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SPACE AND TIME IN

THE PHILOSOPHIES OF KANT AND BERGSON

Clifford Wellington Webb

University of Toronto 1956

UNIVERSITY

OF

TORONTO

SCHOOL OF GRADUATE STUDIES

PROGRAMME OF THE FINAL ORAL EXAMINATION FOR

THE

DEGREE

OF

DOCTOR

OF

PHILOSOPHY

CLIFFORD WELLINGTON WEBB

2:00 P.M.

MONDAY. OCTOBER 29th, 44 HOSKIN AVENUE

1956

AT

SPACE AND TIME

IN

THE PHILOSOPHIES OF KANT AND BERGSON

COMMITTEE Professor Professor Professor Professor Professor Professor Professor Professor Professor

J.

IN

CHARGE

R. O'Donnell, Chai

F. H. Anderson M. Long A. S. P Woodhouse D. P. Dryer G. Edison T. A. Goudge J. M. Kelly G. B. Phelan

BIOGRAPHICAL 1925 1951 1952 1953-55

--Born, Prescott, Ontario University of Western Ontario --B. A. --M.A., University of Western Ontario --School of Graduate Studies, University of Toronto .

56

1955-56 --Lecturer, Department of Philosophy, University of Toronto.

Space and Time

in the Philosophies of

Kant and Bergson

(Abstract)

This thesis undertakes a systematic investigation of the theories of space and time of Kant and Bergson. Its purpose is to exhibit the relation between these theories and to show that Bergson's theory may be regarded as a logical develop-

ment

of Kant's.

As an essential preliminary to the investigation, an extended discussion of certain problems concerning space and time is presented. Of central importance is the question of whether it is necessary to maike a fundamental metaphysical distinction between space and time. It is concluded that the evidence seems to suggest that a theory which distinguishes between space and time is more tenable than one which treats space and time as exactly analogous elements in a four- dimensional space-time manifold. In addition, the preliminary discussion deals with problems created by the distinction between space and time. Since Kant and Bergson distinguish time from space by recognizing the intrinsic uniqueness of the passage of time, both philosophers are faced with the problems resulting from this distinction.

The introductory discussion provides a framework in which the views of Kant and Bergson are examined. First, by vindicating the distinction between space and time, it indicates the line which a development of Kant's views may justifiably take. Secondly, it uncovers the nature of those difficulties which lead Bergson to a development of Kant's views. Thirdly, it investigates the relationship between space and time and the principle of individuation in a manner which provides two alternative possibilities for the interpretation of Kant's theory of space and time. It is suggested that a theory of space and time may take two alternative positions with respect to the relationship between space and time and the principle of individuation and other related principles which are the foundation of unity in nature. A theory may take the position that there is a principle of individuation for space which accounts for events in time, or that there is a principle of individuation for time which accounts for objects in space. In this thesis, the former alternative is called "possibility A", the latter, "possibility B".

At this point, Kant's views are introduced, and it is argued that his theory of space and time approximates to possibility B, rather than possibility A. Kant's manner of distinguishing between space and time, amd his doctrine of inner and outer sense are examined. It is shown that he conceived of space and time as homogeneous media, and that the distinction between them rests on the point that time has the characteristic of passage, and is uniquely associated with inner experience, while space is not. Space and outer sense seem to be, for Kant, an abstract aspect of inner sense, the peculiar form of which is time.

pointed out that Kant's exclusion of space from the account of the scherather than possibility A. is argued that Kant's Copernican revolution and his justification of For Kant synthetic a priori knowledge are only possible if he follows possibility B. must show that future experience will be determined in general in accordance with the categories, and this is only possible if the categories, as rules of synthesis which make for the unity of nature, apply to time rather than space. Otherwise, the passage of time might bring about experience not determined in accordance with the categories. In addition, Kant's answer to Hume's scepticism, by the same token, would not be possible except according to a theory which accepted possibility B. Kant's relevsmt statements are examined, and the weight of evidence seems to suggest that his theory of space and time approximates to possibility B. It

matism

is

of the categories is consistent with possibility B.

In addition,

it

Bergson's views are then introduced, and the striking similarity between Kant and Bergson in closely associating time and inner experience is pointed out. It is shown that Bergson follows Kant closely in holding that the unique character of time is revealed in inner experience which is in time alone. Kant's views on the impossibility of a science of psychology reveal that, for him, inner experience is quite unlike outer experience. Inner experience constitutes an area of appearances, which, although indubitable, are not subject to categorical determination, and hence do not represent possible experience in Kant's sense. Kant and Bergson are in agreement that knowledge appropriate to spatially related objects is inapplicable to the flow of inner experience. This raises several problems which Kant does not attempt to solve, but which Bergson deals with at length. Kant's Copernican revolution requires that the categories, which arise independently in the nature of human thinking, should apply directly to time itself. Kant's doctrine of the Transcendental Imagination and the Schematism represents an attempt to mediate between the categories with their independent source, and the concrete flow of time. But how such mediation is possible

remains obscure. Bergson meets this problem by declaring it to be insoluble, a pseudo-problem stemming from a basic misconception of the nature of time. Kant held that time was adequately representable in terms of concepts appropriate to space. But he was unable to render this doctrine consistent with his view that time is a unique form of sensibility. Bergson's development of Kant's theory consists in large part of showing that the time of inner experience cannot possibly be understood in ternas of concepts appropriate to outer sense. Kant had refused to answer the question of how human experience, which is characterized by two different modes of sensibility, namely, inner and outer sense, comes to have a unity. He gives no clear account of the unifying relation between inner and outer sense, and consequently no answer to the question of the relation between time as a unique form of the perpetual flux of inner experience, and the homogeneous time of outer sense. Bergson attempts to answer this question by showing that homogeneous time is a spurious, spatialized concept, and by an appeal to intuition. Spatial concepts falsify time, but the relationship between space and outer sense, and time and inner sense may be grasped by a metaphysical intuition which reveals how the concrete flow of time is broken up into discrete spatial parts. Bergson, as well as Kant, subscribes to possibility B, in holding that the intellect applies to the basic flow of time. But for Bergson, this application constitutes a falsification of the metaphysical reality of time.

opment

Bergson's view that time is ultimate reality represents a consistent develof Kant's theory of space and time. For Bergson's theory of time as a con-

Crete process of change, which is glimpsed in inner experience, takes advantage of the fact that, for Kant, the appearances and changes of inner experience are beyond the pale of cognition. Inner experience, for Kant, has a status exactly analogous to the status of things- in- themselves in being incapable of being known by means of the categories. Yet inner experience is indubitably real since it is actually experienced as a continuous flux, a point which Kant often stresses. Bergson's theory carries to its logical conclusion the point that beyond the sphere of conceptual determination. there can be no distinction between form and content. Thus time is not merely the real form of inner sense, as

it

is for

Kant, but is concrete change itself as revealed

succession of conscious states. implied in consciousness itself.

in the indivisible is

Time

is real,

in itself,

because

it

Bergson's close association of consciousness with the flow of time is related another aspect of Kant's thought. Kant distinguishes between inner sense and apperception, but fails to stress that inner sense is conscious inner sense. Bergson seizes upon this point, combining it with Kant's view that inner sense reveals a perpetual flux which is not cognizable. Kant's distinction between inner sense and apperception, thus represents the seed of Bergson's radical separation of the intellect and real time revealed in inner consciousness. to

Bergson erects the apprehension of the change revealed in inner experience supreme metaphysical principle. He thus follows Kant's view that a metaphysics which would penetrate beyond appearance to reality itself must be intuitive. But whereas Kant thought this intuition would have to be an intellectual intuition, Bergson, stressing the consciousness of change in inner experience, argues that the intuition is non- intellectual. He rejects Kant's doctrine of judgment, and a logic of temporal process, holding that intellectual thinking is through-and-through a spatialization of a fundamentally non-spatial reality. Following this line of thought Bergson tries to show how matter and the intellect itself arise from the basic flow of duration (la duree). He thus denies the independent origin of the pure concepts of the understanding, and tries to show that logic itself is derivative rather than fundamental. Bergson's development of some aspects of Kant's thought thus ends in a view which would have been anathema to Kant. into a

GRADUATE STUDIES Major Subject: Systematic Philosophy and Metaphysics:

Minor Subjects M. A. University

Professor F. H. Anderson Professor T. A. Goudge

:

of Western Ontario (Subject of thesis: philosophies of Hegel and Whitehead) ,

English Language and Literature:

Process

in the

Professor A. S. P. Woodhouse, Professor F. E. L. Priestley.

I

SPACE AND TIME IN TIffi

PHILOSOPHIES OF KANT AND BERGSCMf

BY

Clifford Wellington Webb

A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the

University of Toronto

1956

CONTENTS CHAPTER ONE:

INTRODUCTION

CIIAPTEc i'uL:

Pi-iSLIKBIARY DISCUSSION OF TH5 DISTINCTION

BETWEEN SPACE AND TIME 1.

General Featiires of the Distinction between Space and Time

2.

Similarities and Differences betxvean Space and Tiiiie

3*

The Direction of Tine and the Problem of Individiiation

CHAPTSIt TimSE;

CHAPTER

KAIjT»S TiiliCRI OF SPACE PdiB THIS

1,

Kant's Distinction between Space and Time

2«

Inner and Outer Sense

3.

Time and the Unity of Nature

FOUxl:

BERG30N»3 THEORY OF SPACE AND TIME

AI^D

ITS

RELATION TO THAT OF KANT 1,

Time and Inner Experience

2,

The Cognitive Representation of Time

3,

Primordial Time and the Spatializing Intellect

NOTES

BIBLIOGRAPHY

CHAPTER ONE IKTRODUGTIOK This thesis aims at a systematic investigation of the theories of space and tine of Kant and Bergeon,

Its

purpose is to exhibit the relation betvreen these theories,

and to

shov;

that 3ergson*s views may be re.jarded as a

logical development of those of Kant,

It should be added

that this endeavour proceeds from a metaphysical standpoint.

The Critique of Pure Reason . regarded as embodying Kant^s

mature philosophy, is not looked upon as solely an episte-

mological treatise.

That this v;ork is concerned v;ith basic

episteraolo^ical questions, of cou-Tss, soes without saying.

That it does not also involve metaphysical principles and commitments, is here denied.

Thus, for example, we take

the view with Gottfried Martin that. The question that Kant is asking is not how can know space and time, but quite simply vjhat space and time are. This question has an ontological sense, . . 1

v/e

Kant's ovm words, indeed, suppoirt this view, for in the Transcendental Aesthetic he asks, not "/hat knoiv-

ledge do we have of space and

tir.ie?*',

but "IJhat, then, are

til

space and time?".

It becomes apparent that Kant does not

merely tell us

space and time figure in human knowledge,

hovj

but £;ives us a view of the natures of sjjace and time, 1

2

themselves.

It is necessary to emphasize this because va-

rious theories of space and time may be presented in different donains of knowledge.

The question of what space

and time are is answered differently, for example, in physics

and psychology.

Kant offers an ansxver to this question,

however, not merely in the context of some particular subject matter, but in a v/ider, metaphysical sense.

For this reason, we consider it essential to approach our subject by way of an extended preliminary discussion. In this discussion we shall deal, first, with the general

features of the distinction between space and time (Gh.II, Sec. 1); secondly, v;ith the question of their ultimate si-

milarities and differences

(Ch. II, Sec. 2); and thirdly,

with certain relations between space, time and change (Ch, II, Sec. 3). In connection with the first of these topics, an

indication of the chief desiderata of a metaphysical ex-

planation of the distinction between space and time is intended.

One of the central points to be made in this

thesis is that Kant*s theory of space and time leaves certain problems unsolved.

That is, Kant»s explanation does

not deal vjith, indeed, does not even attempt to deal with some of the questions that arise in connection with space

and time.

Yet Kant gives us a metaphysical theory of space

and time, and a metaphysical account of their distinction.

3

His vlev;s do not pertain merely to space and time as they

are dealt v/ith either in physics or psychology.

His doctrine

is, nevertheless, incoi:iplete as a metaphysical theory

•

Kant

explicitly recognizes that he leaves some questions unanswered. Our preliminary discussion of the general features of the distinction between space and time attempts to clari-

fy the nature of these questions.

Bergson's views are here regarded as a development of those of Kant in the sense that Bergson, while agreeing

with Kant on fundamental points, goes on to develop a theory which attempts to deal with the questions which Kant left unanswered.

Thus Bergson's viev;s differ radically in some

respects from those of Kant,

Kant's theory of space and

time is necessarily limited by the critical position which he adopted.

Bergson continues on, beyond the point where

Kant stopped, to make statements of a kind which Kant, on

principle, would refuse to make.

Accepting the premise

that unansvjered metaphysical questions concerning the re-

lationship between space and time require answers, Bergson's doctrines may be regarded in this respect as a logical

development of Kant's.

One point, ho'.vever, needs to be made

clear in this connection.

This thesis is not specifically

an attempt to evaluate the merits of Bergson's development of Kant's views,

attempted.

No defence of either Kant or Bergson is

It is hoped, hoxvever, that presentation of the

4 issues involved in the relation between the theories of these

two philosophers v/ill aid the reader in drav/ing his own conclusions.

With recpsct to the second set of topics which we consider an essential preliminary to our subject, namely, those concerning the similarities and differences betxveen space and time, it is intended to present some of the im-

portant considerations which bear on the question of whether or not a fundamental distinction must be made betv/een space

and time.

By a fundamental distinction

betvireen

space and

time, we mean a metaphysical distinction v;hich recognizes

that time is intrinsically different from space at least in that it has the characteristic of passage.

It should

be added that v;hen it is said that time has the characteristic of passage, it is not meant that time itself changes or passes, v/hich is a rather loose way of expressing a

difficult point.

The question of a fundamental distinction

betvjeen space and time, the crux of xijhich turns on the pro-

blem of the passage of time, is discussed quite generally, ;\rithout

specific reference to the two philosophers under

examination in this thesis.

Nevertheless, the conclusions

derived from this discussion have an important bearing on the main conclusions of the thesis.

Since both Kant and

Bergson do make such a fundamental distinction between space

and time, the validity of their doing so is an essential

5

point in judging in

i.'hat

direction a development of Kant's

views may justifiably be made.

If Kant was wrong in making

this distinction, a reconstruction of his philosophy

involve a rejection of the distinction.

xi?ould

If Kant was right,

however, the only fruitful line of development vjould be to-

ward a theory which likewise made a fundamental distinction between space and time. Recent philosophical literature has included notable

attempts to show that the analogies beUveen space and time, vjhich

ii?ill

be discussed herein, are not merely superficial,

but may be pressed much further beyond the point ^vhere they vjere

heretofore thought to break doxm.

tain writers that differences

xi;hich

It is argued by cer-

have traditionally been

supposed to obtain betvjeen space and time, do not, in fact, hold, and that the supposition tliat there are such differences is the result of insufficient analysis.

In connection with

this, there is an attempt to show that one characteristic in particular vrhich was formerly thought to mark a funda-

mental difference between space and time, viz., the characteristic of the passage of time, as opposed to the static

quality of space, is not a characteristic of time at all, and does not constitute ground for a differentiation of space and time.

In conjiinction with this view there has

been presented xvhat is termed the "manifold theory".

This

theory not only denies that time is fundamentally different

6

from space in that it has the characteristic of passage, but confesses to bafflement as to what a distinction on this

ground might mean.

The denial of passage is logically asso-

ciated with the metaphysical theory of a four-dimensional

manifold of space -time and is the main point at issue in the problem of whether tliere is a fundamental distinction

between space and time.

Upholders of the manifold theory

agree that their theory is adequate to account for some

distinction between space and time, but they are vague as to what the distinction is.

Hence it is difficult to de-

cide whether they have some other metaphysical distinction in mind or not, and still more difficult to imagine v;hat

the nature of this other distinction might be. Ari^uiaents

advanced in favour of the manifold theory

are herein examined with a view to deterruining their validity.

It is maintained that this position has not been de-

monstrated to be true, and that there are good reasons for rejecting it in favour of

x.he

viev;

distinction between space and time.

that there is a fundamental It is important to em-

phasize this because it has been supposed that v;ith some

reconstruction Kant^s philosophy could be made to accomodate a theory of space-ti:;ie. a reasonable supposition.

In one sense, of course, tliis is

The physical theory of space-time

may be accepted without rejecting a fundamental distinction between 3pace and time.

As to the further considez'ation of

7

whether Kant's epistenology excludes the possibility of nonEuclidean geometries, v;hich a numbsr of scholars dealt with, dering.

this issue is other than the one

v;e

liave

ably

are consi-

Je must carefully distinguish the question of

v/hether a theory of space-time, such as has been found use-

ful in physical science, is compatible v;ith Kantian epistemology, from the question of

-.ifhether

a metaphysical theory

of space-time, v;hich denies passage, is compatible vjith Plant's metaphysics of space and time.

Ifhat

we are considering

is the possibility of a development of Kant's views which

espouses a theory of space-time v;hich utterly obliterates Kant's

v;ay

of distinguishing betv;een space and time,

3uch

a theory, incorporating some of Kant's critical principles

could, no doubt, be formulated.

V/hether it would be Kantian

in the sense of including Kant's metaphysical presuppositions

concerning space and time, hov;ever, is another question. It is argued herein that a viev7 v/hich fails to make a fun-

damental distinction beU;een space and time,

v,'ill,

in im-

portant respects, be un -Kantian, a departure from Kant i*ather

than a development from him. It is important to distinguish this issue concerning

the passage of time from problems relating to space and time as they are dealt with in physics.

Criticism of the philo-

sophical conception of space-time is not necessarily a criticise

of thy physicists' conception of space-tirae.

The

"manifold theory" xvhich is here discussed is not identical

with the physicists* conception of space -tine, although there are similarities between the two.

For exai-iple, both theories

concur in treating time mathematically as a fourth dimension. But whereas the physicist »s treatment of space and time is

fashioned in conformity

'iifith

the end of achieving the greatest

theoretical generalizations concerning physical events, the philosopher's conception knows no such limitations.

Thus,

the latter speaks not merely of physical events in spacetime, but of all events as being in space-time, 1 believe that the universe consists, without residue, of the spread of events in space-time, and that if vje thus accept realistically the four-dimensional fabric of juxtaposed actualities we can dispense v/ith all those dim non-factual cate:3ories Vihich have so bedevilled our rave: the potential, the subsistential, and the influential, the noumenal, the numinous, and the non-natv-ral, 4

The metaphysical position which denies the intrinsic \mique-

ness of time, and represents the universe in the above manner, is, we shall suggest, without foundation.

But the fundamental distinction between space and

time is likewise important for our piorposes in that Bergson's

position leans heavily on it.

It is not too much to say

that the core of Bergson's philosophy lies in his interpre-

tation of time.

Bergson states that he follows Kant's doc-

trines concerning space, but disagrees with Kant concerning tine,

Nevertheless, they agree that there is a basic dif-

ference between the two, and they agree on certain important

9

features of this distinction, notably, on points concerning that aspect of ti-o, the characteristic of passage, which

distinguishes it radically from space.

Bercson^s develop-

ment of the position held by Kant is a development of v/hat is implicit in a position explicitly and rigorously adopted

by Kant, namely, that there is a fundamental distinction between space and tine, ture of this distinction.

Bergson probes deeper into the naHe sharpens the kind of distinc-

tion made by Kant, and argues that if time is something quite unlike space, it is not even conceivable in terms of space.

This is the point where Kant stopped,

\'ith some

hesitation,

Kant declares that time is legitimately represented in spatial terms.

But how this is possible in view of the basic kind

of distinction which Kant makes between space and time, re-

mains unexplained,

fCant»s association of time v/ith inner

sense is at the core of the difficulty, and is, in addition, one of a nuriber of rather striking similarities between Kant

and Bergson, That the philosophies of Kant and Bergson have re-

markable similarities is a point made by A. D, Lindsay,

He

also points out the other element in Bergson »s thought

which allows the doctrines of the two philosophers to be considered systematically in a relationship of development, namely, Bergson »s critical attitude.

10 IjOW without su^esting' any comparison in iinportance between Kant and Bergson, there is this resemblance bet'.i/QtJii thei.:, that much of bhe in'^crest o-f Jer^son's work consists in his statement and exposition of antincruies to be found in present-day pliilosophy, that as the best road to the solution of these antinomies he errors a ii;;'.; stateirient of w.h& ^aslc or probleni of philosophy, and propounds a new method. Like Kant, his ;vork professes to be critical: to find the main source of difficulties in an uncriticissed assumption, 5

Ber.^son's doctrines concerning space and time in-

volve a revelation of certain uncriticized assumptions made

by Kant, one of

xi/hich

has already been mentioned, viz, the It is the criticism of

legitimacy of spatialiaing time.

this assuraptioh, among others, that leads Bergson to go be-

yond Kant in his theory of space and time.

It may be said,

however, that Bergson might well have criticized other as-

sumptions than those he did.

He might, for example, if he

had been a philosopher of a different persuasion, have cri-

ticized the way in which Kant distinguishes between space and tine and have modified Kant^3 views in the direction of a manifold theory which excluded passage.

It may be that a

theory of space-time which excludes passage vjill prove to be the raost defensible theory,

«/e

su;:^i:/;est,

hov;ever, that

at present this is far from being obvious, and that cogent

reasons seem to point to the opposite conclusion.

At any

rate, Berg'son's criticism did not take this line of depar-

ture, and for this reason we do not here deal vjith that con-

tingency.

But more essentially, it is felt as vieU that such

a modification of Kant does not represent a logical developmert

11 of Kant»s theory of space and time, but rather a clean break

with it in the form of an entirely different view of space and time.

For in one

v.'ay

at least, Kant vjas naking no un-

critical assumption in drawing a ftindamental distinction between space and tirue.

He shov/s himself to have been conscious

of the most important reasons for doing so, particularly in his exa:::ination of the relation betvjeen time and inner

sense,

Kant»s theory of space and tine is intimately bound

up v;ith his

o'.fn

conception of the critical philosophy as he

conceived it, and it is the relation of this position to that of Bergsoa that we consider.

V/ith

regard to the que-

stion of the extent to v/hich the critical philosophy may be

modified so as to be compatible xvith a theory of space-time v/hich denies the fundamental uniqueness of time, and still

retain the essentials of the critical position, we make no commitment, except that v?hich

vje

have already indicated,

namely, that such a raodification will, in some respects, be lin-Kantian.

The respects in which

x-ze

maintain it will be

so, pertain, ivithin the scope of this thesis only to the theor-/ of space and time.

VJe

do not intend to su?sest that

all aspects of Kant^s thought, or even the essential aspects of it, necessarily involve his fundamental distinction be-

tween space and time.

Nor do we wish to pass judgment on the relative merits of Kant^s position as it stands in his writings or on the

possibility of a renovated Kantianism which xvould involve

12

the obsolescence of i;ant*3 distinction.

In connection v;ith

this, however, it nay be said that it is not entirely ob-

vious that because

modem physics requires

a theory of space-

tine, Kant's position, if it is to be defensible in the light of the new physics, needs to be clianged in a loanner which

would obliterate his way of distinguishing between space and time.

This is, itself, a difficult

and like

i'-'o

a^id

extensive problem,

others mentioned above, lies outside the par-

ticular subject we wish to explore.

We take Kant's position

on space and time as he expressed it, and consider only the

developments from a position which retains that specific character, that is, I'rom a position which involves a fun-

damental distinction between space and tine.

Thus, v;hen

vje

speak of logical development, we mean development of the

metaphysical implications of a theory.

The theory which we

are dealing with is one which includes the premise that time is ultimately and uniquely different from space,

i\nd

the

reason v;hy we treat of development in this sense is that we feel that there are sound reasons for making this basic distinction. Finally, it is advisable to

svun

up the similarities

between Kant and Bergson, vjhich constitute the main raisons d'etre of this thesis.

The importance which both philoso-

phers attach to their views of space and ting,

3ei.'gson's vievjs

ti^ie is

worth no-

concerning che relationship betv;een

13

space and time lie at the base of his ..letaphysics,

Kant»s

Transcendental Aesthetic stands in the foreground of his

philosophy as an absolutely indispensable part of it.

The

position of neither philosopher can be understood without a

comprehension of his doctrine

of space and time.

But the resemblance between Kant and Ber.^ison need

not be lifiited to genei-alities. This is particularly true of their vlevvs on space and time.

Both, as

v^e

have already

emphasized, make a fundamental distinction becvjeen space and time, and for both this distinction has a considerable, if not decisive, bearing on of their philosophies.

hovj

they work out other parts

In addition, both philosophers re-

gard inner experience as highly important in connection

with the apprehension of time.

Both hold that time cannot

be represented directly, but only through the mediation of

space.

They agree that space is uniquely associated v/ith

the logical functions of the understanding. Both call atten-

tion to the all-pervasiveness of time, in contradistinction to spatiality.

And both are faced with che problems V7hich

the distinction between space and time poses.

It is these

problems which lead Bergson to a theory v;hich can be regarded as a developuent of Kant's views, and vjhich allow

him to draw out the implications of Kant's node of distingviishing between space and time in a manner which Kant,

himself did not envisage. In thic respect, only one further

u point of clarification concerning our subject needs to be iaade#

This is that while there undoubtedly are historical

connections and influences betxveen Kant and Bergson, our

treatment is meant to be systematic rather

tlian

historical.

The relations we examine between the two men raay or may not be paralleled in point ox historical connection, For the 6 most part, they probably are not.

CMFTER TWO PRELimNARY DISCUSSION OF BST\\rSEN

TKi*

DISTIIIGTIGN

SPACE AND TIMS

General Features of the Distinction between

1,

J pace

and Tine

No distinction is norc familiar to corxion sense and

more difficult to ^ive a philosophic

accoi;int

distinction betv;een space and time.

In everyday experience

v/e

of than the

are not often confused as to vjhat is spatial and what is

temporal.

But in philosophy, sone questions which

can

vje

ask about the world seem to demand that we give some account of the separation between space and time, ana indicate

hov;,

or in what sense, we knovj them to be fundamentally different, If, for example, we ask ourselves whether all things

exist in space and time, or whether some exist in one and

not the other, or in neither,

v;e

find it difficult to put

forth an ansvver v/ithout corairdtting ourselves to some view concerning the different natures of space and time.

Ve may,

of covirse, in answering such questions reach the conclusion

that it is a mistake to regard space and time as fundamen-

tally different, and this will have an important bearing on the kind of answers we give, tliat it is

3ven if we take the position

futile to attempt to inquire into the "nature"

of such tilings, and concern ourselves simply with the v/ay

15

16 in which spaces and tines are neasured,

v^e

have not removed

the necessity of deciding in v/hat sense they are distinguishable.

For we do in fact measure them differently, and this 7

alone constitutes a recognition of a difference between them. Once any basis of distinction is accepted, the quest-

ion arises as to whether this basis is adequate to the ex-

planation of all aspects of the distinction betvjeen space

and time, and whether it is compatible \vith the similarities

between them. vsays in v;hich

We have then to take acco\mt of the different space and time are viewed in the various spe-

cial sciences. The different ways in which space is regarded in

mathematics and in psychology is well expressed by Cassirer. If from the standpoint of netageometry, 3uclidean geometry appears as a mere beginning, as given material for further developments, nevertheless, from the standpoint of the critique of knov/led.c^e, it represents the end of a complicated series of intellectual operations. The psycholOi~ical investigations of the origin of the idea of space (including those which were undertaken with a purely sensationalistic tendency) have indirectly confirr;ied and clarified this. They shov; unmistakably that the space of our sense percep * tion is not identical v/ith the space of our /geometry . but is distJRi'Cuished from it in exactly the decisive constitutive properties . "Above" and "below", "riifnt" and "left" are here not equivalent directions, which can be exchanged with each other v;ithout change, but they remain qualitatively distinct and irreducible determinations, since totally different groups of organic sensations correspond to then. In geometrical space, on the contrary, all these oppositions are cancelled. 6

Similarly, the difference betv;een tine as it appears in psychology and as it appears in physics, has been stressed

17

by Gunn,

vjho

states that "Neither psychology nor physics

attempts to srasp the problem of the natiire of full significance J

tLnie

in its

the one is merely concerned with our sub-

jective avjareness of time and the other confines itself large9

ly to considerations of measurement".

Gunn points out some

of the differences betv;een tine as it is dealt with in these

two contexts.

For instance, tine as perceived is alivays limited. We never perceive the xifhole of tine. It is also perceived as sensibly continuous, as having a certain directional quality; it is transitive and related in its content to the subject at the moment of experience. Only if the vjider implied temporal perspective and the tirae-span immediately experienced be apprehended as passing into one another can Time be grasped, and in this way it is grasped as a continuura. Time as conceived is unlimited in character, is regarded as infinitely divisible and mathematically continuous like an infinite series. Further, it is looked on as involving an objective order of beforehand-after, ivhich is not to be equated \;ith the past, present or future of a subject, • . Conceptual time is also conceived to be a unity in spite of the difficulty of ascribing to it any principle of coherence. Perceptual time, hovjever, is rooted in experience and professions of unity are not to be made in regard There may on this level be many unrelated to it. times. 10 •

Until quite recent times the distinction between space and tine, v/hatever it may turn out to involve on closer inspection, has been carried over from comraon sense into the special sciences, in general, without much modification.

Indeed, to common sense the distinction seems to be so ob-

vious that the question of whether or not space and time are distinct seems to be irrelevant.

Were it not for the mer-

ging, in contemporary physics, of physical space and physical

It time in a space-tir.ie continuum, and for a similar merging 11 of space and time in recent metaphysical theories, one might

rest content in the view that they are distinct, and direct one's attention to grasping the peculiar nature of each.

They offer perplexities enoiogh when taken separately, Ue have Minkowski's famous statement, however, and its repetition by nur;ierous popular expositors, to remind us that it

would be rash to assume uncritically that space and time at least in the context of physics are ultimate and distinct. The viev;s of space and time v/hich I v/ish to lay before you have sprung from the soil of experimental physics, and therein lies their strength. They are radical. Henceforth space by itself, and tine by itself, are doomed to fade away into mere shadows, and only a kind of imion of the two v;iiak preserve an independent reality, 12

Yet Minko\irski s prediction seems to have been pre»

mature,

/mother eminent physicist expresses a more moderate

estimate of the effect of the space-time conception on the

physical distinction between space and time.

Although mathematical attempts to demonstrate the unity of space and time in a single four-dimensional world do not completely obliterate the difference betx-jeen distances and durations, they certainly reveal a much greater similarity betv;een the two notions than vias ever evident in pre-Einsteinian physics, 13 Thus the question arises as to whether space and time are ultimately or fundamentally distinct; and if so, in what their distinction consists.

It is not merely that

we do constantly distinguish them in everyday life.

also a question of

xi^hether

It is

those aspects of experience which

19 we deslf^ate as space and tine are sinple and irreducible, each incapable of further explanation in terms of something else; or whether they admit of analysis into more basic ele-

ments in

tor/iis

of which their very difference in experience

would be explained.

In either case, it is apparent that we

are faced with a philosophic problem rather than a purely

physical or psychological problem.

Physics, at least in its

present form, says nothinc about how the space-tine continuum is related to the psychological apprehension of space and

time; not does the science of psychology relate its views to those of physics. It can be agreed, of course, that the accounts of

the distinction between space and time given by the special

SRiences, the expositions, that is, of v;hat each is "known as", cannot be ignored by the philosopher vjho wishes to know

whether they are ultimately distincjr or not.

For he is not

merely setting out to give one more particular account of space and time, but is concerned to give an explanation which

will embody the results of the particular sciences, either in the sense of shov/ing one or more of them to be In error,

and

hov/

such error comes about, or in the sense of incor-

porating scientific results into a more general theory.

Such a general theory of space and time may be either

monistic or dualistic depending on whether it takes the view that space and time are not ultimately distinct, or the view

20 that they are.

In either case, it v/ill be necessary to take

into consideration the way in which space and time are dis-

tinguished in different sciences. the greatest difficulty arises.

But it is just here that

If it is supposed that they

are ultimately distinct, it will not be enough merely to record this.

It vjill be necessary also to state in vjhat manner

they are distinct, or in other words, in consists.

v/hat

the distinction

Are both space and time to be placed

iii

the cate-

gory of that which is immediately intiiited in sensible experience?

Are they to be regarded as atomic qualia exhibited

in experience^

Are they to be construed as different formal

wholes which are logically prior to spatial and temporal relations?

Or may they be distinguished by placing one in

the realm of the purely conceptual, and the other as the con-

tent of a peculiar hind of non-intellectual intuition?

Are

they to be interpreted as different self -subsisting substance£ Or

are they ultimate and irreducible kinds of relations?

These are some of the ways in which space and time may be

basically distinguished.

For all of them there are a number

of crucial problems which must be faced, A metaphysical theory of space and time must take

account of the claim that experience

lias a

unity,

in the sense of denying such unity or accepting it.

either If it

be agreed that human experience presupposes a unifying prin-

ciple, it follows that spatio-temporal aspects of that

21

experience must reflect that principle.

Triat

be a uiuity, in some sense, ox space and tine.

is, there must

How that unity-

is possible, considering the intrinsic difference betv/een

space and time, is a question of first importance.

It v/ill

not be a problem for a philosopher who repudiates any fun-

damental distinctioii

bet\\;een

space and

But for one

tiiiie.

who accepts a distinction it will be crucial, V/hat,

then, are the problems which such a philoso-

pher must try to solve?

For purposes of illustration, let

us consider the viev; that space and time are distinct sub14 stances. This theory brin;';s certain difficulties into sharp

focus, for it places them in the context of the traditional

problem of how one substance can act upon, or be related to another substance.

The concept of substance as that which

exists in itself is peculiarly obdurate to relatedness. Spinoza »s addition to the traditional definition, namely, that a substance is also that v/hich is conceived thro\igh -15

itself,

clarifies the nature of these difficulties.

a substance qua substance,

For

(i.e. not qua accident), has,

according to its definition, nothing in

coni;

on with any other

substance, and hence two such substances cannot be mutually 16 understood. Kow hovj two such substances can liave any sort of relation, capable of being known, is indeed a perplexing

question.

It is possible that they might be related in a

fashion which cannot be known, that is, in a fashion v;hich

22

cannot be understood, but must be grasped, if at all, through

means other than cognition,

(This is an important possibility

and has an obvious affinity to Bergson^s doctrine of meta-

physical intuition). substances must have

The cnuc of the puzzle is that soraothinr::

in

corar^ion,

tvjo

or must resemble

one anotlier in some v;ay, in orr'er to be mutually understood, qua substance,

and they cannot, by definition, have anything

It ni£:ht v/ell be said that it is the definition

in common.

of substance which is at faid.t, and should therefore be discarded, but since we are here concerned only in the context of an illustration,

to one side.

vie

i.'ith

substance

leave that objection

For the importance of substance for our pre-

sent purposes lies not in any question of the usefulness of

substance for philosophy, but in the illustration of the

difficulties of cognizing relatedness.

Considered from this

point of view, the old problem concerninr the relations of tv;o

substances, comes to be seen as the problem of knov;ing

two things which have nothing in common, and this applies, not merely to substances, but to anything vjhatever that we are acquainted with.

If we become acquainted with anything

v^hich literally has nothing in common

with anything else we

are acquainted with, the possibility of cognizing it is ruled out.

V/e

can be said to knoxv it only if we consider it per-

missible to speak of knowledge by acquaintance in the manner 17 of Russell,

and this is a different sense of the terra "know-

ledge" from the one we are considering at the moment.

23

Knowledse by acquaintance of something vjhich has

nothing in common with anything else, hov;ever, us very far in explaining the world, for

\:e

\7ill

not carry

cannot relate

such knowledge to anything else, except accidentally, or a

posteriori .

Whatever else it may be, such knov;ledge is not

the kind which metaphysicians have traditio»?ally sought. About

all

vje

can do with an entity wliich has nothing in

coraraon

with anyching else is to desi,:piate it by a proper name. might be said that in naming it

vie

endow it with one

It

coiiUion

property at least, viz., that of being in the class of things But this ignores the fact that what-

which may be spoken of. ever name

\-m

give it is not intrinsic to the thing, not

ar.

essential attribute v;ithout which the thing v/ould not exist, but is merely accidental and unessential.

3y naming it

vre

do not relate it necessarily to anything else, for our name

does not imply that there is anything

tity and something else.

coraraon beti^een

the en-

It is only when we can form a con-

cept of a thing which contains something inAwith the concept

of another thing, that tv/o.

v/e

can have rational knov;ledge of the

And in this case, of course, the very fact that we can

conceptualize a thing in teinns of comraon properties, means that the thing is not unique. It may well be asked v/hether there are any such ab-

solutely unique entities, or alternatively, v/hether everything with which we are acquainted is absolutely unique.

V/e

24

may put this question in other terms and ask v^hether we ever do have concepts, in terms of common properties, of things

with which we

ai-e

acquainted, or whether our concepts, in

their (generality, always allow the intrinsic uniqueness of

things to escape, thing

v;e

/uid

this amo\.mts to asking whether any-

are acquainted with resembles anything else.

This,

it sliould be uo'oed, is a point of a different order from

the truism that general concepts, in their generality, leave

certain aspects of the objects conceptualized unspecified. If it be admitted that describing something in general terms

omits its particularity, it is an easy step to the posi-

tion that there is in the universe a principle ox the vndetermined, vmich remains over v/hen conceptualization has done its

i-jork,

and might be suitably spoken of as "that which

in itself is not a »this*".

If concepts leave a residue,

the residue must be conceptually undetermined.

interesting as it is in itself, is not the one cerned with here,

\ihat vie

This position, v.'e

are con-

are concerned vnth is the possi-

bility that there may be entities which are absolutely unique, and not amenable to any sort of conceptualization.

With reference to the majority of objects of experience, we may feel sure that &he question ansvjers itself, for we undoubtedly are aware of numerous resemblances betv/een things. If

v^e

relate this question to space and time, however, we

seem bo be less certain of the answer, and several possi-

bilities present themselves.

25 First, we may take

tlie

view that

oiu-

concepts of

space and tine are adequate to their objects.

This raises

the question of whether our concepts of space and time have

anything in coi^uon and whether they have, together, anything This view involves the question

in common v/ith anything else.

of xvhether, in dealing with space and tine,

with two unique entities, or whether

vje

v;e

are dealing

are forming discur-

sive concepts of spatiality and temporality, that is, whe-

ther

v/e

are bringing under single concepts of space and tirae,

a plurality of spaces and times, respectively. For Kant,

of course,

tlic

process of conceptiialization alv;ays involves

the bringing of particulars

uiic-er

one concept,

lie

does not

use the torm "concept", except for the occasional slip, in a manner which implies that we could have a concept of sone-

thing absolutely -unique,

/md he rejects the view that space

and time are discursive concepts. Secondly,

v/e

may take the view, with

and time are not concepts.

which are absolutely unique.

Kaiit,

that space

This means that they are entities We cannot conceive them in

terms of properties which they have in common with other entities.

For if they have anything in corjaon with something

else, they can be conceptualized. It should be added that

we are speaking here of the intrinsic properties of space

and time.

In so far as we cannot fora concepts of the in-

trinsic natures of space and

tir^e, vje

are absolutely unique entities.

must admit that they

26 iiegarding the distinction between space and tiue,

we have, then, four main possibilities, which may be ordered as rollov;s: 1. Jpace and time are adequately represented by dis-

cursive concepts which have nothing in

corainon.

2. Jpace and time are adequately ropresexited by dis-

cursive concepts which have something in

coiiimon,

3. Space and time are not re presentable by concepts,

but are unique particulars i^ith v/hich we can be acquainted. Ui»

Either space or time (but not both) is re pre-

sentable by a concept. There is, ol course, a fifth possibility, which could be expressed as follovjs: "Iveither space nor time is repre-

sentable by a concept and neither of them is an entity with

which we can be acquainted".

This would be the view of those

(e.g. Vaihinger) who hold that space and time are ''fictions".

But since this position is remote froiu the

Kant and Bergson,

vje

vievv's

of both

need not discuss it further.

From the point of view of maintaining a fundamental

distinction betvjeen space and time, the first of the above possibilities offers obvious difficulties. These are analogous to the difficulties concerning the relation between two substances, which

v^e

have mentioned.

If space and time

are adequately represented by concepts and these concepts

have nothing ivhatever in

corrjaon,

we should never be able to

27

conceive ox any relation between the t\w,

/e

could never

have a rational knowledge of how space and time are related, If this v;ere,

for example, in the phenomenon of motion.

indeed, the case, it would be a highly undesirable state of

affairs from the point of view of human knowledge.

though

v;e

our knowledge of the world v;ould display these ted aspects, and so create a dualism which

resolve.

For al-

could lAnderstand space and time by themselves,

v;e

tvjo

unrela-

could never

It should be added that if space and time are not

representable by concepts, we should not expect to have a rational knowledge of their relations.

But if they are re-

presentable by concepts, we should, in metaphysics, expect to have rational knowledge of their uiutual relations.

But

if these concepts have nothing in comraon, this expectation

would be frustrated.

This would seem all the more intoler-

able just because we were able to conceive space and time,

by themselves, adequately.

Ivnowledge v/oiild be bifurcated;

motion and change would be inex licable. The second possibility represents a denial of any

fundamental or intrinsic distinction between space and time. For it is clear that if the intrinsic or essential natures of space and time have something in common,

v/e

can form a

concept of the essential nature which v;ill represent the

essential nature of both space and v/ill be

ti;ae,

A single concept

adequate to repre.sent v:hat is essential in both

2g

Sxtensiveness, perhaps, would fulfill the

apace and time,

This second possibility is,

requirements of such a concept.

in fact, the one taken by those who uphold the theory of the

manifold.

Since this position x*ill be examined in detail

belov;, we leave it aside here, except to remark that the

question of

essential to space and time, and whether

vjhat is

space and time nay both be represented by concepts is a

highly debatable one. It is immediately apparent that if

xve

choose the

third possibility, we rule out the possibility that space and time resemble one another.

For if they resembled one

another, they v;ould not be unique entities, and the second of the first

tvjo

possibilities v;ould be true.

in choosing the third possibility,

make a fundamental

v;e

distinction between space and time.

In other words,

In this case we cannot

expect to be able to understand the relation between space and time, although

v;e

may well be able to become acquainted

with it through some other means.

The extent of our under-

standing of the relation between space and time will be to point out that

the;J^

do not resemble one another and cannot

be conceived in terms of one another.

The metaphysical im-

plications of this position are as startling in their as are those of the first possibility. viev/,

^^'ay

According to this

space and time are simply two unique entities which

we may meet with in the course of experience, having no

29 conceivable relation to each other or to anything else.

view of

tlie

indubitable fact that space and time are

the most pei'vasive aspects of

would be strange indeed.

oui'

In

amont:;

experience, this view

It seems small comfort to note

that the relation between space and time would seem, on this view, no more inexplicable than space and time themselves.

The task of metaphysics, here, v/ould simply be to point out

this state of affairs, and to attempt, perhaps, throup;h the

non-cornitive fujictions of language to communicate something of the feel of liltiraate irrationalities.

proceed only in

r.

Metaphysics could

manner quite unlike the metaphysics v/hich

attempts to give an accouuit of the rational structure of the vjorld. The fourth possibility offers more scope to the in-

tellect.

Here either space or time will be considered to be

adequately represented by means of concepts, while the re-

maining one

v;ill be

considered an intrinsically imique en-

tity, V7hich escapes concexotualiaation.

That Bergson's philo-

sophy falls under this possibility can easily be seen. he considers space to be conceptualizable but time not.

For The

other alternative of taking space as a unique entity and leaving tine to the intellect,

X'^fould

have the rather unplau-

sible result that geometry would have nothing to do with space, however accurately it might be held to represent tem-

poral determinations.

V/ithin this fourth possibility.

30

Bergson»s choice seems to be the obvious one. the point is not so obvious as to be

ment/

Me

s.'iall,

nevertheless,

massed without argu-

therefore, in subsequent chapters, present

Bergson's arguments on this point, and the relation of his views to those of Kant, It will be apparent from the foregoing tliat a tlieory

which deals

ivith the

problem of the fundamental distinction

between space and time must take one of the four possibilities listed above.

Since neither Kant nor Bergson thinks of both

space and tine as adequately representable in concepts, poss-

ibility one is not useful for our purposes.

regard it.

Possibility

t\vo

represents a

viexv

intrinsic distinction between space and time.

So we shall dis-

opposed to any And since Kant

and Bergson both v/ish to maintain such a distinction, this

possibility can also be eliminated from our discussion. should be added that neither of possibilities one and

tv;o

It

can

represent Kant's views, since he repeatedly emphasizes that space and time are not concepts.

There remain, then, possibi-

lities three and four v;hich provide the general means whereby Kant and Bergson might explain the distinction between space

and time.

It will be observed that, within these limitations,

at least one of space and time must be recognized as a unique

entity not adequately representable by means of concepts. It follovv's, moreover, that for a philosopher who holds that

geometry is applicable to, and indeed, requires an intuition

31 of, space, it will not be possible to maintain that space

is that unique entity which absolutely eludes conceptuali-

zation, ;vithin possibilities three and four, there is l?oom,

however, for a certain amount of eclecticism.

Space, for

example, might be considered to be a unique entity, but ana-

lysable in terms of intrinsic, derivative properties, v/hich are represented by concepts pertaining to spatiality, the

discursive concept of space.

This would involve the doctrine

that the plurality of spaces, from which the concept of spa-

tiality is derived, are parts of the one imique entity, space. As a whole it would be impossible to form a concept of space,

for there would be nothing else like it, which it could resemble.

There would be no properties common to space as a

whole and to something else, which would allov; us to form a concept.

There

xi?ould

be nothing to prevent us, hovjever,

from forLiing a concept of spatiality from the common properties of a plurality of the parts of space.

And in so far as

what is true of the parts of a homogeneous medium is true of the whole, our knovvledge of spatiality would be true also of space, even though we could not directly have a concept

of it.

But such eclecticism will have sharp limits.

It

would not be possible to carry out the same procedure for both space and time.

That is, it would not be possible to

say of both space and time that they vjere unique entities.

32

but both capable of oeing adequately represented in terras of concepts which have any property in common, for example,

that of extensiveness or divisibility.

An eclecticism of

possibilities one and three might be possible if it could be shown that the intrinsic properties of time had nothing in

coiranon

with those of space.

But if it i^ere supposed that

possibilities two and three could be combined, this v;ould involve a clear contradiction,

i^'or

such a view x;ould be

committed to saying that space and time xvere unique entities

which had nothing in

corrjnon,

but could be adequately repre-

sented by concepts which had something essential to space and time in common.

For this reason, we have not listed

this supposition as a legitimate possibility. It might be objected to the above scheme that it

narrows the available metaphysical possibilities to the point of absurdity.

In one sense only, this is true, and the sense

in which it is true, that

xve

have narrowed

bilities, is, we maintain, not absurd,

T|ie

dotvn

the possi-

principle

vie

have accepted is this: that eitner tine is essentially si-

milar to space or it is not.

And we confess to having enough

faith in ohe law of excluded middle to hold this proposition true, simply as a matter of logic.

To sum up, then, a metaphysical accoimt of the dis-

tinction between space and time must take one of the three

possibilities we have indicated, or some penrdssible eclectic

33

combination of them. tlie

It must, in aluioion, take account of

way in which space and

special scionces.

tiiiie

are distinguished in

x,he

uith reference to the latter requirement,

it will be necos.iar^'' to state in what the distinction con-

sists. To return to our

question

ox'

ori;::;inal

point of depart ux-e, the

the unity of experience, it

caii

be seen that the

above possible ways of distinguishing beUveen space and time

impose conditions on the possible

ansv.'ers

to tais questioii.

If, for example, it is held that space and time are not re-

presentable by concepts, and yet it is also held, as Kant seems to do, that experience exhibits a spatio-temporal unity, it v/ill clearly be impossible to ^ive a rational account of

this unity.

The question of x^hat relations between space

and time can be conceived, i/ill, in terras of this position, be meaningless.

The question of hov/ space and time come to

be united in one natur-e mist remain uixanswered.

question of

hov;

The fiirther

two unique entities, which do not admit of

a common conceptual representation, can be represented in tenras of one

another will likewise be unansv/erable.

Also,

how it is possible that elements of experience which are in time alone, can be spoken of and represented in tenas

which are appropriate to spatial elements, which ivill be impossible to resolve,

v;ill be a

problem

we shall find that

34 these are quoGtious of a kind which hant, in accordance with the dictates of his position, gives no answers.

35 2. 31milaritie3 and Differences bet;veeu Space aiid Tirae

The analogouG properties of space

ticed by Locke,

"i;ho

aiid tirae

distinguished space and time as

were notv/o

dis~

tinct, simple idcac. To conclude: expansion and duration do mutually embrace and conprehend each otlier; every part of space being in every part of duration, and every part of duration in every part of expansion. Such a conbination of two distinct ideas, is, I suppose, scarce to- be found in all that great variety i;e do or can conceive, and may afford matter to farther speculation. IB

Locke woiild have been aaazed, perliaps, to knov/

hov/

far speculation in this regard has been cax^ried out since his day.

The ciathenatical treatment of space and time pro-

vides a conspicuous exaciple of the emphasis on the similarities betv;oen space and time.

Without coniniitting oneself to

the doctrine that space and time as they are dealt with ma-

thematically in physical science constitute, v/ithout qualification, what space and time are, it is possible, nevertheless, to maintain the philosopiiic importance of their simi-

larity in this context,

whatever theory is adopted on the

question of v/hether they are ultimately distinct or not, the

mathematical treatment of space and time cannot be ignored. One of the strongest arguments in favour of tliis view is the

indubitable success of the mathematical treatment in allowing predictions to be made concerning spatio-temporal events in the world.

Yet it should be noted that this point does not

necessarily involve the

viev;

that space and time are ultimately

36 or intrinsically similar,

v/hitehead's

time provides an interestin.^ example of

fch-3ory hov/

of space and

it may be pos-

sible to uphold a fundamental distinction between space and

time, while tailing advantage of the mathematical trer.tment of thsni through their analogous properties.

In his criticism

of classical physics, Whitehead at the same time grants the

success of its uethods, even though, for him, they create

philosophic problems which demand reconsideration of the entire concept of nature. \ie cannot T/onder that science rested content with this assumption as to the fimdamontal elements of natixre. The 2^3at forces of nature, such as gravitation, were entirely determined b^' the confi.'^urations of masses. Thus the circle of scientific thought v;as complete.ly closed. This is the famous raechanistic theory of nature, v/hich has reigned supreme ever since the seventeenth century. It is the orthodox creed of physical science. Furthermore the creed justified itself by the pragmatic test. It worked. 19

V/hitehead sav; clearly that part of the success of

this theory was due to Its taking advantage of a common fea-

ture of space and time.

This allov/ed a conception of matter

as having the property of simple location, v;hich './hitehead e:cplains as "one major characteristic which refers equally

both to space and to tine, and other minor characteristics 20 vjhich are diverse as between space and tine". He explains this common feature as follows:

37 The characteristic comuon both to space and time is that material can be said to be here in space and here in time, or h ere in space-time, in a perfectly definite sense which does not require for its explanation any reference to other recions of space-time. Curiously enough this charc.cteristic of simple location holds "whether we look on a recion of space-time as determined absolutely

or relatively,

21

Whitehead considers the assumption of the simple location of matter to be a fallacy if it is taken to express a

philosophical trutli about the v;orld.

At be£.t the assumption

is an abstraction which mathematics is eminently capable of

expressing. The seventeenth century had finally produced a scheme of scientific thoucht framed by raathenaticians, for the use of mathematicians* The great characteristic of the mathematical mind is its capacity for aealing with abstractions J and for eliciting from, them cloarcut demonstrative chains of reasoning, entirely satisfactory so long as it is abstractions v;hich you v/ant to think about. The enormous success of the scientific abstractions, yielding on the one hand natter with its simple location ih space and time, on the other hand m^a7~perceivi.ng, suffering, reasoning, but not interf ering , h^s foisted onto philosophy the task of accepting then as the most concrete rendering of fact, 22

What mathematics is concerned with, however, is "the

investigation of patterns of connectedness, in absoractiou

from the particular relata and the particular modes of con23

nection". of space

It is not surprising, therefore, to find aspects find

time, in v;hitehead»s philosophy coalescing in a

space-time continuum under che guise of their

ter as extensive relations ,

corjinon

charac-

Yet Ivhitehead maintains an ulti-

mate distinction betvieen space and time.

In their

cor.iuion

3^

character of extensity, space end as "the extensive continuum".

conceive time as another

fom

tirie

are better npoken of

But, "we must not proceed to

24 of extensiveness"

IHiitehead

realizes quite clearly that the concept of space-time, conceived as a network of relations, obliterates the distinction betvjeen space and time.

But this exhibition of the actual universe as extensive and divisible has left out the distinction betvieen space and tiiae. 25

There is a vjay out of ohis difficulty,

which deals

v;ith the

Ilathenatics,

extensive continuuw, involves only ex-

ternal relations, abstracted from the relata. concrete nature are internally related.

The relata in

It is in the concrete,

internally related events of nature that actual time is laanifested. 'Whitehead's treatment of space and tine illustrates

the emphasis on their analogous properties from the standpoint of pure relation, and in a''dition shov;s how these ana-

logies may be dealt vjith in metaphysics without tliereby explainin,;^ av^ay a

real difference betv;een space and time.

It

is not to the present purpose to discuss the particular man-

ner in which Whitehead has accomj-jlished this feat, but merely to point out that he

all the

laore

sa'iv

the necessity of doin^ 30.

This is

interesting in that V/hitehead's accoiuit of the

analoi^oua properties of space and time, particularly in his

early v;orks, ±3 strongly influenced by his conception of

39 mathematics as a formal science of pure relations. logiss for not to be

hi3i

The ana-

become formal analogies, and as such turn out

a nalo.f^ies

at all of f;mdamentally different entities,

but are replaced by one relational complex, the extensive con-

tinuum, which constitutes all the spatio-temporal relations betivsen concrete occasions. This is a rather different 'nethod

of attack from that of the pure matliiematician who, if he cares to, may study the aspects of those relations usually acknow-

ledged to ba characteristic of time, and those usually acknowladged to be characteristic of space, separately,

tirithout

necessarily coiaraitting himself as to whether these relations as QX9 aplif led in phenomena make up one complex whole.

It is,

however, an understandable step to take, and may, perhaps, be the only possible one if the mathematical treatment of

space and tine is to be taken seriously. It is interesting-^ to note in this regard, hov/ever,

that from the standpoint of pure geometry the fusion of space

and time may taka place in either of two ways.

Geometries

based on relations taken to be characteristic of physical space

.':aay

incorporate tiwe as a fourth dimension; or rela-

tions characteristic of time may be considered to be prior, and relations characteristic of space may be derived from then.

At least, in one case, an attempt has been laade to

build up a geometry of four dimensions of the kind required by theoretical physics, from the relations of before and

40 after, \.hich are taken to be the fimdanental ones ch^irac-

tcrisoic of tine. Thus instead of re^arc'ln^ ourselves us, so to speak, swimming along in an ocean of space (as we usually do), we s.re to think of ourselves rather as scnehow' pursuing a course in an ocean of time; x^hile spacial relations are to be. rer;ardeQ as the rianife station of t h e fact thaT th e eTements of t ine f oriu a svstem in conical order ^ couc:vi,::L.lcn );!dc]i u^^y be ctualyned ij_;_ ten.::; oi" " the rela tions of before ancTafterV 2'6 :

The author of this geometry builds it up by a fonaal

procedure of deducing theorems fron postulates: "The geometry as I have pointed out is a loyical structure built up from

certain postulates which

1

shall formulate".

Thus, if this

author has been successful, it would seem that relations taken to be characteristic of space need not, from the mathematical

point of viev;, be considered to be fundamental. in the v/ords of G.

D. Broad,

",

,

Vie

need not,

.talk, or listen to, non-

sense about »Tiine being a foiorth dimension of Space*"

,

even

in the context of mathematics.

What, then are the analogous properties of space and time, and v;here does the analogy v/hich they su-gest break off? In addition to one characteristic to which V/hitehead

iias

dravm

attention, namely, that we can speak meaninj; fully of a "here" in time as ivell as in space, there are a group of properties

which are thou^iht to be

cominon to

both space and time, and

which have often been referred to as their "extensiveness". G, D.

Broad sums up these characteristics in an illustration

41

designed to drav; attention to the extensive aspect of time. How the te:v;'Oral relations v;'r',ich vje perceive anong events are similar to the relations of partial or complete overlappin^j vmich we can perceive in the case of tv/o extended objects, like a pair of sticks. The possible tinerelations betv/een tivo events can bo completely represented by taking a single straight line, letting "left -to-right" on this stand for "earlier and later*', and taking tv/o stretches on this line to represent a pair of finite events, 29 Time, like space, soems to adnit of quantitative de-

terminations.

This was also

brou'::ht

out hy Locke, \vho, al-

though he regarded space and time as two distinct ideas, thought that they might be nore clearly and distinctly'- knotvn if they were compared with one another. In both of these (vi?;. expansion and duration) the mind has this comriion idea of continued lengths, capable of greater or less quantities; for a man has as clear an idea of the difference of the length of an hour and a day as of an inch and a foot. 30

Locke also touches upon other aspects of the exten-

siveness of space and time, which have their counterparts in

Bread's representation.

For exarrple, Locke says that "All

the parts of extension are extension, and all the parts of 31 in other words, space and tine in

duration are duration";

their character of extensiveness are homogeneous. ther

ccETT.on

Two fur-

proper-ties of the extensiveness of space and time

are mentioned by Locke.

Being influenced by I'lewton's theory

of absolute space and time, he emphasizes that both space and

time can be conceived of as infinite.

Expansion is not bounded

hj natter, nor duration by motion, but each may be thought of

42

as uriending once the idea o£ a particular length of ohe or

the other has been seized upon. As a corollary to the infinite extension of spcce and time, Locke aads that they admit of finite determination, that is, they are divisible into particular lengths.

Time in general is to duration as place to expansion. They are so much of these boundless oceans of eternity and iiamensity, as is set out a.id distinguished froni t^e rest as it vere by landmarks; and so are laade use of" to denote the position of finite real beings, in respect to one anothhysical system.

Possibility (A), therefore, may be

i-)art

of a

full-blown materialistic system like that of Hobbes, or it may be presented simply as a theory concerning space

and

'cirne.

Ic is in latter guise that we meet with it

in classical physics, and in the views of 3road and others.

77 It allows one to mako a fundaraential diatinction betv;een

space and time, because the chanijes in the spatial re-

lations Ox objects

ax-e thou^jiht

to be events in time.

Provided it is thought that time is a series with one end open and with events constantly being added, time v/ill be

different from space in that it will have an intrinsic sense or direction.

It is to be noted that this view

involves a necessary reference to consciousness or the self, in order to account for the direction in v;hich motion

proceeds in the physical world, as we have explained above.

by

This reference can be expressed in two ways, either

sayin;-;

that time is a series with a projecting open

end, or by referrin^: to the observation of the direction

of notion by an observer.

Since the latter, (e:ccept for

special cases in the "specious present") alv;ays involves the distinction of earlier and later, or past and present, in the recognition of the dix^ection of motion, the two

amount to the same

thini;:.

Although the physical world

accounts for events in the time-series, the temporal

distinctions made by the self account for the direction of the time-series, and hence for the direction of all motion.

Considering objects in the physical world to

be simply individuals or substances, which are at

different places, neither the direction of the tine-series.

n nor the direction oi any motion would be possible -without this irreducible reference to the observer or the self. In empirical science, of course, this reference is taken

for granted as generalizations concerning events in the

physical world are only possible ivhere empirical observations are possible. It is clear that according to possibility A,

when reference is

j:iade

to the teiaporal distinctions of

the self, that spatial relations of objects may chanije

but temporal relations of events may not.

56

Thus, spatial

relations of individual objects may change, and these changes are considered to be events which take their place on the end of the time-series.

This involves sayin

;

that

the object or substance endures through changes in its

states or spatial relations.

Since the object retains

its identity through changes in its spatial relations,

and since these changes mark "events" v;hich are fixed in the time-series, we say that an objects endures .

or is permanent, through time.

Here

v^'e

note the first

requirement of the theory being presented, that is, the

literal identification of changes or differentiations in the spatial continuum with differentiations in the

time -continuum.

Thus differentiations in the time-

continuum are considered to be individuals, and these

79

get their identity from the changes in the spatial r3lations of objects.

But, as we pointed out earlier, vjhere

differentiations in an extensive continuum are considered themselves to be individuals, they cannot move ,

They are irrevocably fixed.

The kind of individual

which is thought to move through time, namely, the self, has been rejected and the differential individuals must

remain in the position in which they occur in tha timecontinuum.

There is, however , the other requirement of

a complete metaphysic, viz., that all events in the tine-

continuum must be subject to the

lav;s

which goveni the

activities of the substance which moves through space. This involves accounting for all those phenomena for

which the rejected substance might have been thought to account.

Since the spiritual substance which moves

through time has been rejected, it is necessary to show that all those different states through which the spiri-

tual substance is thought to retain its identity at different times, are, in fact, subject to the laws which

goveni the activities of material substance.

This iS a

corollary of maintaining that all events in the time-

continuum are quite literally changes in the spatial continuum. This necessitates an attempt to formulate a 57

materialistic psychology.

go

Metaphysical systems stemmin,: from possibilities A and 3, both involve holdin,^ that thare is one nature

.

the differentiations of v;hich constitute dirforentiations

in the extensive continuum of both space and time.

There

is this di. forence between them, hov/evor, that ivhile the

materialistic system must deny that there are differentiations

which appear in the time-continuum alone, for example, states of mind which are in tine, but are non-spatial, the system which accepts the self as its sole substance

may maintain that there are differentiations which are in time alone, without abandoning the idea that there is one nature.

It v/ill only be necessary to maintain

that all spatial differentiations are in time, while time

may contain differentiations which are not in space. This, as

\ie

shall see, is the position adopted by Kant.

The corollary of this latter position is that it will

be necessary to shovj that those differentiations which

are in the spatial continuum are subject to those

principles vjhich ^'ovem the activities of the self. V/e

add that there is, of course, a wide latitude of

possible opinion as to what these activities peculiar to the self are.

The self may be conceived as a set

of purely logical functions or it may be conceived as a

centre of feeling, and prehensions.

In addition, the

SI

self or subject v;hich fimctions as a principle of in-

dividuation may be considered monistically or pluralir^tic^.lly.

Nature may be the result of activities ox one

subject or a plurality of them.

For either theory, the same chan^ces of the ex-

tended are considered to be in both space and time#

If

this step were not taken, there woiild be no explaining a unity of nature.

Accordinf^ to possibility (A) chanriies

of objects are considered to be events which are added to the end of the time-series. exist.

Future time does not

According to possibility (B), there are events

which occur on the end of the time-series, and these events

brin,,~

objects in space into existence.

Time is

the becoming or passing av/ay of objects in space.

In

both cases, the same, often empirically observable, chant-es are dealt with.

Thus, the main difference be-

tween the two theories is a difference of emphasis, and a difference of opinion as to what the substance or

principle of individuation relates to.

Accordin,- to

(a), substance relates to bodies, objects in space, and

the changes through which substance retains its identity

are thought to be events in time.

Accordingly, time is

merely a device for recording the changes of objects. It is derivative , and since it cannot be perceived, is

82

sometimes thought to be unreal.

Although it is neceasary,

on this theory, to refer to tho temporal distinctions

of the observer in order to account for the direction of

motions, it need not be considered that anyohin.;; arises or passes away so far as the representation of motion is

concerned.

Motion need be considered as nothin:^ more

than the order of the e:cistence of parts of an object. As to how it comes about that an object is at different

places at different times, this theory need not be concerned, Jut accordini:: to (B), the principle of in-

dividuation relates directly to change itself, to the successive advance of time. The self remains the same,

exists as a

v»fhole,

Ob acts are derivative. .1

Accordin:- to (A), space

and the principles which i^ovem the

movements of bodies may be thought to determine what changes shall occur in the spatial continuum, and hence also -what events shall appear in time.

According to

(B), space does not exist in itself, as a void aivaiting

changes in it, but space as extensive is only an abstract aspect of the primordial becoming of things. The

changes which bring objects into existence also bring ex-

tended space into being.

There is just so much space as

the changes of time determine that there shall be,

(A)

S3

considers that space and its objects are Ic.ically prior to time and change.

(B)

considers change to be

lojically prior to space and its objects. There is apt to be confusion as to the terra "tine", v/hich has different meanings according to each

For (A), tinie is measured tirae, ultimately de-

theory.

rived iron the regularity of events, which are, in turn,

dependent on the movement of bodies in space. time is

a

For (B),

successive series of acts of becoming itself.

Logically conceived, time is for both theories a continuum made up of points v/hich are events or changes. Dut (A) disregards the fact that the continuum is made

up of changes and considers only its logical aspect as a

continuum.

The result of this is that time is con-

In conceiving of time

ceived as a kind of extensiveness.

in this manner, theory (A) points in the direction of

the theory of the four-dimensional manifold in vchich

there is no necessary distinction

betv.'een

space and time.

It is thus as we have said a half-way house position,

which only manages to make a distinction between space and time by supposing that the time-series is projecting

itself at one end in the forra ci

nev.

events.

Strictly

speaking, it is impossible to conceive how time, on this view, could project itself.

For the instants of time are

•

S4

analogous to iJOints on a lino, and no natter v;g

point

v.'hat

take, there is no next point, just as there is no

fraction

v.'hich

is next after 1.

But it is necessary that

the time-series should project itself, or it could have

no intrinsic direction.

If this intrinsic direction is

^iven up, there v/ill be no distinction betv;een space and time, and theory (A) will liave developed into the theory of the manifold, the difficulties of

v.'hich v;e

have already

examined

Theory (3), on the other hand, does not lose slight Ox

the fact that time is conceived as a series of

changes.

It is possibly for this reason that time has

often been said to flovf.

V'e

date changes, not objects,

and time is conceived as an extensive continuxan of changes. The thought may arise that the whole continuum is changing

from point to point.

Time floivs.

But this is a nistake,

because even though the continuum is a series of it does not itself change.

chan.^^es,

The mistake is encoura-^ed,

^erhaps, by the fact that in terns of measured time

phenomenal changes take some tine to occur. Nevertheless, the emphasis which theory (B) ,>laces on the fact of change is not

aside.

1/e

lightly to be cast

have seen that the temporal distinctions of

the self, which are related to the apprehension of

chan,r:;e.

65

are necessary in order to accoiuio for the direction of

notion. Ox

Theory (A) points towards a complete rejection

temporal distinctions knovjn to the self, (with dis-

astrous results).

Theory

(D)

takes these temporal dis-

tinctions seriously and attempts to combine the fact of

chani,:e v/ith

an extensive theory of tine.

For this

reason it considers chanj;e to be logically prior to objects and space, and its principles relating to the \mity

of nature are principles which apply directly to time itself.

The principles are taken to be associated with

the self or subject, which retains its identity throiigh chan,,i;e

of time, or through the process of becoming and

passing avjay ox objects.

Theory (3) attempts to take

advanta^^e of the clotie connection betv^een the self-

identity of the subject and chancre, so

tliat

activities

of the self are thought to determine the occurrence of

events and hence the coming into beins of objects.

But

it leads logically to a rejection of any concept of the

extensiveness of

tit/ie.

It leids to the fu.llest acceptance

of the subjective apprehension of becoming, '.Je

have here intended to present in ^eneral the

outlines of these two possibilities before turning to a specific examination of Kant*3 vievjs.

l/e

hope to show

that Kant* 3 theory of space and time approximates to

86

possibility

(D)

rathor than (A).

But before returning

to these two possibiliti'-js, we must try to clarify Kant's

Method of distinijuishinj between space and distinction between inner and outer sense. we

nfxi;

proceed.

tiiae,

and his

To this task

CHAPTEIL THREE

KANT»S THiCORY OF 3PACS AND

TII-dE

1. Kant^s Distinction bobween Space and Time

The doctrine that concepts, (intellectual functions) can only yield knowledge when related to in-

tuitions

rr^iven

to sensibility may be

reri;arded as a

typical of Kant«s niature critical philosophy.

view

It is a

view v;hich Kant had not clearly arrived at in the

Inaugural Dissertation , indeed, since he does not seem then to have separated so clearly and sharply the intuitive elements in knowledge from the intellectual. Yet the trend towards the critical philosophy is qiiite evident.

V/hile it is not the

purpose of this thesis to

trace the development of Kant»s views which culminated in the position adopted in the Critique of Pure iieason . a short excursus into the difference between his dis-

tinction betv;een space and time in that v;ork, and the

distinction put forth in the Inau':ural Dissertation

may serve to throvj the doctrines of the Critique into sharper relief.

This thesis takes these doctrines as a

point of departure in showing the systematic relation

between Kant's and 3ergson»s theories of space and time. One aspect in particular of the difference between Kant»s viev;s in these two vjorks is important.

S7

This concerns

I

s

the relation of the intellect to tine. It was said above that Kant did not seoarate

purely intellectual functions from intuitive functions in the Inaur^ural Dissertation as sharply as he did in the

Critique ,

Similarly, the position adopted in the former

work on the question of the intellect's relation to time

was expressly repudiated in the latter v;ork. In the Critique the hi:;hest principle of all

analytic judgments is held to be the principle of contradiction, a purely negative criterion of truth, ne-

cessary but not sufficient to guarantee the correctness of all judgments. The principle of contradiction must therefore be recognized as being; the imiversal and completely sufficient principle of all analytic knov.'led,:;e; -but beyond the sphere of analytic knox^^led.^e, it has, as ^ sufficient criterion of truth, no authority and no field of application. 5^

The principle of contradiction, as characteristic of the logical functions of the intellect is not, indeed,

ignored or omitted in the Inau^:ural Dissertation .

There,

instead of making the critical distinction betv;een analytic and synthetic

.judp^roent

.

the use of the intellect

is likewise two-fold, but is on the one hand real, in xvhich "the very concepts of objects or relations are .

„'

raven "

.

59

and on the othar hand, lo :ical . in ivhich

b^9

"concepts, whencesoever jiven, are only subordinated to one another, the

lov.'er

to the hi:^her (the comraon marks),

and compared with one another according to the principle of contradiction".

In both works, then, the principle

of contradiction is held to be characteristic of one use of the intellect, and in each case, this is its purely lov;ical use.

But the relation of the principle of con-

tradiction to time is si-:^niiicantly different in each case.

In the Inau ;ural Dissertation time is held to be

intimately associated with the operations of the intellect in the use of the principle of contradiction.

Further, though time does not indeed prescribe laws to reason, it yet establishes the chief conditions by the help of which the mind am order ibs notions according; to the laws of reason. Thus I cannot decide whether a thin^ is impossible, except by predicating A and not-A of the same subject at the same time . 61 That Kant meant

x-zhat

he said can be seen from

his repetition of the same point in the very place

vj'here

he is at pains to expose the errors due to the con-

tamination of intellectual knov/ledge by the sensitive in the metaphysical fallacy of subreption.

Here sensitive

or phenomenal characteristics are attached to purely

intellectual concepts in such a manner that phenomena are intellectualized, that is, as Kant was later accusto-

90

med to put it, treated as things in themselves. That is to say, our intellect x^ecognises impossibility only where it can remark the simultaneous enunciation or o;.';>03ites about the same subject, i.e. only v-'here a contradiction occurs. The human intellect, tho^-efox-e, C£in make no jud^ent of impossibility in cases in which this contradiction is not 62 is not found. In the Critique , on the other hand, the doctrine

that time "establishes the chief conditions by the help

of which the mind can order its notions according to the -63 lav/s lav;

of reason",

is expressly repudiated.

Thus of the

of contradiction Kant says that:

Althoui^h this faiaouB principle is thus without content and merely formal, it has sometimes been carelessly formulated in a manner which involves the quite unnecessary admixture of a synthetic element. The foraula runs: It is impossible that something should a_t one and the same time both be and not be... -the proposition is modified' hj the condition of time... The principle of contradiction, however, as a merely logical principle, must not in any way iii/dt its assertions to time-relations. The above fonnula is therefore completely contrary to the intention of the principle. o4

The loc;ical principle of contradiction needs no

help from time, and this being the case, it is apparent that time bears a different relation to the intellect in the Critique than is the case in the Inau":ural Dissertation In the former work the intellectual functions of the self

or subject, from which the principles xvhich bring about the iinity of nature must ultimately derive, are freed fix>m

any confusion with either of the two extensive continua

,

91

of space and ;;ime.

Kant has become clearly aivare that

the principles which produce this unity are separate from

the msdia to v/hich they apply.

Nevertheless, in both

the Critique and the Inau":ural Dissertation there is a

clear indication of the importance of

tiiue

in contra-

distinction to space as regards this application.

Kant

expresses this in the Inaa":ural Dissertation by saying that "time approaches more nearly (than space) to a

universal, x-atioiial conce-it, in that it embraces absol65

utely everythin:; within its survey".

And in the

Critique Kant explains why the categories may be sche-

matised by means of time-determinations, as follov;s:

Now a transcendental determination of time is so far hono;;eneous with the cateivory, which con» stitutes its unity, in that it is- universal and rests upon an a priori rule. But, on the oth3r hand, it is 30 far homo, ;eneous with a;:pearance, in that time is contained in evsry empirical representation of the manifold. 66 Both in the Inaur.ural Dissertation and the Critique of Pure Reason Kant distin.Tuishes between space

and time as forms of sensibility, and as pure intuitions. The distinction betv.'een them, then, is a distinction be-

tween two different a priori formal conditions of sen-

sibility or two different

..ure

in the following quotations.

intuitions.

This is stated

92

Time is not somethinr- ob.iectivo mia real , It is neither substance nor accident nor relation, but is a subjective condition, necessary ov/in;; to the nature of the huraan mind, of the co-ordinating of all sensibles according to a fixed law; and it is a pure intuition, 67 •

Kant describes space in almost identical language.

After

statin,'- tliat

"the conceot of space is thus a pure

•68

intuition",

and also "the fundamental form of all outer 69

sensations",

Kant

f-oes on

to repeat what he

lias

said

about time in almost identical terms. Space is not somet'iin objective and real , neither substance, nor accident, nor relation, out subjective and ideal and, as it v.'ere, a schema, issuin by a constant lav; from the nature of the mind, for the connecting of all outer sensa whatsoever, 70 :

;

:

AlthoUi':h there is a ceriiain

chan,:;:e

in the dis-

tinction between space and time in the Critique of Pure Reason , from that of the Inauf;ural Dissertation , they

f.re

still distinguished in the same manner, namely, as forms

of sensibility.

The

chan,':;e

is due to Kant^s sharper

realization of the difference between intuition and thought.

Hence in the Dissertation Kant could say that;

So far is it from bein^ possible that anyone should ever deduce and explain the concept of tine by the help of reason, that the very principle of contradiction presui'poses it, involvin^j it as a condition. For A and not-A are not incompatible tinless they are jud,~ed of the same thin^^ tor:;ethQr (i.e., in the same time) 71 On the oth

.r

hand, in the Critique Kant

lias

completely

93

severed any necessary and intimate connection between the

peculiar functions of conceptual thinkin

and intuition;

althou:^h, of course, he stresses their union in empir-

ical knowledge.

Indeed, it is only because Kant has been

at rreat pains to isolate and examine the peculiar nature

of each, and make clear what the functions of each consist in, that he can present a clear account of that union.

Thus, in the introductory remarks to the Transcendental

Aesthetic, Kant announces that "In the course of this

investigation it will be found that there are

tv/o

pure

forms of sensible intuition, servin;- as princijles of •72 and continues a priori knowledj^e, namely, space and time",

on to present his arguments for this contention, vjithout me nt ion in:; any necessary relation of one of these pure

intuitions, namely, time, to the operations of the intellect,

^'Je

emphasize this point because we wish to

stress thc.t the singular role of time in the philoso hy of Kant does not consist in time enterin.- into the

operations of the intellect as a condition of them. The principle of individuation, and its related principles,

must in the nature of things be considered as distinct from the medium to

v.'hich

it applies.

The differences between space and time in Kant's

philosophy, however, are not limited to their

beinj.:

dif-

94

forent forms of oensioility. ferences for

Ki.nt

The sirail^i^ities and dif-

correspond, in fact, to those v;hich

v;e

pointed out above in coimectlon with the views of C,D. 3road, r>..ucj

unv.

^ii.ie

uro cooa cuiiuinua,

ox*

m

ivriiu's

73 v;ords, "Space and time are quanta continua ".

fore extensive,

Space and

tiaie

and there-

are "the two original

74

quanta of all

oior-

intuition",

but there is an intrinsic

difference between them in their extensiveness.

"Time

is in itself a series, and indeed the formal condition 75 but space, on the other hand, "is an

of all series",

76 not a series".

By this Kant seems to mean

that space or a spatial series has no intrinsic direction, for he says that", ...in space, taken in and by itself, there is no distinction between progress and re77 gress". There is, hov;ever, a pro-ress in the time-series

from past to present. The present moment can be regarded only asconditioned by past time, never as conditioning it, because this moment cones into existence only throush past time, or rather through the passing of the preceding; time, 7^

Kant clearly regards time as a series which has an

intrinsic sense or direction from past to future.

Further-

more, he re^iiards this series as deriving its intrinsic

direction from tho fact that it has one end open

to which

95

new events are conotantly

bein;.:

added,

puts

Althou:;jh he

this point in temio of conditioning and the conditioned, his meanin^-, is clear.

Thus v/e necessarily think time as having completely elapsed up to the .^iven moment, and as being itself siven in this completed form. This holds true, even though such completely elapsed time is not determinable by us. But since the future is not the condition of our attaining- to the present, it is a mattjx' of entire indiff^i-ence, in our comprehension of the latter, how we may think of future time, whether as comin,_, to an end or as flowing on -to infinity, Vie have J as it were, the series m, n, o, in which n is ^^iven ug concliticnoU by m, ana" at" the same tTme as bein:-; the condition of oT The series ascends from the from the conditioned n to si (1, k, _i, etc.), and also descends from th^ oonH'ition n t'o the con"" ditioned o (£, £, r, etc). 79 Time, for Kant, flows, as it v/ere, "down hill",

from tho past to the present; and, by means ox

nev;

events,

on in GO the future.

Space and time, however, in and by themselves are not concepts,

Kant is emphatic on this point.

They must

therefore be unique, having nothing in common with each other or with anything else.

For if they had anything in

common v;ith anything else, the common elements would

provide a basis for a discursive concept.

But it is

extremely difficult to try to reconcile Kant's doctrine that space and time are intuitions and hence singular,

with his numorous statements about their analogous properties.

To a certain extent the difficulty can be

96 resolved.

For example, the irnity of the horaor^eneous

manifold in either space or time is the result of synthesis, but, as Paton points out, the explanation of this cannot be siven in the Transcendental Aesthetic,

where Kant is primarily concerned with sensibility in isol tion.

urthennore, until Kant has explained his aocurine of synthesis, he has to speak as if the uJTiity of space and time were .• iven in intuition. It can, hovJever, be ^iven only because of a synthesis which does not belon-:; to sense. The necessary synthetic unity of space (and of timej depends upon, and presu 'ooses, the pure catec'ories of the understanding. All this is onitted from the Aesthetic, but it seenis to me tliat such an omission is defensible, SO A nan cannot explain his whole philosophy at once. ,

Insofar as the analo^^ies stem from this unity, there is no necessary inconsistency with Kant's view that space and time are pure intuitions.

But insofar as space

and time are of such a nature that an analo/^ous unity,

and common concepts, must be formed of them, they cannot be considered imique.

marked similarities.

As intuitions they would then have It is clear that if the categories

of quantity are applicable to both space and time, they ipso facto have that much in common.

And it is ab\m-

dantly clear that Kant did think that space and time were capable of bein:^ represented in the same terras. Besides those definite statements to which we have already

97 draivn

attention Kant

'lays that "A

concept of space and tine,

as quanta, can be exhibited a priori in intuition, that is,

constructed, either in respect of the quality (figure) of the quanta, or throui];h number in their quantity only gl (the mere synthesis of the homogeneous manifold)". No'.v

tvjo

it is quite possible that there r«ir:ht be

pure intuitions, which unique in themselves, yet have

somethin.3 in common.

This is apparently Kant's view.

Nevertheless, such a doctrine, if it is to avoid the con-

tradiction in the kind of eclecticism which above in Choptei*-

Tx-^o,

must maintain

tl-iat

^^'e

mentioned

the essential of

either space or time is omitted when they are represented in similar conceits.

Otherwise the essential of both

space and time will be adequately represented in the same

concepts and a distinction between them as intuitions

will be unnecessai'y.

One intuition, at most, v/ould be

enough, for they would represent a common type of intui-

tion oven if there were a plurality of them

fered in unessential ways.

v.'hich

dif-

There would be no more point

in distinguishing them than there would be in distinguishing a multiplicity of separate intuitions of space, and supposin-'-

them to ba different kinds of intuition, Nevertheless, Kant does distinguish between space

and tine, not only in that tine is all-pervasive in the

sphere

oi'

sense, as we have seen, but also in

oliat

every-

thinji that is in space is -*lso in time, vjhile some states

Oi the self are in time alone,

Ve shall explore the

implications of this latter point in subsequent sections.

Meanwhile it can be noted that these two points involve one another.

For ix

tii.ie

alone is allfcervasive, in con-

tradistinction to space, it follows that something must be in time aloiie.

..hen

it is held, as Kant does, that

sta.;.es

peculiar to the self such as thoughts and feelinperception,

throu,;5;h

which alone

104

any empirical consciousness of the 3elf is rosrible. Apperception and its synthetic irnity is, indeed, vary far from being identical vi/ith inner sense. 90 Inner sense, in this meaning of the panorama of

changing conscious states, may be entitled, says Kant, en;

irical a^joerce'^tion .

Consciousness of self according to the determinations of our state in inn r perception is merely empirical, and alvays channich-pins of i:ant»s thought, namely, the transcendental unity of apperception, and the independent origin of the categories in the nature of logical thinking, v/ould

Apper-

have been difficult, if not impossible, to maintain.

ception and

lo/:"ical

thinking pertain to the subject, and

in terms of human psychology, it is only the fact that these

mental activities are in time alone and not also in space that distinguishes them from events in the spatio-temporal

phenomenal world.

Only

som.e

quasi-miraculous doctrine of

emerr;ence could locate them in an exclusively spatio-temporal Nat\ire.

Kant, at least,

:;,ives

tending in this direction.

no indication that he

x-zas

For hLm, logic and its peculiar

norms are a possession of the mind independent of the world of physical objects, in the sense that knowledge of them is not be explained by means of the motions of bodies.

If

they were not independent, it is extremely difficult to see how Kant could hold that forms of judgipent are prior

And even as phenomenal

to :md constitutive of such objects.

selves, we must be able to be conscious of the forms of jud.^ment, psychologically, that is, we must have been able

to discover them, and be conscious of

by means of mental activities.

ou-r

logical thinking

The mental activities of

the phenomenal self must therefore be separated clearly

from events in the external v;orld,

Kant*s distinction

153

between inner and outer sense, v/hich rests, at bottom, on his fundamental distinction betxveen space and time, is,

v/e

maintain, the chief means whereby he accomplishes this important separation,

Ue find, therefore, that it is very misleadins to

speak of Kant's view as a "metaphysics of experience". The

expression is correct enough as far as it goes, in that it does imply what Kant's chief metaphysical interest

vjas.

But it also seems to sur^est an omission of the independent,

idealistic source of the principles constitutive of experience.

For Kant's philosophy is not primarily a metaphysics

of experience, but rather a metaphysics of logic.

The fun-

damental metaphysical fact, for Kant, is the primacy of .judgment .

The second basic reason for the importance of time in Kant's philosophy, and for the consequent derivative role

of space, relates to the effectiveness of Kant's answer to Hume.

Since we have already discussed

need not lin^^er further over it here,

tliis at

length, we

we must take the op-

portunity at this point, hov/ever, to remark that had Kant not made a fundamental distinction between space and time,-

had he obliterated all distinction between space and time,he would never have been ab3ie bo rebut Hixme's criticism at

all.

For KwaG's main argument can be stated equa.lly in

'

154

terms of diverse re^'ions of space-time, as it can be in terms of the difference between the future and the past, as long as it is assumed, paradoxically enough, that an identical 169 self can be at different regions of space-tiiae. Kant's an-

swer depends on the view that the categories condition the

temporal successiveness of the transcendental synthesis of imacination.

But if the universe is laid out completely

in an eternal four-dimensional manifold, there can be no

question of successiveness, and hence no synthesis at all, at least in Kant's sense of the term.

In addition, accor-

ding to a manifold theory in v/hich there is no distinction

between space and time, individuals become a matter of convention.

It is hard to see how there could be any but an

arbitary

order in nature, if things can "nove back and

forth in time", depending on how we choose to regard them. There ceri^ainly could be no necessary logical order,

A

development of Kant's view in this direction v;ould seem to be extremely un-Kaiitian,

On the other hand, the physical

theory of space-time seems to retain an intrinsic difference between space and tine, a distinction which is involved in the reference to the observation of motion.

Time is dis-

tinguished from space by its successiveness to the conscious mind.

And this, of course, is the very basis of Kant's

distinction.

In this respect at least, the physical theory

of space-time does not seem to be incompatible v/ith Kant's

155 views.

In so lar as the physical theory of space-tiffie pre-

iupposes a metaphysics similar to possibility A, however, it \}ovld be opposed to Kantfi metaphysics of space and time,

out this opposition mi^ht possibly be removed by a proper

distinction between measured time and primordial time, i,e. becoming. Kant's metaphysics is, if nothing else, a unified and amazingly consistent body of doctrine,

Uxs view of the

transcendental conditions of hiiman experience, his recognition of the

I'ole

of lo.^ic

and apperception, necessitate a

distinction between space and time such that the subject, qua phenonenal self, is distinguished from the material world .nd

objects in space, in that the self is in time alone,

'./e

can express this by saying that, for Kant, part of the dis-

tinction between subject and object consists in the fact that the inner activities of the self are in time alone. Kant makes use of this point and the consequent flux of

inner sense in his proof of the emptiness of rational :'sycholOi3y.

Thus, in Kant's viev;, human mental activities

have a very close association with time, a topic

must now discuss.

X'/hich

we

CHAPTEH FOUR i3::;RGS0K'S

THEORY OF SPACE

/iMD

TIKE MID ITS

RELATION TO THAT OF KANT 1.

Time and Inner Experience

Having clarified sufficiently for our purr>ose the role of space and time in Kant's philosophy, we are now in a position to introduce Bergaon's views, and to compare them

with those of Kant.

We have already

seei:

that Kant's vievvs

necessarily involve the point that the self is in time only. Me must now explore the significance of this intimate rela-

tion between the self and tine,

V/e

shall present evidence

that Bergson's philosophy parallels that of Kant in several

important respects, namely, in holding that the inner

experience of the self allows a direct apprehension of the realit]''

of time and change, that this inner experience is

not explicable in terms of science apr^ropriate to outer sense, that the concept of the self is empty except in so

far as it is conceived as a logical

fiaactioqi,

and that in

several essential ways Bergson's distinction between inner and outer sense resembles that of Kant, Kant and Bergson a,^ree on a point of fimdamental

importance, namely, that the empirical self is characterized

by a perpetual

fliix.

In so far as we are conscious of

ourselves and our inner state, 156

vje

are conscious of a

157

continuous chan^je.

For Ilant, when

v;e

empirically attend

to that area of appearances called inner sense,

(in the

narrow meaning), our primary intuition is of this change. Consciousness of self according- to determinations of our state in inner perception is merely empirical and alv;ays changing. No fixed and abiding self can present itself in this flux of inner appearances. I70

Bergson makes the same point in more concrete, figurative language: The existence of v;hich we are most assured and which v;e know best is unquestionably our own, for of every other object we have notions x^hichraay be considered external and superficial, whereas, of ourselves our perception is internal and profound. I'lHiat, then, do we find?. . . I find, first of all, that I pass from state to state. I an warm- or cold, I am merry or sad, I work or I do nothing, I look at what is around me or Sensations, feelings, I think of something else. such are the changes into which volitions, ideas my existence is divided and v;hich color it in turns, But this is not I chan,:e, then, v/ithout ceasing. saying enough. Change is far more radical than we are at first inclined to suppose. 171

—

Bergson, of course, reveals here the importance he

attaches to this intuition of change, in sioggesting that it is more radical than one might suppose.

While Kant

does not attach the same kind of importance to this matter that Bergson does, it is nevertheless an indispensable

element in his philosophy, opening up as it were, the

avenue through which Kant approaches time .

For, as we have

already emphasized, time is the form of inner sensibility in the narrow meaning as v/ell as in the wide meaning.

15S In addition, we must draw attention

liere

to zhe similarity

of Ber^son^s point that our perception of ourselves is in-

ternal and profoimd, while our perception of objects is

external and superficial, to some of Kant»s statements. Kant tells us that "All that we know in matter is merely

relations

(v/hat

we call the inner determinations of it are 172

inward only in a comparative sense)".

Since Kant also

remarks that "we know of no determinations v/hich are abso173

lutely inner except those (given) through our inner sense", we may conclude that, for him, the primary meaning of the terra "inner" is

derived from inner perception of ourselves.

This point, in fact, constitutes one of his main v/eapons in. his attack on Leibniz.

life

do not knovj the inner nature

of anything except that of our phenomenal selves.

But

Kant quite clearly distinguishes this inner nature from the determinations of external objects. But that which is inner in the state of a substance cannot consist in place, shape, contact or motion' (these determinations being all outer relations), and we can therefore assign to substance no inner state save that through which we ourselves inwardly determine our sense, namely, the state of representations . 174 One of the first questions v;hich occurs concerning

this self -consciousness or perception of the self, as re-

vealing a constant state of flux, is as to vjhat meaning the

term "self" can have in this context.

Kant distinguishes

between inner sense or empirical apperception, which is in

159

constant flux, and the facxiltv of apperception, and tells us that "we intuit oujrselves only as v;e are inwardly 175 affected". The problem of how that v/hich is in constant

flux can be determined in any way, we shall consider later. For the present, we note only that one»s inability to find a suitable terra, which at once indicates something; deter-

minate enough to be an object of knoii/ledge, and at the same time does not destroy the primary fact of the flux, is

revealing,

iiThat

is uncovered in this inner intuition is,

so to speak, so slippery and transitory, th^t to apply

substantive terras to it seems to be a mistake.

At any

rate the ansv/ers which Kant and Bergson give to this ques-

tion are for-thright and strikingly similar.

There can be

little meaninc for them in the notion of a permanent ego or self in the flux of inner experience. But, as our attention has distinguished them and separated them artificially, it is obliged next to reionite them by an artifical bond. It imagines, therefore, a formless ego , indifferent and unchangeable, on v;hich it tlireads the psychic states v-zhich Instead -of a it has set up as independent entities. flux of fleeting shades nerging into each other, it perceives distinct, and so to speak, solid colors set side by side like the beads of a necklace; it must perforce then suppose a tliread, also itself solid to hold the beads together. But if this colorless substratum is perpetually colored by that v/hich colors it, it is for us, in its indeterrainateness, as if it did not exist. . , 176 Vife

see here, in Bergson 's words, something of the

Kantian doctrine of the indetenninateness of things-in-

160

themselves.

Indeed, for Kant, the emptiness of the concept

of the soul

is one of the charges he brines a^iainst rational

pS3rcholocy, and the effectiveness of this charge rests on

Kant's viev/ that inner experience reveals a constant flux. For in what we entitle 'soul', everything is in continual flux and there is nothing abiding except (if v;e must so express ourselves) the »I» which is simple solely because its representation has no content. 177 It would be incorrect to call this inner intuition

itself time, for as Kant often remarks, "time itself cannot 176^

be perceived".

Nevertheless, Kant holds that the nat\ire

of time, the continuity of v/hich "is ordinarily desir^ated 179 by the tern flov/ing or f leaving away", is the determinate

form "in v;hich alone the intuition of inner states is posIgO sible". While ive cannot be said to perceive time, or to have a knov;ledge of it by means of a concept, ("Time is

not a disciirsive, or

vjhat is

ISl called a general concept"),

we are nevertheless conscious of it as the peculiar form in v;hich this inner intuition takes place.

As such, we

can never be conscious of time as an object, especially as a thing-in-itself .

Ue have the sense of time, hov;ever,

and recognize it as absolutely different from the sense of space, althoTOgh the way in v;hich

v;e

can be said to have

these must be carefully specified to avoid misunderstanding of Kant's doctrine.

We have a sense of time and a sense of

space, not as objects, or even as sensations; what we

161 actiially sense are appearances, so that

v/e

have the sense

of time and the sense of space, only in so far as we recog-

nize certain kinds of appearances as differently related, i.e., as in time and as in space.

We have no sense of these

relations apart from the appearances which they relate, yet

we can in one way be said to have the sense of time and the sense of space, in that we do recognise appearances as dif-

ferently related, sone in time alone, ("the empirical object, which is called.

.

.an inner object if it is represen-

ted only in its time-relations "

) .

others in both space and

time, "the conditions of sensible intuition, which carry 1(53

V7ith

them their oxm differences". Granted that the self as it appears to inner sense,

in the narrow meaning, is not time itself, but is

jto

time,

and taking Kant's ivords at their face value, that this self is in constant flux, it is navi necessary to enquire into

the character of the

thought of it.

fli;ix

itself, and to determine

hov;

Kant

It will be helpful in this regard to intro-

duce his views on psycholofry

;and

what kind of a science it

may be said to be. There are, for Kant, two species of sense objects,

according to divided.

x^?hich

the whole of nature as phenomena is

162

Now Natxire, in this sense of the word, has two main divisions, in -accordance with the main distinction of our sensibility, one of which coi.iprises the objects of the outer , the other the object of the inner -thus rendering possible a two-fold doctrine of 'Mature, the UOCTRIIJii OF JODI and the DOCTRIIiS C? 30UL, the first dealinj with extended ^ and the second v;ith thinking. Nature, 1^5 ;

Here Kant is referring to inner sense in the nar-

row meaning, a point which he makes clear in his subsequent

proof that all matter as such is lifeless.

know no other internal principle of and no , other internal activity v/hatever but thought . witK that -which depenas upon it, feeling of' pleasure and pain, and inpulse or x;ill. But these groiinds of determination and action in no wise belong to the presentations of the external sense. 166 Kov; viQ

a substance to change its state but desire

It is, then,

^ propos to enquire

xvhether the objects

of inner sense can be objects for scientific study in the

same v;ay that external or spatially related objects can be.

Such a science would be a physiology of inner sense. If our knowledge of thinking boincs in general, by means of pure reason, were based on more than the cogito , if v;e likewise made use of observations concerning the play of our thoughts and the natural lav;s of the thinking self to be derived from these thoi;^hts, there would arise an empirical psychology, which would be a kind of physiology of inner sense, capable perhaps of explaining the appearcinces of inner sense, but never of revealing such properties as do not in any way belong to possible experience. . • 1^7 -

Kant»s hesitancy about affinning such a science is

apparent in this statement, for the sufficient reason that he holds that there can be no synthetic a priori loiov/ledge

163

of the appearances of imier sense.

If we compare the doctrine of the soul as the physiology of inner sense, v/itli the'^octrine of the body as a physiology of the object of the outor senses, vje find that while in both riuch can be learnt empirically, there is yet this notable difference. In the latter science nuch that is a priori can be synthetically known from the ir.ere concept of an extended impenetrable being, but in the former nothing ivhatsoever that is a priori can be knovm synthetically from the concept of a tjiinking being. iSg The implications of this statement are far-reaching.

Concepts employed in physics are not blind because an intuition i3 given for them, because in fact appearances are

determined a priori in accordance with the categories.

If

on the other hand, we have inner intuitions to which no

body of a priori synthetic knov/ledge corresponds, this can only be because such appearances have not been determined in accordance with the categories.

The difficulty seems to

be due to Kant's doctrine that inner sense is a perpetual

flux, with nothing permanent in it, and this in turn is

because the appearances of inner sense are in time, and only in

tjxie

.

For space alone is determined as permanent, v;hile time, and therefore everything that is in inner

sense is in constant flux.

1^9

Alongside this we must place Eant's statement that if everything in the world is in a flux, and nothing is -190 a doctrine of

permanent, substances are inadmissible,

which he takes advantage in proving the emptiness of the concept of the soul in rational psychology, v/here he

164 re-afflrras the flux of inner sense.

For v;e are irnable from our o^.vn consciousness to decide whether, as souls, we are permanent or not. .i»'or since the only permanent appearance which v*e • • encounter in the soul is the representation *I* that accomijanies and connects them all, we are unable to prove that this 'I', a mere thought, may not be IXj. the same state of flux as the other thoughts. . .191

.

Kant unhes'titingly draws the logical conclusions

from this doctrine, in other parts of the Critique .

Since 192

time itself does not change, but only appearances in time,

"Only through the permanent does existence in different parts of the time-series acquire a magnitude which can be

entitled duration".

193 In other words, that which is in time,

and only in time, cannot be an object of scientific knovjledgej all alteration, if it is to be perceived as altera-

tion, presupposes something permanent in intuition, and "in inner sense no permanent intuition is to be met with". But it is an even more notev;orthy fact, that in order to imderstand the possibility of things in conformity viith the categories, and' so to demonstrate the objective reality of the latter, we need, not merely intuitions, but intuitions that are in all cases outer intuitions. Ivheni ^or instance, v/e'take the pm^e concepts of relation , we find, firstly, that in order to obtain something permanent in -intuition corresponding to the concept of substance , we require 195 an intuition in space (of matterTI It v^ould be quite easy at this point to take the

view that we are faced here with another of supposedly

many cases in which Kant contradicts himself, maintaining on the one hand that we are somehow sufficiently aware of

165

the nature of time to distin-xulsh spatially related objects

from the flux of tine in inner sense, and on the other hand that time itself does not chani^e, but only appearances in it.

In other vjords, time flows, and it does not flov/.

It

would be quite impossible to convict Kant of contradiction here, however, for as has been pointed out above, he does

not say that

v/e

ever have an intuition of time only, as an

object or as a sensation; time is only the vmy in which some appearances are intuited.

Although we are acutely

aware of the passage of time, through the constant flux

of our inner sense,

vje

never perceive time itself flowing.

It is one thing to say that time itself flovv's, and another

to say, as Kant seems to be doing, that anything, (v/hether

we call it object or appearance,

v;e

shall be hitting wide

of the mark) that is in time alone will be in constant flux.

To say that the essence of time is that it flov;s,

and to say that the essence of time is such that

thin.gjs

in it flou, or change, is to say two different things, V/hen Kant says

that the continuity of time is a flowing

or a flowing away, he is simply referring to the fact that there are no gaps or bi-eaks in it.

Time itself

cannot flow, for it is not a reality in itself. It is

transcendentally ideal, but also an empirically real way of intuiting anything that can be given to the senses.

Inner sense gives us a heightened av?areness of this

vray

166 'A'e

have of intuitin,'^, because in inner sense

this way and only in this way .

v;e

intuit in

Me do not at the same time

have intuitions of outer sense, which involve another, quite

different, way of intuiting.

Thus, throu£;h inn.er sense we

become aware of time as a way we have of intuiting, different

from space, which is another

v;ay.

In this manner, the im-

mediate apprehension of time is of fxindamental importance to the critical philosophy, revealing as it does one of the

transcendental elements of sensibility. The existence of appearances which are solely in

time, and time alone, poses serious problems for Kant, however, ones vjhich he does no more than touch upon in a cur-

sory fashion.

For example, it is apparent that the kind

of change involved in such purely temporal succession as is exemplified in inner sense will be radically different

from the kind of change involved in appearances v;hich are

both spatially and temporally related.

Strictly speaking,

such change cannot be cognized. It is not alteration of

something which abides, namely, substance.

Kant, himself,

clearly recognizes this. Although both are appearances, the appearance to ou.ter sense has something fixed or abiding which supplies a substratiim as the basis of its transitory determinations and therefore a synthetic concept, namely, that -of space and of an appearance in space; v;hereas time , which is the sole form of our inner intuition, has nothing abiding, and therefore yields knoviledge only of the chanp:e of determinations, not of any object that can be thereby determined. I96 '

167 Wg can only conclude that Kant is using the term

appearance very loosely, in speaking of appearances of irmer sense, since appearances are nor© often spoken of by him as

deteminate appearances, the results of synthesis and determination in accordance with the categories.

The self,

of course, as an entity, plays no part in inner sense,

except as a "universal correlate of apperception and itself 197 a mere thougnt. , .a thing of undefined signification".

Personal identity is accounted for by the duration of the hiuaan

body in space, as an object of outer sense capable

of being perceived by others. Thus the permanence of the-soiil, regarded merely as an object of inner sense, remains undemonstrated, and indeed Indeaonstrable . Its penaansnce diiring life is, of course, evident per se, since the thinking being (as man) is itself likev/ise an object of the outer senses. 19^

Thus apparently nothing is capable of being knoim

about the appearances in the perpetual flux of inner sense,

neither the ego or self, nor the appearances, nor the kind of change which characterizes them.

Since

v/e

are directly

aware of them, the status of these things is not quite the same as that of things-in -themselves; nevertheless, they are equally as indeterminate as things-in-themselves.

things of v;hich

i';e

The

feel that we are most intimately aware

are not objects of knowledge.

It is characteristic of Kant's

honesty as a thinker that he does not boggle at this result

I6£i

but unwaveringly points out the reasons v/hy, according to iiis

principles, thiu uust be so, in his analysis of the

claims

oi"

psycholoey to be u science.

His most important

point is that: .as iii every natural doctrine only so . • much science proper is to be liiet ;/ith therein as there is co'^ition a priori a doctrine of nature can only contain so''niuch science proper as there is in it of applied mathematics. 199 ,

iiant ,;:oes on

to point out tiiat raatheraatics is

"inapplicable to the phenomena of the intexnal sense

aiid

•200 its laws", for in it all that mathematics could lay hold Ox would be the laxv of permanence in the flovi of its in-

ternal changes.

Me are able to get as much knowledge

about the soul froin this, as we could

j;;et,

for example, in

geometry merely from the properties of a straight line. In short, Kant implies, the knov;ledge

v;e

can get is very

little.

This point is scarcely less important than the one which Lant raises, nanely, that

"tlie

neict

manifold of internal

observation is only separated in thought, but cannot be kept 201 It is to be separate and be connected again at pleasure".

noted that both of these shortcomings are due to that very perpetuity of flux in inner sense, v/hich Kant has so often

himself pointed out, and which lies at the

veiry

base of

the whole critical philosophy, in that it allows Kant to

maintain that time is the form of inner sensibility.

169 But it carmot be said that Lant has fully apprecia-

ted the implications of his ovm criticism of psychology.

If there is no a priori knov.led^e of the phenomena uf in-

ner sense, they can hardly be phenomena at all in the usiial Kantian sense.

Our means of acl.lyvinc

'.'Jiov/ledge

of pheno-

mena can alvjays be traced back to the a priori determination of phenomena in accordance v^ith the categories. vie

If

cannot get knowledge in a certain sphere of appearance,

it can only be because these appearances have somehow

arisen vjithout being subject to determination through the categories under the transcendental unity of apperception. In that case they are not objects of possible experience, in the sense of empirical knowledge,

/uid

since the cate-

gories provide the ground of all determination of the '202

existence of appearances,

the appearances of inner sense

cannot even exist as objects of laiov/ledge connected by

definite rules to other objects of knowledge.

But since

these limer appearances most manifestly do exist, a point

which Kant never denies, their existence must be radically different from appearances in the more usual sense of

appearances subject to determination in accordance with the categories, liow

the existence of these appearances is intimately

bound up with tine, another point which Kant never fails to stress.

If we did not have an awareness of the difference

170

between the way we intuit our inner states, and the way we intuit spatially extended objc^cts, there

^^rould

be no poss-

ibility of distin.^ui shins between forms of sensibility at all.

For if space and tine are

forr;is

of sensibility, and

we are not aware of the difference between one mode of sensible intuition and the other,

vie

could not distinr,uish

between spatial and temporal determinations at all.

There

could, in short, be no transcendental aesthetic as applied

to human faculties.

Thus the immediate apprehension of

time as a fomi of sensibility is essential to Kant's

philosophy, Kant has offered a solution to the problem of the

fundamental distinction

betv.'een

space and time in terms

of forms of sensibility, which involves at the very least a recognition of the intimate relation between time and

the flux of inner experience, and hence of the relevance of the psychology of inner states to the determination of the nature of time,

Kant's view that psychology can

never be any-thing more than an approximately systematic, historical description of inner sense, rather than a science, points to the peculiar role that time plays

in Kant's philosophy.

Not only are those appearances

which arc in time alone incapable of being cognized, but time itself cannot be represented in thought. aware of time as a form of sensibility, but

vje

We are

cannot

171

obtain a conception of it. Hven time itself we cannot represent, save in so far as we attend, in the drai\?inp: of (v.'hich has to serve as the outer figurative representation of tir^e), merely to the act of the synthesis of the nianifold whereby v^e successively determine inner sense, and in so doing attend to the succession of this determination in inner sense. 203 a strai^^ht line

Kant apparently holds that this figurative repre-

sentation is a legitimate one, but he passes over in silence

why this, according to his principles, must be so, just as he ignores for the most part the striking difference betVv'een

substance as it figures in outer sense, and substance as a possible concept applicable to the flux of inner sense.

The essential characteristic of substance in outer sense is that it is capable neither of increase nor diminution;

hence the application of the concept of quantity to it is

possible only through the aggregate pf parts outside one another.

But only in space can we have parts outside one

another, and if we attempt to extend the concept of substance to a sphere which is not in space but only in time, the

concept of quantity cannot apply to substance in this

v;ay.

Kant attempts to preserve some meaning to the concept of

substance in inner sense, by applying his conception of intensive magnitude. That, on the contrary which is considered as object of the internal sense may have a quantity as substance not consisting of parts outside one another, whose parts are therefore not substances, whose origination or annihilation therefore need not be the origination or annihilation of a substance. 2(U

172

This kind of substance, If indeed, it could be called a substance at all, has nothing in comnon with that

of outer sense, a point which Kant makes clear when he says of the ego, as object of consciousness, that it is a

"thing of undefined signification, namely, the subject of

all predicates without any condition distinguishing this presentation of the subject from a something generally, in short, substance, of which no conception of xvhat it is 205 (is conveyed) through this expression". Altogether,

Kant»s attempt to grapple with this problem, namely, of

what meaning the categories can have for the appearances of inner sense, is highly ambiguous.

On the one hand, Kant

does not want to admit that the soul is a substance, its

liability to destruction seeming to endanger the principle of the permanence of substance.

Yet, at the same time, he

seems to want to be able to apply the concept of quantity

to inner states, in respect of intensive magnitude. Thus consciousness, in other words, the clearness of the presentations of my soul. . .has a degree that may be greater or smaller, xvithout to this end any substance requiring to arise or be annihilated, 206

Those sensations of outer sense may legitimately admit of intensive magnitude, according to Kant, since

they are only states of substance that change, while the substance remains the same.

Their arising and dying away

cannot affect the pennanence of substance.

The appearances

173

of inner sense, however, are in constant fl\ix; there is no

underlying permanence; they are not states of something else that never changes.

Their arising and perishing

through various degrees is not the mere state of

chanj:-e

of

something that endures; it is a genuine arising and perishing, not explicable at all in terms of substance, in short, the very passage of time itself, as revealed in

inner sense. Kant has bought the means of distinguishing between

space and time at a rather expensive price, in terms of the generality of his theory of knowledge.

Tine is, indeed,

clearly distinguished from space in that appearances in it are beyond the pale of co^^jnition, but Kant has accepted a

point of fundamental importance in 3ergson»s theory of time, namely, that we are aware of it through inner ex-

perience.

For Kant, we are aware of time merely as the

form in which our inner experience is solely conditioned, but not as an all-encompassing reality.

Yet in respect

of the all-pervasiveness of time, Kant's views are not

entirely dissimilar to those of Bergson, for, as

v/e

have

seen, time, for Kant, is the medium by means of which the

categories determine objects and bring about order throughout the phenoiaenal vjorld.

In addition, the appearances in

time alone bear a strong similarity to things-in-theraselves, (the ultimately real which we know only as appearance).

174 in that both are indeterminate and unknowable by means of

concepts.

Before taking up these points, hov;ever, we must

examine Bergson's position on the immediate apprehension of time.

Bergson also distinguishes between inner sense and outer sense, although, for him, the distinction is less sharp than it is for Kant.

The spatially extended is, in

Bergson »s view, something quite different, indeed, radically different from what is revealed by the deepest in-

trospection.

But the transition from what is absolutely

outer to what is absolutely inner in intuition is blurred, for Bergson; the transition involves intermediate states,

unlike Kant»s sharp dichotomy. When, xvith the inner. regard of my consciousness, examine my person in its passivity, like some superficial encrustraent , first I perceive all the perceptions vjhich come to it from the material world. These perceptions are clear-cut, distinct, juxtaposed or mutually juxtaposablej they seek to group themselves into objects. Kext I perceive nemories more or less adherent to these perceptions and which serve to interpret them; these memories are, so to speak, as if detached from the depth of my person and dravm to the periphery by perceptions reserabling them; they are fastened on me without being absolutely myself. And finally, I become aware of tendencies, raotol? habits, a crowd of virtual actions more or less solidly bound to those perceptions and these memories. . .But if I pull myself from the periphery tov;ards the centre ^ if I seek deep dovm within me v/hat is most unifonaly, the most constantly and durably myself, I find something altogether different, 'what I find beneath these clear-cut crystals and this superficial congelation is a continuity of flow comparable to no other flowing I have ever seen. 207 I

175

Ber^son announces the ence as does Kant.

sarae

fact about inner experi-

His exposition differs only in that

while Kant was not particularly at pains to communicate the exact character of this internal flux, speaking of it in terms of phenomena and appearances,

v.'lach

strictly

speaking, as determinate entities cannot figure in the

flux at all, Ber^son exerts all his literary pov/ers to try to make us see what sort of thing this inner flow is.

His works are replete with metaphorical devices and

figurative language quite consciously used in an attempt to express the quality of this inner fliox.

This technique

was necessitated by the kind of philosophy Bergson desired to expound, rather than by a mere personal preference for

the niceties of literary style.

On the contrary, for Kant,

such a manner of exposition was out of the question, not

merely because it was foreign to his cast of Kind, but for the reason that he wished to lay the groiond-work of philo-

sophy in an exact conceptual scheme vjhich wo;ild deserve the name of science.

Bergson 's view that "metatjhysics is,

.

.

'20a

the science which claims to dispense with symbols",

set

him on a path that Kant could not have followed without

abandoning his most cherished hopes in philosophy.

It is

not surprising, therefore, to find that Kant on the theo-

retical side of his philosophy says very little about the

character of the

£l\xx.

of inner states.

Even though he made

176 the same point that Bergson does, namely, that inner ex-

perience yields an awareness of time, beyond the bare fact

of this, necessary for the exposition of the elements of

transcendental aesthetic, Kant could say nothing further. The essential point in this is that Kant's theory of time

points in a direction in which Kant was imivilling to go. This refusal to envisage further development is, of coiorse, bound up with Kant's v;hole viei; of human know-

ledge as unable to extend beyond a possible experience defined, in effect, by the scope of the applicability of

the categories, limited, in fact, by the kind of catego-

ries Kant deduced from the forms of judgment he expounded as the basis of transcendental logic.

Yet Kant himself

raises certain problems which could only be answered by

taking this flux of inner states more seriously, and of these one concerns the relation between inner sense in the narrov; meaning and inner sense in the wide meaning, or, briefly, the relation betv^een inner sense and outer

sense and the two forms of sensibility, time and space. How is it possible that these two disparate kinds of sen-

sibility become combined in one unified experience, in

which the intimate relation between them as exhibited in motion is evident?

One might put this in Kantian terras

and ask, "How is change in general possible?". It is to be

noted that this question concerns not motion alone, but

177

all change.

Kant has dealt with the concept of raotion as,

in his opinion, it is needed for natural science, in

V.is

Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science , but his definitions presuppose that change is possible, (something, of course, which no one will doubt, even though it may be

difficult to understand in terras of concepts how it is possible],

ouch a question demands an answer showing not

merely how space and time are related to change but also how psychologically . inner sense is related to outer sense.

This in turn involves a more exact explanation of how that "train of ideas" which Stout maintained is absolutely in-

dispensable to the perception of time is related to the perception of space.

But the ansvjer to the psychological

question v;ill no doubt turn on the doctrine of what is re-

vealed in inner experience, in other time itself.

\i;ords,

the nature of

At any rate, as to the relation between the

two kinds of sensibility, Kant flatly refuses to

;Tive

an

opinion. The iuujh discussed question of the coiEinuiiion between the thinking and the extended, if v;e leave aside all that is merely fictitious, coraes then simply to this; hov; in a thinking sub.ject outer intuition , namely, that o? space, with its filling-in of sbape and motion, is, possiule . And this is a question which 209 no man can possibly answer.

Kant»s refusal is, of course, again dictated by his general theory of knowledge, but that he has seen the

question in its generality is indicated by the following statement;

17fi

Consequently, the question is no longer of the communion of the soul v;ith other known substances of a different kind outside us, but only of the connection of the representations of inner sense v/ith the modifications of our outer sensibility as to hov/ these can be so connected v;ith each other according to settled laws that they exhibit the unity of a coherent experience. 210

—

VvTiether

Kant's position, in refusing to deal with

problems raised by his theory of space and time, is a justifiable one, need not concern us here.

Our present

purpose is merely to point out that Kant's theory seems to point in the direction of a further development which

could deal with such questions,- one v;hich, however,

v.'ould

have been impossible for Kant, but which could have been

carried out by a thinker v/illing to follow the implications of it beyond the limiting scope of Kant's categorical scheme.

Without undue anticipation, it can be said here that Ber^-cson's theory deals with just those questions which Kant would not attempt to answer, deals with them, moreover, in a way which stems from a basic position similar in many

ways to Kant's.

He agrees with Kant, in effect, that the

understanding does influence inner sense, producing definite determinations in it of objects and spatial representations. a

But for him this function of the understanding hasAmeaning

profoundly different from that involved in Kant's philosophy. Bergson gives us a different interpretation of the spatial

representation of time, one v/hich allov;s him to go beyond

179 Kant in his theory of the relationship between space and time.

For example, Bergson attempts to explain the rela-

tion between inner and outer sense; he attempts to tell us how it is that we have spatial perceptions and

the relation of these to time.

^Ind

vjliat

is

this involves his

placing a much greater emphasis on the significance of intuition for metaphysics, a development which Kant would

probably have rejected as schwgrmerei . but one which, nevertheless, is a development from Kant»s own assumptions

concerning space and time. For Bergson, inner experience reveals the ongoing flow of duration itself, a terra v/hich Bergson uses to dis-

tinguish his intuition of time from the "spatialized" time, conceived by the understanding.

Time, for Bergson, is not

a conceptualized entity, not a thing-in-itself , conceived

in general terms; it is the reality of concretely felt

change, and this change can best be felt v/hen the intellect does not interfere to separate the continuous flux

into separate states. Piire duration is the form which the succession of our conscious states assumes v;hen our ego lets itself live , when it refrains from separating its present state from its former states. 211

In other words, the succession of conscious states

cannot be apprehended in terras of concepts, a point which

Kant also mentions in saying that "the manifold of inter212 nal observation is only separated in thought".

180 Just as, for Kant, there is no underlying permanence in inner sense, so also for Bergson the reality uncovered in inner experience is not a change of the state of some

underlying substratum. There are changes, but there are imdemeath the change no things which change; change has no need of a support. 213 I/ith Kant,

the "parts" of that which changes in

consciousness are not parts outside of one another, such as we find in spatially related objects of outer sense.

This is also 3ergson»s view. Thus I said that several conscious states are organized into a whole, pemieate one another, gradually gain a richer content, and might thus give anyone ignorant of space the feeling of pure duration; but the very use of the word "several" shows that I had already isolated these states, externalized them in relation to one another, and, in a v/ord, set them side by side; thus, by the very language which I was compelled to use, I betrayed the deeply ingrained 214 habit of setting out time in space. The above quotation also indicates the similarity

to Kant, v/hich has been mentioned above, namely, that in

order to obtain a representation of time, of the form of

our inner experience, in spatial terms.

xie

must resort to representing it

Another similarity is that both Kant

and Bergson have recourse to the notion of intensive magnitudes in referring to the succession of psychic states,

although Bergson doubts whether this concept is legitimate.

Pure duration, that which consci-msness perceives, must thus be 'reckoned araong the so-called intensive magnitudes, if intensities can be called magnitudes: strictly speaking, hoi;ever, it is -not a quantity, and as soon as we try to measure it, we unwittingly replace it by space. 215 '

It is clear that Kant and Bergson h^ve the same

thing in mind in incorporating into their philosophies the

doctrine of an intimate association between time and inner

experience,- they have the same thin^ in mind in the sense that they have the same phenomenc.i, (in the non-Kantian sense) in mind.

It should oe added, hov/ever, that Bergson

develops the implications of this phenomenon further than does Kant.

Thus, for Bergson, duration as revealed in

inner experience is an all-encompassing, basic reality. And the reasons for this further development, the sources,

that is, from which it springs as an answer to perplexing problems, and the next step in their solution, given the

basic premises, is to be found in the relation of the

understanding to space, and the doctrine of the cognitive

representation of time, topics to be pursued in subsequent sections.

1S2

The Cognitive Representation of Tlrae

2,

In one way, Ber^son and Hegel represent an interest-

ing contrast of development from Kant, v;hich

vje

may mention

in order to bring out the character of Bergson»s development.

They both take a point of deimrture from Kant»s doctrine of judgment, and both find in this doctrine an inadequacy

amounting to artificiality.

The traditional formal logic,

a cornerstone of Kant»s system, and for him, a "closed and '216 Hegel calls "the lifeless completed body of doctrine", 217 And Bergson, as v;e shall see, affirms bones of a skeleton".

the inability of the intellect to coue to grips vjith the

primordial flow of time.

problem

v;as

of judgment.

Hegel »s method of attacking this

to invent a new logic, and a "concrete" doctrine

Bergson »s method on the other hand is to ac-

cept the inadequacy of the intellect and to push the oppo-

sition between the intellect and concrete becoming to its

very limit.

Hegel does not repudiate the importance of

judgment, but develops it.

ment as a method of

Icn owing

Bergson not only rejects judgreality, but allows the signi-

ficance of judgment itself to recede, and tries to place the main emphasis of intellectucal thinking on the spatial

concept .

In developing a position, the seeds of which are

implicit in Kant»s theory of tine and inner sense, Bergson

finds it necessary to take Kant»s doctrine of judgment less

133

seriously, and to make of it a natter in which static concepts rather than active judgments are emphasized.

Instead

of accepting Kant»s doctrine of judgment and its applica-

bility to time, Bergson, in effect, denies it and makes it far more artificial in its relation to the reality of be-

coming than it was in the philosophy of

Ivant.

Ue have

nov/

to examine Bergson»s reasons for doing this. V/e

have seen that it is essential to Kant*s position

that the categories should apply directly to time itself.

This necessarily involves the point that the cognitive re-

presentation of time should be legitimate.

In this regard

,

we find Kant, with typical candour, accepting on the one hand that the flux of inner sense is bej^ond the

.

\^

o

of

cognition, and on the other that time may be given a repre-

sentation in terras of concepts applicable to outer sense. 'Time is nothing but the form of inner sense, that is, of the intuition of ourselves and of our inner state. .'.And just because this inner intuition yields no shape, we endeavour to make up for this uant b3'analogies, v/e represent the time-sequence by a line progressing to infinity, in which the Pianifold constitutes a series of one dimension only; and xie reason from the properties of this line 'to all the properties of tine, i7ith this one exception, that while the parts of the line are simultaneous the parts of tirr.e are always succe-jsive. From this fact also, that all the relations' of tine allow of being expressed in an outer intuition, it is evident that the representation is 21g itself an intuition. liniat

time?

is involved in this spatial representation of

First of all, there is the conception of both space

1S4

and time as homogeneous, made up of units, as it were, \;hich are all the sane.

Kant, indeed, rejects the view that there

are ultimate simples, but nevertheless in speaking of space

and time as quanta continua he reveals the element of homo-

geneity in his coiiception of them. 3pacc and time are quanta continua . because no part of them can be given save as enclosed betvieen limits (points or instants), and therefore only in such fashion that this part iG itself again a space or a time. Space therefore consists solely of spaces, time solely of times. 219

The very fact that be conceives of points and instants as limits implies that every determinate part of space is a

part of the same medium, space, and every determinate length of time is a part of time.

The homogeneity of these media

is necessary to Kant, othervjise he could never speak of the

"manifold (and) homogeneous in intuition in general".

220 It

is necessary, according to Kant, in order to obtain a con-

ception of space and time to construct these concepts, and this, of course, involves intuition. The only intuition that is given a priori is that of the mere form of appearances, spaaa and time. A concept of space and timej as quanta, can be exhibited a priori in intuition, that is, constructed, either"*in respect of quality (figure) of the quanta, or through number in their quantity only (the mere 221 synthesis of the homogeneous manifold). '

But the manner in which Kant describes

hovtf

the

elementary conceptions of space and time are formed reveals that in the formation of these concepts the successiveness

1^5

of time, itself, is cancelled, and left out.

Synthesis of

the homogeneous manifold, even thovigh it is always successive, for Kant, involves holding together in thought all

the parts which are successively synthesized. V/hen I seek to draw a line in thought, or to think of the time from one noon to another, or even to represent to myself some particular nuiioer, obviously the various manifold representations that are involved must be apprehended by me iu thouj;ht one after another. But if I were always to drop out of thour.ht the preceding r'epre sent at ions , (the first parts of t'heline , the anteceaent parts of tne time §eriod, or the units' i'n the order represented ) .and i d not reproduce them while'Tovancing t o those that follow t a complete representation v/ould never be ob tained none of the aoove-nentioned tI:on3ht's, not even the purest and most elementary rei esentations 222 of space and time could arise, ^

;

Bergson's analysis of the concept of number is

strikingly similar to that of Kant. volves synthesis.

?or both, niomber in-

"Number", Bergson tells us, "may be de-

fined in general as a collection of uiiits, or, speaking 223

more exactly, as the synthesis of the one and the many". Bergson also draws attention to the point Kant has made, namely, that all the parts of the successive synthesis must be held together, as it were, simultaneously in thou^^ht •

For if we picture to ourselves each of the sheep in the flock in succession and separately, we shall to do v/ith laore than a sin^^le sheep. In orhave never der that the number shoiild go on increasing in proportion as v;e advance, v/e must retain the successive images and set them alongside of each of the new units

1^6

which we picture to ourselves: now it is in space that such a juxtaposition takes place and not in pure duration. In fact, it will be easily granted that counting material objects means thinking all these objects together, thereby leaving them in space. 221+ It may be thoui];ht that here Bergson has passed

rather hastily from the point that the units cannot be dropped out of thouf^ht to the point that they must therefore be left in space.

But the passage from the one to

the other is not performed without argument, and in this

respect agaiai Bergson follov/s Kant,

For Bergson agrees

with Kant that mathematical concepts require an intuition. Abstract numbers, as symbols, are not even thought, but are merely expressions of number useful for reckoning. It will be seen that we began by imagining e,g, a row of- balls, that these balls afterwards became points, and, finally, this image itself disappeared, leaving behind it, as we say, nothing but abstract number. But at this very moment we ceased to have an image or even an idea of it; we kept only the symbol which is necessary for reckoning and which is the conventional vjay of expressing number. For vre can confidently assert that 12 is half of 24 without thinking either the ntimber 12 or the number 24: indeed, as fai' as quick calculation is concerned, we have everything to gain by not doing so, 225

Kant constantly emphasizes the point that geometry

requires an intuition of space, and indeed cannot proceed at all without this intuition.

It is Kant»s view that all

of mathematics requires an intuitive element; one cannot

arrive at the synthetic a priori propositions of mathematics by the mere analysis of concepts.

1^7 Pure mathematics, as synthetic cognition a priori , is only possible by referring to no ether objects than those of the senses. At the basis of their empirical intuition lies a pure intuition (of space and time) which is a priori . 226 '."e

have already seen that the schema of quantity

is number and that number, for Kant, always involves a

successive synthesis.

Even geometry, in dealing with lines,

planes, figures, etc. requires a successive synthesis. I cannot represent to myself -a line, hoTf-zever small, v/ithout drawing it in thought, that is, generating from a point all its parts one after another. Only in this way can the intuition be obtained. 22?

The mathematics of space (geometry) is based upon this successive synthesis of the productive imagination in the generation of figures. 22^

Unfortunately, Kant here omits mentioning the point that the synthesis must be held together in thought,

and that the units of the homogeneous cannot be dropped out as they would be if the intuition v/ere solely successive.

V/e

cannot help wondering v/hat the character of this

product of Si^-nthesis is, and whether it would be correct to call it spatial rather than temporal.

There is some

evidence that Kant, himself, did not think of it as temporal.

He tells us that we cannot conceive altei^ation

without having recourse to intuition,- "The intuition required is the intuition of the movement of a point in 229 Kant seems to be saying that it is just the pespace",

culiar property of space that things in it can coexist .

which implies that in our conception of space/bhin^js are 'leld

together in the fashion he has said is necessary even

for "the time ,

r.iost

elemoatary representations'' of space and

"space alone is determined as permanent, while

time, and therefore everything that is in inner sense is 230 in constant flux". Kant held that alteration is only con-

ceivable as alteration of substance, a permanent element

which persists through changes of state.

It s.^ems clear

that Kant thought of this permanent element as space itself, or rather the pemuixiynce of the real in space, which, of course, iiaplies the permanence of space.

We have already

noted that the substance of outer sense is quite unlike anything that could be said to be a substance in inner sense.

Kant reaffirris this difference in a passage which

reveals not only that because of the perpetuity of the

flux of inner sense, we cannot obtain an imiuediate representation ox time, but also that we can obtain a mediate, spatial representation 01 time because of the permanence or "held-togetherness" of space. For in order that we may afteri;7ards make inner alterations likewise thinkable, vie must represent time (the form of inner sense) figuratively as a line, and the inner alteration through the drawing of this line (motion), and so in this manner by means of outer intuition make compretensible the successive existence of our-selves in different states. The reason of this is that .5.11 alteration, if it to be perceiv3d as alteration, presupposes something permanent in intuition, and that in inner sense no permanent intuition is to ?Z1 be met with.

1^9 Tho extent to

suppose space, for

w'

.'lant,

shall consiuer later,

ich intellectual operations preif at all, is a point v/hich we

ue wish here merely to draw atten-

tion to the point that Kant's figurative, spatial represenation of

tiiae

leaves out what he himself considers to

be the essential difference between space and time, namely,

the successiveness of time,

For althoUi:sh Kant holds that

we can represent time by a line, and x'eason from the properties of tnis line to the properties ox time, he also says that the alteration of inner sense, and hence the

intrinsic character of time itself, can only be intuited in motion*

iiere

a^ain, it is apparent that Kant is using

a term applicable to outer sense, iiameiy, alteration,

rather loosely with respect to inner sense, inner sense

caiiiiot

rhe flux of

properly be called alteration, for as

Kant has vehemently asserted, there is nothing permanent in inner sense to alter. It

xiiay

seera

difficult to reconcile Kant»s affir-

mation of the permanence of spatial determinations, or of permanence in and thi'ough spatial deteri/iinations, with his view that all outer appearances are the result of a successive synthesis of the productive imagination.

It should

be noted, however, that there is nothing necessarily incon-

sistent in holding these

tv:o

positions together. The

190

successive s^-nthesis of the productive iraa,;ination, as a

transcendental condition of appearances, cannot, indeed, be considered to be an event, ivhich has occiu'red, or does

repeatedly occur, a

viev;

which is associated with the opinion

that Kant is doing; a genetic psychology, a gross misinter-

pretation of him, or outside of time.

Kor can it be considered to be nouKienal Here

v.'e

agree v/ith Paton, who says:

. .1 do find it difficult to suppose. • .that • our minds are such that to them reality must appear, not only as a succession of changes in time, but as a succession of changes in time which must conform to causal law. There are two v/ays of avoiding this difficulty. One is to assert that the transcendental synthesis of \-jhich Kant speaks is a pre-conscious and noimenal synthesis which somehow constructs the whole physical world for us before we be^in to know it. For this view I can find no basis in Kant, nor does it seem to me to have the least plausibility as a metaphysical theory. 232

The transcendental synthesis must therefore be a

continuous process in time.

Only this, incidentally, v;ill

suffice as a basis of a refutation of

Iluiue.

IJox-/

it is not

inconsistent to suppose that in so far as time itself, as a whole, is a

Permanent reality, i.e. an eternal process,

it should continue to synthesize quanta of space, which

would correspond to the permanence of time itself.

Accor-

dingly, the schema of substance, the permanence of the real in time, would be a condition not derived from space, but

imposed on space, through the very continuity of the successiveness of the synthesis.

Thus the logical ground of the

191

principle of the permanence of substance would be expressed in experience as the permanence of tisie itself,

/aid

this

is quite in accord with what Kant says about it, Porraanence, as the abiding correlate of all existence of appearances, of all change and all concomitance, Gxprosses tiiae in general, x'^'or change does not affect tiine itself, but only appearances in time. 233

In addition, there are

tv/o

reasons why this per-

menence of time must be expressed in outer sense rather than in inner sense.

not be perceived.

The first is that tiae itself can-

Hence the permanence of tiue itself

cannot be imiediately presented.

The second reason, and

perhaps the more fundamental one, is that the succession or constant flux of appearances in time alone precludes

their :;iving a representation of the perTnanence of time itself.

Obviously, the peruanence of

tiiae

itself cannot

be expressed or understood by means of appearances (re-

presentations) whic/i are in time alone, for the essential of time is its successiveness. of all series.

Thus

-iihe

It is the formal condition

permanence of time as a condition

of the possibility of experience can only be knoim by means of representations pertainin;- to another, different medium,

which is in itself not intrinsically successive. But as the parts of space are co-ordinated with, not subordinated to, one another, one part is not the condition of the possibility of another; and unlike time, space does not in itself constitute a

192

-ovorthelesn the syiithesis of -ue maiiiJ?old partn of space, by means of which we apprehend space, is succesnlve, taking place in time ^^d coiitainiiig a series, 234 series:,

-

We can conclude, then, that the C0;:;nitive representation of space is a representation of space as a r.edium

in v/hich the parts are co-existent.

"For as its parts are

co-existent, it is an aggregate, not a series",

l.e

can

see also, that even though any magnitude whatsoever is the

result of a synthesis, the representation of that magnitude

must be as permanent, or at least as co-existing, heldtogether, in the representation. Only tlirough the permanent does existence in different parts of the time-series acquire a magnitude which can be entitled duration. For in bare succession existence is always vanishing and recommencing, and never has the least magnitude, 236 Frorp

all this it is apparent that spatial concep-

tions do not and cannot represent the intrinsic nature of time as

\ie

are aware of it in inner sense,

Kant has ad-

mitted this much in the imir.ediately foregoing quotation. But it is just this difference betv;een space and time of

which Bergson takes advantage in his arguments against the spatializing of time.

There are two kinds of multiplicity,

Bergson tells us, one kind applicable to space, and another kind, radically different, applicable only to time.

193

Our final conclusion, therefore, is that there are tv;o kinds of multiplicity: that of material objects, to v;hich the conception of number is immediately appli-*cable; and the multiplicity of states of consciousness, which cannot be regarded as numerical v/ithout the help of some symbolical representation, in which a necessary element is space. 237 '

In admitting that in bare succession, there is ne-

ver the least magnitude, Kant has, in effect, admitted that the concept of number applicable to outer sense in inapplicable to the states of inner sense.

For he makes clear '233

that a necessary presupposition of coxmting is unity,

and

it is hard to see how there can be numerical unity where

there is not the least magnitude.

Both Kant and Bergson,

indeed, affirm that the ultimate ground of unity lies in a pure act of the mind, and that the material on which this

pure act is brought to bear is a homogeneous manifold. ViThat must first be given—with a viei; to the a priori knovjledge of all objects— is the manifold of pure intuition; the second factor involved is the synthesis of this nanifold by means of the imagination. But even this does not yield knov/ledge. The concepts which give unity to this pure synthesis, and which consist solely in the representation or this necessary synthetic unity, furnish the third requisite for the knowledge of an object; and they rest on the understanding. 239

For Bergson, the only kind of tinity is luiity intro-

duced by a simple act of the mind: Nevertheless, by looking more closely into the matter, v^e shall see that all tmity is the unity of a simple act of the mind, and that, as this is an act of unification, there must be some multiplicity to 240 unify, '

194 The unity wlilch the mind introduces implies, for Berp'.son,

if not synthesis, at least the continuity of mul-

tiplicity.

You will never get out of an idea which you have formed anything which you have not put into it; and if the unity by means of which you make up your number is the unity of an act and not of an object, no effort of analysis will bring -out anything but unity pure and simple. No doubt, when you equate the number 3 to the sum of 1 1 • 1 nothing prevents you from regarding the units vjhich compose it as indivisible: but the reason is that you do not choose to make use of the multiplicity which is enclosed within each of these units. 241 Bergson agrees vjith Kant that

niuiibers

are reached

by a successive process of thought which reaches the final result by going through a series of units.

The units see^

to be indivisible \7hile the process of synthesis is going on, and indeed, because

vie

choose to regard them as sepa-

rate units for the purpose of synthesi25ing them.

But the

final result is a unity in vjhich all discontinuity of the synthesized xmits is merged in the unity of the synthesized

Again i if we form, the same nuraber v;ith halves,

with quarters, with any units whatever, these units, in so far as they serve to form the said number, will constitute elements v;hich'are provisionally indivisible j and it is alxvays by jerks, by sudden jumps, so to speak, that v;e' advance from one to the other. And the reason is that, in order to get a number. Me are compelled to fix our attention successively on each of the units of v/hich it is compounded. . ..Ind v;hen vje look at humber in its finished state, this union is an accomplished fact: the points 'have become lines, the divisions have been blotted out, the whole displays all the charac242 teristics of continuity.

195 In

speakixii';

of the synthesis iinplied in the addi-

tion of seven and five, Kant draws attention to the single

unified synthesis of each number itself. But althout;h the proposition (7 f 5 » 12) is sjmthetic it is also only singular, oo far as we are here attending merely to the synthesis of the homogeneous (of units), that synthesis can take place only in one v;ay, although the employment of these numbers is general, 243

But the singular lonity of number is quite inappli-

cable to the perpetual flux of inner sense, for the units, (if they can be called units) which flow throiigh inner sense

cannot be held together in a final sjmthesis.

They are,

as Kant says, dropped out of thoug:ht by virtue of the fact

that they are in time alone.

This, then, is the impasse

in which Kant»s theory of space and time remains, namely,

that while a recognition of the fact of becoming as exem-

plified in inner experience is necessary in order that Kant should be able to speak of time as the form of inner sense, it is quite impossible to see, in terms of Kant»s ovm ex-

planation of how the concepts of space, are formed,

hov;

ti.

:,

;id

number,

the time of which we are aware as a form

of sensibility, can be represented in concepts al all.

This may be put in the form of a Bergsonian criticism in the question: if time terms,

hov;

_is

adequately represented in spatial

are space and time to be distinguished at all?

As we mentioned above, in Chapter

Tv/o,

Section One, it is

.

'

196

difficult to see how

tivo Luiique

things can have anything

in coraraon, and thereby be mutually understood.

and time are to be distinguished as

tv;o

But if space

different forms of

intuition, they must at least in so far as their intrinsic

properties are concerned, be quite unique.

And in this

case, for the reasons we have outlined, it v/ill not be pos-

sible to say that they can both be adequately represented in concepts which have anything in common.

This, hov;ever,

is how, according to Kant, it must be; for in referring to

how we can have the phenomenal self as an object of consciousness, he illustrates this possibility by appealing to the fact that time can only be represented in spatial

terns Indeed, that this is how it must be, is easily shown—if we admit that space is merely a pure form of by the fact that we the appearances of outer sense cannot obtain for ourselves a representation of time, which is not an object of outer intuition, except under the image of a line, vjhich tire draw, and that by this mode of depcting it alone could we knov/ of the singleness of its dimension; and similarly by the fact that for all inner perceptions we derive the determination of lengths of time or of points of time from the changes which are exhibited to us in outer things, and that the determinations of inner sense have therefore to be arran^^ed as appearances in time in precisely the same manner in which we arrange those of outer sense in space. 244

—

The illustration, however, does not improve Kant»s

argument, because both the phenomenal self and the repre-

senation of time have exactly the

safiie

relation to cognitive

197

representation.

They are indeed so closely associated

that to deal xvith them separately in this case is impossible.

But we have already seen the seriousness of Kant's

ovm criticism of psycholosy.

'^ven

if it is granted that

the phenomenal self can be an object of consciousness, it

must be admitted that as an object it is something absolutely different from the objects of outer sense, and cannot be kno-vvn

by concepts applicable to them.

V/e

have also seen

how necessary it is to Kant's idealism to distinguish the

phenomenal self very sharply from the rest of the phenomenal v;orld.

Kant, himself, realizes that he cannot by any means

admit the possibility of a materialistic psychology without

endangering his cardinal principle, the transcendental unity of apperception,

axid

the associated forms of judgment.

In distinguishing between inner sense and pure ap-

perception, Kant has, in effect, opened up the possibility of the two different lines of development followed by Berg-

son and Hegel respectively. Since he also made time the sole form of inner sensibility, Bergson's theory represents

the result of emphasis on our awareness of the flux of in-

ner sense and the removal of this from the sphere of cognition.

For Bergson's main charge against Kant is that he

assumed imcritically that time nay be represented in spatial terms, and that the flux of inner sense may be legitimate-

ly spatialized.

196

Kant's great mistake uas to take time as a homoseneous mediiim. He did not notice that real duration is made up of moments inside one another, and that when it seems to assume the form of a homogeneous whole, it is because it ;_:ets expressed in space. Thus the very distinction which he makes between space and time amounts at bottora to confusinj' time with space, and the symbolical representation of the ego with the ego itself. He thought that consciousness v;as incapable of perceiving psychic states othenvise than by juxtaposition, for^^etting that a medium in which these states are set side by side and distinguished from one another is of course space, and not duration. He was thereby led to believe that the same states can recur in the depths of consciousness, just as the same physical phenomena are repeated in space; this at least is what he implicitly admitted v/hen he ascribed to the causal relation the same meaning and the same function in the inner as in the outer v;orld, 245 V/h?.t

Kant?

are Bergson's reasons for disagreeing v/ith

They are, in fact, echoes of the very points we

have made in connection with Kant's recognition of the flujc of inner sense,

Bergson points out that ",

,

.if time, as

iiBwediate consciousness perceives it, v/ere, like space, a

homogeneous medium, science vjould be able to deal v/ith it, 246 aB it can with space". This point is implied in Kant's own criticism of psychology.

Because rverything in inner

sense is in constant flux, the categories cannot deal with the appearances of inner sense.

But not only is empirical

science unable to deal with appearances in time alone,

there is no body of synthetic

a_

priori knovjledge, no pure

science, v/hich pertains only to the intuition of time. For in spite of considerable shifting of ground, Kant was

199

unable to point to any body of synthetic a priori knowledge

which re.iuires

a pure

intuition of time, in the same un-

equivocal and plausible way in which it is arguable that

geometry presupposes a pure intuition of space. Critique

,

In the

he affirms that kinematics, the general doctrine

of motion, is such a science, but it is apparent that .notion

requires not a pure intuition but an empirical intuition, and the introduction of an empirical element into the science

destroys the very a priori element contain.

In the Prole>?:omena

.

'.vhich

the science is to

Kant su^jgests that both the

doctrine of raotion and arithmetic require pure intuitions of time.

Paton, who says that "the temporal science parallel 247 elucidates

to geometry is, at best, a trifle shadowy",

the difficulties which Kant has in trying to find such a

science.

... he has to bring in change and motion, but change and raotion are not v/holly free froqi empirical elements, and are not on the same footing as time and space. Furthermore the science of geometry takes account of space only, v;hereas the doctrine of motion must take accoiint of both space and time. Since time is the form of inner sense, a pure science of time should enable us to deal a priori v;ith inner states (not v;ith moving bodies), and should offer a basis for psychology rather than for physics. 24S Paton adds in a foot-note that "The precise nature 249 of the 'doctrine of motion* is a further difficulty". It seems clear that there is no such pure temporal science,

and those properties of time which Kant is able to state rest on the very spatial analogy vdiich, in terms of his

200 own position, is hi^^hly questionable.

But it is not merely

the fact that Kant failed to find a pure temporal science

that is important here, although this in itself is significant,

V.'hat

is perhaps more pertinent is that Kant has

himself shoivn the impossibility of such a science in his remarks about inner sense and its constant flux. The crux of the problem created by Kant's recogni-

tion of the flux of inner sense, and his criticism of

psychology as a science, rests in the relation betv;een inner and outer sense.

It is Kant's view that time alone

is absolutely all-pervasive in the domain of sense.

IIow

how it is possible that this form of sensibility should on the one hand be combined v;ith the other form of sensi-

bility, space, in one area of appearances, and on the other

hand should reserve to itself another area of appearances

which are non-spatial, is difficult to 'understand.

Kant is

emphatic on the point that "There is only one time in x;hich all different times must be located, not as coexistent but 250 but he also seems to

as in succession to one another",

recognize "shbjective" time. In ray own consciousness, therefore, identity But if I view of person is unfailin.^ly met with. myself frcn: the standpoint of another person (as an object of his outer intuition), it is this outer observer v;ho first represents me in time, for in the apperception t ime is represented, strictly speaking, only in me. Although he admits, therefore, the 'I', v;hich accorapanies, and indeed with complete identity, all representations at all times in m^r consciousness, he will draw no inference from this to the objective permanence of myself. For .just as the tirae in tvhich

201 theI ouserver observer oex^s oetG me i:ie not zne is noz is_ the oinie uy ovvn time oi of uj^ own but out or his sensibility so tVie identity vjTiTcTi is nee ^ssarily boiond up v;ith my coneciousness is not therefore boxmd up with his, that is, vjith the consciousness which contains the outer intuition of ray subject, 251 ,

Kant has here sailed into very treacherous waters. ..ucstions arise,

for example, as to our knowledge of the

existence of other people's minds, and as to v;hether one person's subjectivity may be an object for another person, and so on.

Kant does not enli^-hten us about such raatters,

or even about the possibility of such knowledge.

This

passage, however, does reveal the difficulties v^hich arise in connection with the relation between inner and outer

sense.

Briefly, we may ask: are we to suppose that the

time of inner sense,

(in the narrov/ meaning) is different

from the time of outer sense?

If not, by what right do

we suppose that the time v;hich is revealed to us as the

distinctive form of the flux of inner sense is identical

with the time of the phenomenal world as it is dealt with in physics?

This, specifically, was a problem which was

of paraniount interest to Bergson. He notes, first of all, that the

t-x.ie

o^

ov.osr

sense is markedly different from the duration of inner sense. How, let us notice that when \ie speak of time we generally think of a homoseneous mediuiti in whicH our conscious states are rann;ed alonc;side one another as in space, so as to form a discrete multiplicity, VJould not time, thus understood, be to the multiplicity of our psychic states vjhat intensity is to certain of tham,- a sign, a sysibol, absolutely distinct from true duration? 252 .

202

Physical tirae, or measured time, the conception of

which is reached by just those spatial analogies which Kant asserlis, is time with its peculiar character omitted. Bergson tells us that "II n^est pas douteux que le temps ne se confonde d*abord pour nous avec la continuite de not re vie intlrieure "

conception of

tirae,

external things,

i.'e

,

and he is speaking here of the

the time which we employ to characterize

have already seen why, according

to Kant's principles, the form of inner sense, (in the

narrow meaning) is not representable in terms of number, and magnitude, i.e. extensiveness, which are concepts ap-

plicable to coexistent space. clude?

V/hat,

then, are we to con-

How does Kant manage legitimately to pass from the

time of inner sense to the time of outer sense, or, in other

words, to extend the narrow meaning of inner sense to the

wider meaning which includes the In Bergson* s words:

" Comment

interieu au temps des choses ?" plicit in Kant's theory of

xi/hole

phenomenal \vorld?

pas sons -nous de ce temps

tirae

This is the problem im-

which Bergson has set

r.im-

self to solve, Bergson' s solution consists in boldly affirming the

metaphysical primacy of the time of inner sense (dujration) and in casting out raeasxu'ed or homogeneous time, as a spurious, (though admittedly useful) conception due to the

surreptitious introduction of space in the formation of the

I

203

conception.

He thereby develops Kant^s view that time is,

indeed, priiuary in the domain of sense, but rejects Kant's

view that time is a homogeneous raediun.

Bercson sees clear-

ly that the reco^^nition of the flux of inner sense makes it quite impossible to conceive of time as a series, in

which events are placed as points on a line.

He admits

that tine is successive, but he arr;ues that the successive-

ness is not a.'.equately represented by spatial analogies. .Jreal duration is what we have alv>iays • . called time, but tirae perceived as indivisible. That time implies succession I do not deny. But that succession is first presented to our consciousness, like the distinction of a "before" and "after" set sice by side, is v/hat I cannot admit, 'i7hen we listen to a nelody v/e have the purest impression of succession we could possibly have,- r.n impression as far renoved as possible from that of simultaneity,- and yet it is the very continuity of the melody and the impossibility of breaking it up which makes that impression upon us. 255 ,

Duration is not successive in a spatial sense, because such a conception of successiveness implies discrete

differences of state, which have some magnitude, and Kant

himself has recognized that there is not the least magnitude in bare succession. Thus Kant»s acceptance of the theory

v?e

have called

possibility B lies alon^' the path toward a view of

tirae

as

pure becoming, in that since the categories must apply to

time itself, time must be a different medium from space* But its sole difference from space consists in its

I

204

successiveness, wliich, as we sist in the fact that the

!iave

ti;

seen, is thoiv'ht to con-

:e-series has an open end on

i;hich nev; events are constantly being added.

however,

tliat

It is clear,

it is the process of becoming at the open

end of the series to which the categories must apply if they are to be determinative of appearances, because,

(a)

only in this way can it be shoivn that the future in some

respects must resemble the past, and

(b)

since the exten-

sive continuum of time is otherwise indistinguishable from that of space, a recognition of becoming would otherwise be

quite impossible.

Both possibilities A and B recognize

becoming in the same

namely, by a conception of a

iiray,

projecting time-series.

But A conceives this becoming as

a result of the movements of bodies, whereas B accepts

the fact of becoming and attempts to show that certain

principles govern the becoming itself.

But if it v;ere held

that these principles applied to the continuum of that which has become , either one niust

aiirait

that there is no reiison

to believe that the future will resemble the past, or one

must conceive the whole time-series to be completely laid out and thus cletemi^ed.

This latter position involves

the complete rejection of the significance of the temporal

distinttions made by the self, as well as the experience of the becoming of things.

And this is tantamount to the

theory of the manifold, the diffici.aties of which we have

205

already exanined.

In any case, it is clear enough that

Kant did recosnizG the experience of becomins in his

remarks about the flux of inner experience. Nevertheless, it is difficult to see

hox;

concepts

which are applicable to that which has becone can be .

pplicable to time as pvre becoming.

In holdin:; that the

categories are schematised by means of time-determinations, Kant implies that the forms of judgment are embodied in time itself, VHiatever becomes must become according to

certain general determinative principles.

Thus he calls

the cate^^ories "rules of synthesis", which, as it v^ere,

guide the becoming of things along certain general lines.

This position bears a certain resemblance to the subjective Qira

of ViJhitehead^s actual entities.

But v/hereas Whitehead

tells us that the actual entity freely chooses its subjective

aim from God, Kant does

iiot

tell us how the categories can

have an independent origin in the nature of the aind, and can as well be embodied in time-determinations.

V/hitehead's

view may or may not be satisfactory, but it at least attempts to reveal how the becoming of things is subject to certain principles.

The difficulty lies in the independ-

ent origin of the categories,

V/e

might perhaps hold that

thinking itself is a process, (in which case, as a process for the whole of reality, it would be non -temporal, purely logical, as it is with Hegel), and thus retain the essential

206

point that process is -uided or deterniiied by logical 256 categories. But it seems difficult to understand how a

temporal process must necessarily be subject to categorical determination if it is also held that these categories have an origin independent of the process.

V/e

may

well grant the necessity of dealing with the origin of the categories and time, separately for purposes of exposition, but we cannot hold that the two are ultimately

distinct without making it hard to see how they ever get together.

Kant^s Sopernican revolution not only requires

that they must get together, that is, that the categories

must be determinative of appearances through the medium of time, but also requires that the categories must arise

independently of the realm of becoming entirely.

Other-

wise, he could never hold that they were prior to experience,

which is the locus of becoming. It seems clear that Kant»s doctrine of the tran-

scendental imagination represents an attempt to meet this

very problem.

It is the imagination which performs the

successive synthesis, and it does so, according to Kant, in conformity v/ith the categories.

remains obscure.

But why it must do so

Kant simply tells us that:

The'tv;o extremes ^ namely sensibility and tinderstanding, must stand xn necessary connection with each other through the mediation of this transcendental function ox imagination, because otherwise the former,

207

though indeed yieldinc appearances, v;ould supply no objects of empirical knowledge, and consequently no experience. 257 It is clear that Kant can only maintain this view

that ewpirical know led v;e

experience if he separates

i_s

sensibility, and hence time, from the deterrainative principles.

In order to show the possibility of synthetic

a priori knowledge, Kant has to found the categories on

an absolutely certain and

lui

questionably solid basis,

'le

did in fact found them on v;hat he took to be a solid basis,

namely, the forms of judgment of traditional logic, utilized

with appropriate changes.

In deriving the principles de-

terminative of appearances from a source qiiite apart from the world of becoming, however, Kant created for himself

the problem of how to get the two back together again. Hence, as well, the doctrine of the schematism, for as

Kant says, "The schema is in itself alv/ays a product of 25^ ima.-ination'' , But either the production of schemata by the transcendental imacjination nust have the same apodeictic

certainty as the forms of judgment, in which case the in-

dependent origin of the categories is superfluous, or there must be some further detennining relation betv/een the production ox schemata and the logical f^inctions of the understanding.

The obscurity of this relation re-

presents the seed of Bergson^s radical separation of the intellect and tine.

II

20a

Bergson, in effect, asserts the insolubility of

this problem by declaring that the intellect falsifies time in attempting to form a concept of it.

eludes conceptualization.

Pure duration

It eludes that very synthesis

which Kant tells us involves holding all the parts synthesized together, and not dropping them out, as they would be in bare succession.

There is real duration, the heterogeneous moments -of which permeate one another; each moment, however, can be brought into relation with a state of 'the external xvorld vjhich is contemporaneous with it, and can be separated from the other noments in consequence of this very process. The comparison of these two realities gives rise to a S3nnbolical representation 01 duration, derived from space. Duration thus assumes the illusory form of a homogeneous medium, , . 259 '

Bergson argues, accordingly, that if there is such a thing as a synthesis of time, it is not a synthesis which

can be conceived in terms of homogeneous irnits, but is a

synthesis which is qualitative rather than quantitative. Space contains only parts of space, and at whatever point of space v/e consider the moving body, we shall get only a position. If consciousness is aware of anything more than positions, the reason is that it keeps the successive positions in mind and synthesizes them. But how does it carry out a synthesis of this kind? It cannot be by a fresh setting out of these same positions in a homogeneous medium, for a fresh synthesis would be necessary to connect the posii/e are tions with one another, and so on indefinitely thus compelled to admit that we have here to do with a synthesis x.'hich is, so to speak, qualitative j a gradual organization of our successive sensations, a unity resembling that of a phrase in a melody, 260 -

,

209 It ia, for Bergson, forever impossible to untler-

stand the reality of temporal process by means of concepts. I-Ietaphysics must reject the sort of analysis which Kant

gives us, and resort to intuition.

Of the real duration,

Bergson says: But still less coulc". it be represented by con cepts , that is- by abstract ideas, ivhether general or simple. Doubtless no image v;ill quite answer to the original fealing I have of the flowing of myself. But neither is it necessary for rae to try to express it. To him wiio is not ca] able of /^ivin,: hiuself the intuition of the duration constitutive of his being, nothing will ever give it, neither concept nor images. 261 It is apparent that Bergson, too, has accepted the

position we have called possibility (B), but instead of grappling

vj-ith

the problem of how rational principles can

be determinative of

-ocess, he rejects the problem entirely.

If we are to understaad

hoi-;

the external world arises from

the basic temporal process, we must do so by raeans of this

metaphysical intuition.

If it is true of Kant, as Kemp-

Smith suggests, that an absolutely fundamental principle of the Critique is that ail analysis presupposes a ore262 it is qqually true of Bergson viously exercised synthesis,

that all analysis falsifies the peculiar temporal oynthesis,

which we apprehend in dujration. It follovjs that an absolute can only be given in an intuition while all the rest has to do with analysis. We call intuition here the sympathy by xvhich one is transported into the interior of an object in order to coincide with ,

I

210

what there is unique and consequently inexpressible in it. Analysis, on the contrary, is the operation which reduces the object to elements already knovm, that is, coiiiraon to that object and others. Analysing then consists in expressing a thing in terras of what is not it. 263 At the root of 3ergson»s rejection of a logic of

temporal process is his conception of logical form as an

essentially static thing.

Concepts, for Bergson, and the

logical relations between them, represent the antithesis of temporal process.

And for Kant, as well, the operations

of the understanding, were, as we have seen, completely

severed from all connection with time, after the period of the Inaiogural Dissertation .

It is just for this reason

that it is all the more difficult to see the necessity of the immanent logic of the production of transcendental

schemata by ihe transcendental imagination.

Bergson can

congratulate James for having cried out against the "block universe", can share with James the viexv that future events are aot determined, just because he denies a logical deter-

mination of the passage of time.

And because the reality

of time is known, as it is for Kant, (as a form of sensibility), through inner experience, Bergson can stress this

inner intuition as more important for metaphysics than

conceptual thinking.

At bottom, Bergson »s theory of time

represents the results of carrying out the implications of Kant»s distinction between inner sense and apperception.

211 In distin^uishinc between the two, Kant did not lay much

emphasis on the fact that inner sense is conscious inner sense, in which we are directly aware of the reality of change.

It is this fact v;hich Bergson seizes upon and

develops.

He follows Kant in separating this conscious-

ness from the mere logical identity of the subject, of the thinking subject, and is thus led to the view that

this consciousness of change is prinary and quite inex-

plicable in terms of concepts.

Let the numerical identity

of the self be a logical fiction, a mere symbol imposed on

the flow of inner experience.

remains.

The consciousness of change

It follows that the self must be something quite

unlike a thinking being, or a logical subject.

V/e

thus

find Bergson, in effect, defining consciousness in term.s of memory and anticipation, which in turn are associated xvith the

temporal distinctions known to the self.

To create the 'future requires preparatory action in the present, to prepare what v;ill be is to utilize what has been; life therefore is employed from its start in conserving the past and anticipating the future in a duration in v/hich past, present and future tread one on another^ forming an indivisible continuity. Such memory, such 264 anticipation, are consciousness itself, The idealistic element in Kant's thought necessi-

tates a distinction between the self and the material world, which must be reflected in the character of the

phenomenal self.

His distinction between space and time

212 as forms of outer and inner sense, respectively, involves

the association of time vjith inner experience, and also

accomplishes the required separation of the phenomenal self from the material world.

But he has further to sepa-

rate the logical functions of the understanding from time

and inner sense,

Kis Copernican revolution, hovjever, re-

quires that the categories should apply directly oo time. This creates the problem of how this is possible in view

of the disparity betv/een inner sense and its form, time, and the logical functions.

Kant is also faced v/ith the

problem of how inner sense relates to outer sense.

Thus

Kant*s distinction betvjeen space and time serves several purposes:

(a)

it allovjs him to separate the self from the

material world;

(b)

it allows a recognition of the immediate

apprehension of becoming;

(£)

it allows him to hold that

only time is all-pervasive in the domain of sense, which in turn leads to

(d)

the doctrine of the application of the

cate;:^ories to time alone, and hence a complete ansv;er to

Hume.

But this necessary mixing of the temporal distinc-

tions made by the self with the view of space and time as extensive, which is characteristic of the

tv;o

theories we

have called possibilities A and B, creates for Kant, viev/s follow possibility B, two

\i7hose

major problems, which

augur a development in the direction of Bergson^s vievjs. The

tvjo

points,

(a)

and (b) provide the seed of Bergson»s

i

213

duree, a development stemminG from the distinction betv;een

inner sense in the narrow and wide meanings, and the problem

posed by the fact that inner sense in the lies outside the pale of cognition.

The

narro;-; tv;o

meaning

points, {c)

and (d) provide the seed of the separation betv/een the in-

tellect and time, a development from the distinction betv/een inner sense and the

faculty of apperception, and the

problem posed by the independent origin of the categories. There remain, then,

tv/o

further questions,

l.hat

is there in Kant»s system which would suggest Bergson's

claim that time is the ultimate reality?

And v;hat is there

to su^igest that intellectual fimctions shoiild be associated

with space?

We must now attempt to determine what relation,

if any, obtains betv/een Kant and Bergson on these

points.

tv;o

A

214 3.

Primordial Time and the Spatializlng Intellect The two points we are to deal with here are so

closely connected that one another.

v;e

must treat them in relation to

For Bergson»s assertion of the metaphysical

primacy of tine involves him in the view that there io an intimate connection betvjeen space and the functions of the intellect.

Indeed, the very method he takes in attempting

to answer the question of how inner and outer sense are

related consists in large part in shov;ing how it is that the intellect breaks up the flow of time into discrete,

spatial parts.

In the nature of things, therefore, it is

natural that Bergson's solution to this problem does not consist in a logical explanation, but consists rather in showing that a logical explanation of the relation between space and time is impossible.

As we have pointed out in

Chapter Two, Section One, above, a theory which makes a

fundamental distinction between space and time has only a limited number of possible ivays of explaining the relation betvieen these distinct entities.

Bergson, as

v/e

have seen,

fully accepts the implications stemming from the point that the diiratlon which is revealed in inner sense cannot be adequately represented in concepts.

By this token, he

makes it impossible to explain the relation betv/een inner and outer sense, and hence between space and time, in

215

rational terns.

His explanation therefore leans heavily

on an appeal to intuition.

The appeal to an intuitive i^rasp of tine and space is not in itself, of course, wholly foreign to Kant*s

views, because time and space for him are, above all, pure

intuitions.

V/hen

Kant tells us that no man can possibly

answer the question of how in a thinking subject an outer •265

intuition is possible,

however, he reveals his conviction

that philosophy must be liraited to the rational explanation of the possibility of knov/ledge.

V/here reason itself can

make no progress, as in speculations ^vhich extend beyond the sphere of possible experience, reason must desist from

further inquiry.

But Bergson does not believe that philo-

sophy must stop there, namely, with the explanation of the possibility of empirical knowledge.

Metaphysics may

proceed by means of intuition,- not indeed the intellectual intuition which Kant thought would be necessary if there

were to be a knoivledge of things-in-themselves, but an intuition 'Which carries us into the heart of the duration

revealed in our own inner consciousness. For, in order to reach intuition it is not necessary to ti\.nt;port ourselves outside the domain of the senses and of consciousness. Kant»s error After having proved by v;as to believe that it v;as. decisive arguments that no dialectical effort will beyond and that an effectthe into us introduce ever ive metaphysics would necessarily be an intuitive metaphysics, he added that v/e lack this intuition

216

and that this metaphysics is impossible. It would in fact be so if there were no other time or change than those v.'hich Kant perceived and which, moreover, we too must reckon with; . , ,266

Bergson goes on to say that there is another kind of time than that which has been spatialized by the senses and

consciousness (which tends to spatialize time in the interests of action).

If we can undo this work of spatiali-

zation, we shall have a new kind of knov;ledge, an intuition

of real time.

Intuition doubtless admits of many de,2Tees of intensity, and philosophy many degrees of depth; but the mind once broiight back to real duration will already be alive with intuitive life and its knovjledge of thin,?;s will already be philosophy. Instead of a discontinuity of uoments replacing one another in an infinitely divided time, it will perceive the continuous fluidity of real time which flows along, indivisible. 26?

What relation has this view of time as "one iden'263

tical change which keeps ever lengthening",

to Kant's

theory of time as a form of sensibility, and a pure intuition?

Bergson»s view seems to be a logical result of

Kant's in that Bergson carries out the implications of Kant's admission that there is no substance which persists

through changes of state in inner sense.

Kant's theory of

time as a form of intuition presi^pposes that there may be

matter (of appearances) which can appear in this form. But it seems clear that there can be no distinction between

matter and form in inner sense.

Since the appearances .

I

217

themselves, in inner sense, are not subject to catej;orical

determination, which provides for the formal features of appearances, it is difficult to see how, in

tliis

area of

appearances matter can be distinguished from form,

Kant,

himself, supports this conclusion by saying that in inner sense no determinate intuition is to be met v;ith.

But if

it is not possible to distinguish between time as a forra

and the appearances which permeate one another in the flux

of inner sense,

v:e

seem to be forced to identify the form

with the flux itself, or rather, to speak more accurately, to say that time is not a form at all, but is the indivisible change in inner sense itself.

Bergson»s theory of

time, then, in this respect is a logical development of

that of Kant. Thus Bergson*s intuition of time as duration is an intuition with a concrete content, but a content which is not broken up in itself into differentiated parts.

Time,

for Bergson, is definitely not an abstract entity. It is

not an abstract becoming, but is

unique, specific change

itself. The trick of our perception, like that of our intelligence, like that of our language, consists in extracting from these profoundly different becomings the single representation of becoming in general, undefined becoming, a mere abstraction which by itself says nothing and of which, indeed, it is very- rarely that we think. To this idea, -always the same, and alv;ays obscure or unconscious, we then Join, in each

21^

particular case, one or several clear images that represent states and which serve to distin :uish all becomings from each other. It is this composition of a specified and definite state with change in general and undefined that vie substitute for the specific change. 269 But why should Bergson equate this concrete time

with ultimate reality?

is there in Kant that might

'.Tiat

suggest this further development? In

this case Bergson's

t''©o::^y

Are we to suppose that

does not represent a logical

development from that of Kant?

¥e shall try to show here

that If this further point does not represent the only

logical development from Kant, there are at any rate many reasons which suggest that at least Bergson's contention

represents one consistent line of developraent from Kant, Je

have already seen that inner sense, for Kant,

shares in one respect, the role of things-in-themselves, in that the appearances of iuier sense are not subject to

the categories, and must be considered paradoxically enough,

to be, technically speaking, beyond all possible experience.

Although these appearances are outside of possible experience in Kant's sense of the terra, they are certainly not

psychologically impossible,

B'or

we are immediately aware

of them, and Kant himself must have held that we xvere

immediately axvare of them or he could never have pointed to the fact of the flux of inner sense as a point hostile

to the rational doctrine of the soul.

If one were to

identify this heterogeneous flux with time itself, as

219

Bergson doos, (since it is not an abstract form), one might be lad to the view that in

oiir

immediate apprehension of

it, we were in direct relation with reality itself.

If the

mark of the ultimately real is something which is in itself j^uite

apart from our v/ays of knoiving things, and we are

directly av;are of it as it

_ls,

and not by

r.ieans

of our

categorical ways of knov/ins, not, that is, as appearance, we must admit that we are ipso facto aware of the ulti-

mately real.

The flux of inner sense corresponds to these

requirements.

It is not subject to the categories.

not knov; it by msans of the categories.

immediately av;are of it.

do

It is not a mere form, because

it has an indubitable content.

something ultimately real.

Ive

Yet we are

It must, therefore, be

Hence, also, as we have

pointed out before, it is misleading to speak of appearances of inner sense.

There is a further reason, however, for contending that time is an ultimate reality, and this as well stems

from the fact that we are immediately aware of change in inner sense. to meet it.

Kant has seen this objection and attempted Mis statement of it and his reply to it are

as follows.

Against this theory, which adi:dts the empirical reality of time, but denies its absolute and transcendental reality, I have heard men of intelligence so unanimously voicing an objection,

220 that I must suppose it to occur spontaneously to every reader to whom this way of thinking is unfamiliar. The objection is this. Alterations are real, this bein,2; proved by change of ovir own representations even if all outer appearances, together with their alterations, be denied. ICow alterations are possible only in tirae, and time i;3 therefore something real. There is no difficulty in meeting this objection. I grant the whole argument. Certainly time is something real, namely, the real form of inner intuition. 270

—

But Xant»s reply does not touch the core of the

difficulty, as Paton points out. I'Cant takes the contention to be that we are (or inner states) as changing in time, and he has no difficulty in showing that we are equally aware of extei*nal objects as in space. Space and time are on precisely the same footing, and if one is only the form of appearances, so also is the other. The objector does not, hov^ever^ mean that he is axvare of his ideas, or inner states, as in tirae. He means that his awareness is also in tirae, or is a temporal succession. His contention is that tinie r.-ys a very special reality, because it is implied, not merely in what he is aware of, but in his ax/areness of it. l/Vhat he is av/are of may be mere appearance: his awareness of it cannot be mere appearance, but must be absolute reality* And if this is so, time must be, not merely empirically, but absolutely, real. 271

avjare of our ideas

Paton goes on to supply for Kant a more effective

answer to this more stringently phrased objection.

His reply

consists in saying that even if it be granted that time is

implied in our av/areness of appearances, we must be aware

of our awareness of these appearances, and if it is supposed that this avt/areness, (of awareness) is also in time, we

embark on an infinite regress.

At any stage of this

1

221

infinite re-ress, Kant can contend that time is merely the

empirically real

foria

of what we are aware of, and not

implied in awareness itself.

This is a highly incenious

reply, and must be examined with care.

First of all, we note that the thing which Pat on, (and Kant) have to prove is that time is not implied in

awareness, that is, in consciousness itself.

reply suffice to show this?

l/e

think not.

Does Paton»s The bubble of

the objection is immediately deflated v/hen it is pointed out that even if an indefinitely extended series of avrare-

nesses of avjareness is involved, this might very well occur in time.

In fact, it ivould be a rather strange

thing if our awareness of anything did not take some

tiiae.

Thus in speaking of an infinite regress, Paton has merely

dragged in an irrelevancy, and has not shoxm that tine is not implied in consciousness itself. It is this point, namely, that we are immediately

aware ox duration in our inner experience, and that this

duration is inextricably bound up with our consciousness that Bergson takes as central to his philosophy.

He tells

us that "The existence of xvhich we are most assured and '272

which we

knox-*

best is unquestionably our own",

and he

follovjs Kant in making time a condition of our experience

of this existence.

But unlike Kant, he refuses to separate

i

.

222

time from the content of our consciousness, the conscious-

ness we have of our own existence.

Consciousness becomes

virtually synonjinous with duration itrslf The more we succeed in making ourselves conscious of our pro-;rQSs in pure duration, the more v;e feel the different parts of our being enter into each other, and our whole personality concentrate itself in a point, or rather a sharp edge, pressed against the future and cutting into it unceasingly. It is in this that life and action are free. 273 It is to be noted that Kant's theory of space and

time does not allov; one to apply the saae kind of argument to prove the absolute reality of space.

For the essential

point in the above argument is that time is alvmys involved in consciousness.

Space for Kant, hovjever, is not alv;ays

involved in consciousness, for tine alone is absoluteJ.y

primary in the domain of sense.

Space, according to Kant,

is the condition of outer appearances only.

As Paton re-

marks, "the fact remains that space is said to be the con274 It is dition of some human experience, but not of all".

conceivable that there might be consciousness without the

presence of space in it, but it is not conceivable, on Kant's principles, that there should be consciousness

which did not involve time.

It is only because Kant se-

parates the contents of consciousness from the form that he can maintain that time is only empirically real. But

since time is, for Kant, associated with the undeniable

223

reality of inner consciousness, rather than the external world, his view

sui:;;:;e3ts

that the reality of consciousness

is necessarily bound up with the reality of time, and

vice versa.

This is Bergson's doctrine and is, therefore,

a logical development of Kant's.

But this suggests also that time may be only empi-

rically real and not even transcendentally ideal.

Bergson

accepts this result, but elaborates a new doctrine of v/hat

empiricism sho\ild mean.

Traditional empiricism, he

argues, does not start with what is fundamental, but with

what is already derivative and broken up, like a set of ready-made garments "which will suit Peter as well as Paul 275 Bergbecause they do not shov/ off the figure of either", son's empiricism is different, and is as v;ell the true

metaphysics. Ilais vji empirisrae vrai est celui qui se propose de serrer d'aussi prSs que possible 1' original lui-

The empirically real in this sense, then, is also

the absolutely real, and time is by the same token the

ultimate reality.

Hence we must conclude that the relation

between the theories of time in Kant and Bergson in this respect is one of a natm'al and logical development. In view of Bergson's acceptance of time as ultimate

reality, xvherein does his explanation of the relation between

224 space and time consist? lie

It is apparent that the only way

can explain this relation is by somehow deriving space

from tine.

And the only

v;ay

he can communicate

liis

expla-

nation of how it is that conscious beings have outer in-

tuitions of space is to attempt to lead us into an intuitive

grasp of this derivation of space from time. fact, the course which Bergson takes.

This is, in

He invites us first

to make the effort of acquiring an intuition of duration. Let us seek, in the depths of our experience, the point where v;e feel ourselves most intimately within our own life; It is into pure duration that we then plunge back, a duration in v/hich the past, alv;ays moving on, is swelling unceasingly v;ith a present that is absolutely new. But, at the same time, we feel the spring of our will strained to its utmost . 277

By this means we can have an intuition of reality itself, and although a complete grasp of it is beyond hu-

man powers,

Vie

can attain to the intuition of duration in

varying degrees.

If we wish to attain the intuition of

space and matter, hov;ever,

ive

must reverse this effort

and proceed in the direction of a relaxation of the creative tension. But suppose v;e let ourselves go and, instead of acting, dream. At once the self is scattered; our past, v^hich till then was gathered together- into the indivisible impulsion it communicated to us, is broken up into a thousand recollections made external to one another. They give up interpenetrating in the degree that they become fixed. Our personality thus descends It coasts around it conin the direction of space. 27^ tinually in sensation.

I

225 Bersson, in effect, agrees with

i.cnt tiiat

the intel-

lect, and hence pure concepts, do influence or have an effect on

but he points out that this is merely a practical

tiiiie,

exi,::^ency.

Bergson^s acceptance of concrete change as time

brings the whole question of the relation between space and time down from the abstract level of pure concepts influ-

encing the pure form of sensible intuition, to the level of a nat\iralistic explanation of what is involved in our per-

ception of natter and space.

Thus the problem v;hich in

Kant^s terms reraains insoluble becomes explainable in psychological and biological terms.

But even here psychology

and biology are dealt \jith in terras involving liberal doses of 3ergson»s doctrine of intuition, and so it becomes

questionable whether he is not doing metaphysics throughout, a metaphysics designed to deal with that question

concerning the relation between inner and outer sense, which Kant refused to answer.

But because Bergson has taken the

step of considering time to be the 'ultimate reality, his

explanation of how inner and outer sense come to be related in one experience, and

hovj

change in general is possible,

rests on a metaphysical explanation of how matter and intelligence arise out of the basic flov; of time. This explanation, how^ever, carries him far beyond

anything involved in Kant's position on space and time.

It

226

must certainly be said that this aspect of Ber^son's thought does not represent a logical developnent from Kant's position, or perhaps, that of anyone else.

For Bergson's

acceptance of time or concrete process as ultimate reality does not necessarily involve the viev; that pure concepts

must be derived therefrom, shoxv

I/e

have V/hitehead's example to

that a different development is possible.

Plotinus,

v/hom Bergson resembles in some respects on the explanation

of natter, of course, represents the antithesis of Bergson on this matter, as Ber^'Son himself points out.

More generally, the relation that we establish in the present chapter between "extension" and "detension" resembles in some aspects that which Plotinus supposes. . .v/hen he makes extension not indeed an inversion- of original Being, but an enfeeblement of its essence, one of the last stages of the procession. , . Yet ancient philosophy did not see v.'hat consequences' v;ould resvilt from this for mathematics, for Plotinus, like Plato, erected mathematical essences into absolute realities. Above all, it suffered itself to be deceived by the purely/ superficial analogy of duration v;ith' extension. It treated the one as it treated the other, regarding change as a degradation of immutability, the sensible as a fall from the intelligible. Whence. . .a philosophy vdiich fails to recognize the real function and scope of the intellect. 279

Thinking along these lines, Bergson can, with a 2o0 measure of truth accuse Kant of out-and-out Flatonizing,

All resemblance and development in this respect, then, must be rejected,

nevertheless, Bergson 's conceptions of matter

and space do resemble those of Kant in content, so that in

examining their views in relation to one another, we can

227 see the point where Bergson's development breaks off and

takes a direction quite opposed to Kant»s position,

Bergson begins his investigation of the concept of matter from a phenomenalist standpoint.

He asks us to

put aside all philosophic preconceptions, all latent meta-

physics and look out upon the v/orld of outer sense merely as it is,

i.hat

do

vje

find there?

V.'e

find ima^;es, and it

is in ima^^es tliat Bergson discovers the answer to the

question "'what is natter?". The

Sian

unaccustomed to the

theories of philosophy, Bergson tells us, would be greatly

astonished to be told either that objects

vjere

only mental

existents, or on the contrary that they v/ere things quite

Common sense, then, seems

unlike the objects he perceives.

to have grasped a fact of prime importance, namely, the

self -existent reality of images as images. an ai^gregate of images.

system obeying its

ov;n

Thus matter is

As such, it may be treated as a

laws quite apart from perception,

or it may be regarded as containing a privileged image, namely, that of the body, which conditions all other images, The former represents the

modifying them in quixotic ways.

position of realism, the latter of idealism; in one, the

mind is an accident, in the other science and its stable lav/s

of nature is an accident.

"But, for both parties, to

231

perceive means above all to knov;".

1

228 Perception, for Bercson, is a fxmction of the living organism, and dependent thereon for its scope and richness, ,

contention that

fev; v/ould

dispute.

For Bergson, however,

this fact is the basis of important metaphysical conclusions, one of which he states in the form of a general law: "Per-

ception is master of space in the exact measure in v/hich 282 action is master of time". But what does this mastery involve?

It involves the active powers ox a certain image,

the human body, or an animal body, as a centre of action

amid the totality of images which make up the universe. Pure perception, that is, perception which is considered

apart from the conditioning of memory which accompanies all

actual perception, consists in the action of the body image

whereby v/hatever part of other images which may be detached, is detached as the representation of these other images.

Thus the representation v/hich appears in consciousness in

perception is not a thing apart from the aggregate of images v;hich constitute matter; it is among them, in the relation

of a part to a whole.

But the perceptual image is not,

therefore, identical with the object, because the body can-

not lay hold of all of the object image. It can only master

what it can master. Perception appears, 'then, only as a choice. It creates nothing; its office, on the contrary, is to eliminate from the totality of images all those on which I can have no hold, and then, from each of those

229

which

I retain, all that does not concern the needs of the image which I call iny body. 2&'3

Thus, perception is not, as realism and idealism

take it to be, pure knov7ledp;e . which, as such, has a wholly

speculative interest.

It is rather the action of living

centres of indeternination upon other ina^es in the totality of matter. In other xvords let us posit that system of closely-linked images which v;e call the material world, and imagine here and there, centres of real action, represented by living matter: what we mean to prove is that there must be, ranged round each one of these centres, images that are subordinated to its position and variable with it; that conscious perception is bound to occur. . . 2^4

But opposed to pure perception, that is, radically

different from it in kind, is pure memory, a thing of the spirit.

Bergson rejects the Ilobbesian theory that memory

is weakened or decayed sense, in the brain.

ilor

are meuiories stored up

Pure perception is a mere extreme v;hich,

if it were ever actual, v;ould be instantaneous; but our

actual perception has duration, and the difference is due to memory, the v;elling-up of the past into the present. In concrete perception m.emory intervenes, and the subjectivity of sensible qualities is due precisely to the fact that our consciousness, vjhich begins by being only memory, prolongs a plurality of moments into each other, contracting them into a single in2^5 tuition,

Thus every concrete perception is "a synthesis,

made by memory, of an infinity of pure perceptions which

i

230 2g6 succeed one another".

Here again we have 3ergson»s doc-

trine of the qualitative synthesis, quite unlike that due to pure concepts and a transcendental iinity of appercep-

tion.

Perceived objects are indeed the result of a syn-

thosis, just as Kant, in a different

v/ay,

and according

to different principles, thought they were. ji5rsson a

It is for

synthesis which holds together the results of

a succession of pure perceptions in time.

These pure per-

ceptions are fragments detached from the totality of images, parts of the totality of images v;hich makes up the material v/orld, for "images outrun perception on every

side".

But the agency v/hich performs this synthesis is

not thou;:ht but memory, and the synthesis is a qualitative one not a quantitative one.

Thus the multiplicity of ob-

jects in the natural world of experience is brought about

not by ordering principles which stem from pure concepts of the understanding, but by the practical exigencies of life and the agency of memory. folloviTS

Thus, Bergson, like K.ant,

the requirements of the theory we have called

possibility B, but unlike Kant the means ivhereby he explains objects in space is partly psychological and

biological,

iievertheless, perceived objects in space

are the result of principles or agencies which act through

the medium of time.

The principle or agency in Bergson »s

case is, of course, pure memory.

This raises the question

231 Oi to ;/hat extent in Bergson's system material objects are

distinct from one another in nature.

Bergson tells us that "That there are, in a sense,

multiple objects, that one man is distinct from another man, tree from tree, stone from stone, is an indisputable 2gg fact". But in reality these objects are not so distinct

as they appear in our perception, for "to perceive consists in condensing enormous periods of an infinitely

diluted existence into a few more differentiated moments of an intenser life".

To perceive means to immobilize,

and all this is done in the interests of life.

Distinct,

sharply separated bodies are marked out and distinguished only in the practical interests of life and action. It is difficult to say to what extent bodies in

the exteraal v;orld have an independent existence, for Bergson, if indeed, they have any.

Matter as an aggregate of

images is "an existence placed half-way betv;een the * thing* 290 and the » representation*". It is difficult to under-

stand exactly what Bergson means by this spatial metaphor. Perhaps the best way of grasping his meaning is to approach it from the standpoint of distinctness itself.

The 'thing*

for Bergson, in its clear-cut distinctness, is an unreality, a fiction of the intellect, employed for purely

practical purposes.

The

*

representation*

,

as a purely

(

232

psycholocical entity, a sensation, v;hich is absolutely inextensive, is dichotomy,

tlie

./hat is

other extreme of this unsatisfactory real is soniewhere betv/een the

tv;o

in distinctness.

That which is j:iven, that which is real, is something intermediate betvjeen divided extension and pure inextension. It is what v;e have termed extensive . Extensity is ti.e most saliant quality of perception. 291

Space as an absolute, honojeneous

i.eaiuia emer^^es

in Bergson's treatment as not lexically prior to niaterial

things, but posterior to then, "like an infinitely fine

network v;hich

v/e

stretch beneath material continuity in

order to render ourselves master of it, to decompose it 292

according to the plan of our activities and needs". It is a mistake to regard this homogeneous space as a thin£^, as a legitimate object of speculative interest,

when at bottom abstract space is "nothing but the mental 293

diagram of infinite divisibility",

vdiich has arisen as

a fiction of the imagination in the interests of the

needs of life. There is much similarity

bet^ifeen

Bergson's account

of space and that of Kant, although, of course, in Kant, as regards the genesis of space,

Bergson's vitalism. v;ith

*u'e

find no equivalent to

Bergson, indeed, explicitly agrees

Kant in regarding space as a form of sensibility.

233

So we have assvuned the existence of a homogeneous Space, and with Kant, distin:;ui3hed this space from the natter which fills it. i/ith him we have adnitted that homogeneous space is a "form of our sensibility", . . 294

Bergson's professed agreement v;ith Kant, however, is somewhat misleading.

For, as his later writings

abundantly show, Bergson agrees with Kant only in what Kant denied, namely, a knowledge of the ultiraately real 295 by means of concepts. ..Ithou^^h Bergson agrees with Kant to the extent that they both, in different v;ays,

follow the theory we have called possibility (B), it is apparent that he rejects the v;hole Kantian point of view, v/hen he derives the intellect

duration.

itself from primordial

He agrees that Kant's Transcendental Aesthetic

"appears to have established once for all that extension is not a material attribute of the same kind as the 296 others". But Bergson's conception of this "form of

sensibility" proves to be radically different from Kant's. He reviews the three metaphysical possibilities which

Kant had conceived: "either the mind is determined by things, or things are detei*rained by the mind, or between 297

mind and things

v/e

must suppose a mysterious agreement",

but he also proposes a fourth possibility, which he takes to be the correct one.

J

,

234 .ilia .^liieiTiativo conLix:;os. -ix-oo ox all, in resardin- the intellect as a special function of the mind, essentially turned tov;ard inert matter; then in saying that neither does matter detemine the form of the intellect, nor does the intellect impose its form on natter, nor have matter and intellect been regulated in re^^ard to one another by vje i-noiJ not what pre-established hannony, but that intellect and matter have progressively adapted themselves one to the other in order to attain at last a common form. This adaptation has . moreover , been brou'ht about quite"riaturallyV because it is the sane inversion of the sa..ie ..lovoiient 'vjiiich'"creates at orxco the inteTlectuality of in'ind and t li e materiality of thin;^s . 29^ '

This passage follows after Bergson's explanation

that for Ilant, "space is given as a ready-made form of our

perceptive faculty we see neither

hovj

—

a veritable deus ex machina, of

it arises, nor i/ny

Ix-

is

vrtiat

which

it is

299

rather than anything else".

3o

x-te

can only conclude that

v/hether or not Bergson wovild stand by his early agreement

with Kant that space is a form of sensibility, his final conception of space is quite unlike that of Kant. definitely not a priori in Kant»s sense.

It is

V/hether Bergson »e

theory of space fulfills the same function as Kant*s, namely, of justifying the applicability of geometry to the

physical v;orld, is highly questionable,

Bergson believes

that his theory does this. , there is this about it (space) that is , , remarkable that our mind, speculating, on it with its own powers alone, cuts out in it, a priori , figures whose properties we determine a prTori ; experience, vjith v/hich we have not kept in^touch, yet follows us throiigh the infinite complications of our reasonings and invariably justifies them. That is the fact. 300 Kant has set it in clear light,

235 But in spite of this wide divergence between these

two thinkers, their theories of the concept of homogeneous space and its relation to the space of sensible experience

bear a marked similarity.

The absoluteness and infinitude

of space, for example, is in Kant's viev; a mere idea, the

work of reason. To assume an absolute space, that is, one which, because it is not material, ccn be no object of experience as ^iven for itself, means assuming: somethin^j tirhich, neither in itself nor in its consequences (notion in absolute space), can be perceived, for the sake of the possibility of experience, v;hich nevertheless nust always exist Vidthout it. Absolute space is in itself nothing and no object at all, but signifies merely everi^ other relative space that I can at any tine c:.. criv outside the given space, and that I can extend bts/ond each given space. to infinity; one that includes the ,;;riven space and in vjhich I can assume it as moved. But since I have the enlarged, although still material space only in thought, nothing I abstract is known to me of the niatter indicating it, from this, and it is conceived, therefore, as a pure, space, 301 absolute . and • non-empirical •

The conception of absolute space is reached then

by reasoning from given empirical spaces.

Absolute space

is the logical limit of the expansion of finite spaces.

It is just in this fashion, Bergson argues, that Newton,

Euler and others arrived at the notion of absolute space, A place could be absolutely distinguished from another place only by its quality or by its relation to the totality of space: so that space would become, on this hypothesis, either composed But to finite of heterogeneous parts or finite. space vje should give another space as boundary, and beneath heterogeneous parts of space we should imagine an homogeneous space as its foundation: in both cases it is to homogeneous and indefinite space that XT/e should necessarily retvim, 302

236 Similarly, as micht be expected, the divisibility

of homoseneous space is another feature conraon to the doctrines of both Kant and Bergson. divisibility is

a

/uid

for both, this

function of the intellect.

The whole of matter is niade to appear to our thought as an immense piece of cloth in which we can cut out v:hat we will- and sov; it together again as v^e please. Let us note, in passing, that it is this power 'that v;e affirm vihen we say that there is a space . that is to say, a homogeneous and empty medium, i'nfir.ite and infinitely divisible, lending itself indifferently to any mode of decomposition v;hat soever, A medium of this kind is never perceived; it is only conceived. 303

Kant tells us that "the space that is filled by

304 matter is mathematically divisible to infinity", further, that "mathematics can indeed.

•

and

.rest in the

certain possession of its evident assertions of the in305 finite divisibility of space". At the same time, Kant is at pains to point out

tliat

this infinite divisibility of

space is not a property of space as thing-in-itself , but is merely due to the possibility of conceiving in thought

the infinite divisibility of a given space. Thus we can only say of phenomena, the division of v^hich 2oes on to infinity, that there exist so many of the parts of the phenomenon, as we give of them, that is, as far as we can ever subdivide. For the parts . as belon:;in to the existence of a phenomenon exist only in thou;;ht . namely , i n their division itself . 306 ^:

ilatter, for Kant, although not described in terms

of images, is similar to Bergson*s view of matter in that

237 it is sensed, or felt,- matter is phenomenal. It is de'307 fined as the "movable in space", and its sensible charac-

ter is rsvealed in Kant^s reinarks in which he makes the

distinction between matter and form.

Matter J in contradistinction to fom, •i';ould be that -which in external intuition, is an object of feeling, and consequently the properly erapirical of sensible and outvjard intuition, because it cannot be given at all 'a priori . In all experience something must be felt, ""and this is the real of sensuous intuition. 30S Thus, for both Kant and Bergson the divisibility

of space and the matter, as sensed, which fills it, is

not a property of

i/hat is

actually sensed, but is intro-

ducec^y neans of the intellect throwjh

tlie

mathematical

conception 01 the infinite divisibility of space as an object of thought.

Their reasons for holding this in

each case,

are different.

hox-^ever,

For Kant the reason

consists in the point that space as an object of thought is different, in some manner vjhich Kant does not fully

explain, from the pure intuition of space, qua intuition. His vievj seems to be that a given erapirical space is

potentially divisible, and this is due, no doubt, to the fact that as a continuous quantity it has been snythesized. The pure intuition of space in so far as it is divisible

provides the basis of division v/hich in itself is a mathe-

matical construction.

Hence although a given space is

potentially divisible,

v;e

cannot say it has an infinite

236

number of parts, becauso it is thus divisible only so far as we divide it. On the other hand Bergson maintains, as

vie

have

seen, that matter is somewhere between pure inextension

and infinite extension.

As such it is extensive but has

not got all the properties which pertain to homogeneous space,

Ilatter arises from the degradation of the extra-

spatial into spatidlity, but the process does not go on to

absolute conpletion.

The intellectual idea of pure space

"is only the schema of the limit at which this movement

would end",

Spatiality admits of degrees, and "matter

extends itself in space without being abso3.utely extended 310 therein". Thus, in Bergson 's view, there are two kinds of space, or rather different degrees of spatiality,- the one exemplified in matter, a kind not carried to complete

spatiality,- the other a thing of the intellect, infinite, indefinitely divisible, homogeneous.

This exhibits the

main difference between Kant»s view of the relation of the intellect to space, and that of Bergson,

There is no evi-

dence to suggest that Kant thought that spatiality could

admit of degrees.

The sharp distinction between inner and

outer sense, in any case, vjould preclude this, less, the

tvio

Hev'erthe-

kinds of spatiality in Bergson 's philosophy

are related in exactly the same way as are Kant»s relative,

empirical space, v/hich is felt or sensed, and the absolute

239 space which is the logical limit of the conceptixal expan-

sion of finite spaces.

In each case, the absolute space

is regarded as the liiiit tov;ards x/hich the other tends.

But the character of the tendency is different,

'..'ith

Bergson, the tendency from inextension to absolute spa-

tiality, and also the notion of something which lies betv/een these limits,

is highly obscure. In the absence of

the requisite intuition, one can

onlj'-

fall back on the

logical conception of continuity, which, indeed, Bergson

himself exploits in attempting to cominiinicate this doctrine,

liay

we conclude that Bergson is perhaps tinwitting-

ly introducing the concept of space nere, and that his

doctrine represents the ghost of Kant*s logical expansion of spaces?

In this case, we might be entitled to conclude

that Bergson »s doctrine of space, and even its derivation

from the non-spatial is not so very different from Kant's. But here, unfortujiately, we are faced with a point which can never be decided by rational argument.

Bergson thinks that the intellect is characterized

by a latent geometry, v/hich makes it operate the does.

v;ay it

He goes so far in this direction as to suggest that

deduction itself is due to this latent geometry, which '311 and that from this "is immanent in our idea of space",

latent geometry arises logic.

In the face of this inter-

pretation of logic, all comparison between Kant and Bergson

240

must come to a halt.

Ber^son is perspicacious enovigh to

see that "from the point of view of the intellect, there

is a petitio principii in makin^j geometry arise automati312 It is, of cally from space, and lo^^ic from geonetiT-". course, just because Bergson does not assuiue the point of viev; of the

Kant.

intellect that he differs so radically from

Thus, Sergson^s development of some aspects of

Kant's thought ends in a view which, for Kant, would pro-

bably represent "the chicanery of a falsely instructed reason''.

.

s

241

MOTS

S

1

Gottfried Ilartin, Kant 3 I-letaphysics and Theory of Science . trans. P.G. Lucas (Kanchester: The I-iaiichester University Press, 1955), p. 11.