行动有什么价值，行动必须出于某种梦想、出于某种富于想像的预示，预示一个不像我们日常生活的世界那么痛苦、那么不公道、那么充满斗争的世界；一句话，有些人的行动是建筑在沉思上的，那些人在此种哲学中会丝毫找不到他们所寻求的东西，不会因为没有理由认为它正确而感觉遗憾。