Is time a row of countable moments or one unbroken flow, and what does that mean for freedom?
29 claims from this lecture, in the order Marci Shore makes them, with the 21 terms it leans on and its 6 links to other lectures.
All the molds crack.
Henri Bergson, Creative Evolution. The epigraph Shore gives this lecture.
By number of claims in this lecture.
Shore’s own judgments and connections
The 3 claims the lecture spends most time on.
Real time is durée, duration: time as we actually experience it, a flow with no gaps that runs one way only and resists being divided into countable points.
Put simply Bergson: real time is "durée" (duration), time as we actually live it. It flows without gaps, runs only one way, and cannot be split into countable points.
Free will is inseparable from qualitative time: because we live time as an undivided flow, we can act spontaneously, in ways no one could have fixed beforehand.
Put simply Bergson: free will cannot be separated from time lived as one unbroken flow. Because we live time that way, we can act spontaneously, in ways no one could have settled in advance.
Finalism (teleology) holds that life moves toward an end planned from the start; Bergson rejects it: more determinism means less contingency and free will, which he wants room for.
Put simply Bergson rejects "finalism", the idea that life heads toward a goal fixed from the start, as an apple seed already "aims" at its apple. The more is fixed in advance, the less room for chance and free will.
Read down to follow the lecture. The time opens that minute on YouTube.
No general agreement exists on what Nietzsche meant by eternal recurrence; Shore suggests reading it, potentially, as eternal continuity: a river with no clean break between past and present.
Put simply Shore: no one agrees on what Nietzsche meant by "eternal recurrence". She suggests one possible reading: time as an endless flow, like a river, with no clean break between past and present.
Shore reads Bergson, Freud and Husserl, born within a decade of one another, as three rebels against positivism, each turning on that Enlightenment inheritance in his own way.
Put simply Shore treats Bergson, Freud and Husserl, born within a decade of each other, as three rebels against "positivism", the Enlightenment idea that only scientific observation gives real knowledge. Each rebelled in his own way.
It seems to Shore that Bergson never quite proves the link between free will and time's continuity; he suggests it, and even his clearest passage posits more than it proves.
The only knowledge worth the name comes from the sciences; no other source yields anything solid.
Put simply Spencer: only science gives real knowledge. No other way of knowing yields anything we can rely on.
In ethics Spencer was a utilitarian: one should act so as to bring most good to most people, deciding matters on practical grounds.
Humanity is perfectible because humans are rational: we keep arranging things better, move toward equilibrium, and in the end evil and immorality die out.
Put simply Spencer: because people are rational, humanity can keep improving. We keep organizing things better, society settles into balance, and in the end evil and immorality disappear.
Spencer's account of evolution: living things change biologically because they adapt directly to the pressures of their surroundings.
Intellectual history, Shore observes, is full of Oedipal revolts, not necessarily against a biological father but against the tradition that formed the rebel, like Bergson's against Spencer's positivism.
Put simply Shore: intellectual history is full of rebellions against a father figure, not necessarily a real father but the tradition that formed the rebel. Bergson turning on Spencer's positivism is one example.
Spencer and the positivists go wrong by projecting the way they picture space onto time, chopping it into countable units like minutes and instants; time is qualitative, not quantitative.
Put simply Bergson: Spencer and the positivists, who trust only scientific observation, treat time like space, chopping it into countable units such as minutes and instants. That is their mistake. Time is a matter of quality, not quantity.
Real time is durée, duration: time as we actually experience it, a flow with no gaps that runs one way only and resists being divided into countable points.
Put simply Bergson: real time is "durée" (duration), time as we actually live it. It flows without gaps, runs only one way, and cannot be split into countable points.
The continuum hypothesis (1878): the integers make up one infinity, the gapless points of a line another, and no set has a size strictly between the two.
Put simply Cantor's "continuum hypothesis" (1878): the whole numbers make up one infinity, the gapless points on a line make up another, and no collection has a size falling between the two.
Multiplicity comes in two kinds. A number is made of discrete, countable units; the states of consciousness instead permeate one another, forming a qualitative multiplicity that cannot be counted.
Put simply Bergson: there are two kinds of "many". A number is made of separate units you can count. Our states of mind instead blend into one another, a "qualitative multiplicity" that cannot be counted.
In consciousness, one state succeeding another means the two melt into an organic whole without gaps or edges, and the past keeps coexisting virtually with the present.
Put simply Bergson: in the mind, each state melts into the next, forming one whole with no gaps or edges (Shore's picture: cheese slices melting together in a grilled cheese). The past keeps living on in the present.
Shore hears something Hegelian in Bergson: the same longing for wholeness, where fragmentation counts as alienation and whatever is seamless ranks above whatever still shows its seams.
Put simply Shore hears an echo of Hegel in Bergson: the same longing for wholeness, where being in pieces counts as "alienation", not being at home in the world, and anything seamless ranks above what still shows its seams.
Free will is inseparable from qualitative time: because we live time as an undivided flow, we can act spontaneously, in ways no one could have fixed beforehand.
Put simply Bergson: free will cannot be separated from time lived as one unbroken flow. Because we live time that way, we can act spontaneously, in ways no one could have settled in advance.
Einstein's relativity theory measures time through instants, and that is the mistake: time must be flow, since only flowing time can accommodate contingency and free will.
Put simply Bergson against Einstein: relativity measures time as a series of instants, and that is the mistake. Time must be a flow, because only flowing time leaves room for an open future and free will.
In the text In the preface to Duration and Simultaneity (1922), Bergson presents the book as asking how far his idea of duration is compatible with Einstein's views on time.
Finalism (teleology) holds that life moves toward an end planned from the start; Bergson rejects it: more determinism means less contingency and free will, which he wants room for.
Put simply Bergson rejects "finalism", the idea that life heads toward a goal fixed from the start, as an apple seed already "aims" at its apple. The more is fixed in advance, the less room for chance and free will.
Mechanism treats nature as a machine: isolate each part, understand it, reassemble. Applied to life, that reaches only the parts and yields a thin, derivative picture of the whole.
Put simply Bergson rejects "mechanism", which treats nature like a machine such as a bicycle: understand each part, then reassemble. Applied to life, it grasps only the parts and gives a thin, second-hand picture of the whole.
Evolution has no single course. Like an exploding shell rather than a cannonball, life moves by splitting apart, scattering along divergent lines, with many possibilities open at once.
Put simply Bergson: evolution does not follow one path. Life is less like a cannonball flying to one spot than a shell bursting into fragments, scattering in many directions with many possibilities open at once.
Living things carry an élan vital, a life force that works on inert matter: it is what makes us want to do things, to act, to create.
Put simply Bergson: living things carry an "élan vital", a life force that acts on lifeless matter. It is what makes us want to do things, to act, to create.
For Bergson life is choice, continual choice: a newborn child is already a whole, indivisible self, yet which of countless directions that self will take cannot be predicted, and should not be.
You cannot spatialize only the past. Lay elapsed time out like space and the future is spread out too, complete behind a screen; contingency vanishes and our acts arrive ready-made.
Put simply Bergson: if you lay out past time like space, you must lay out the future that way too, as if already complete behind a screen. Then nothing is left open, and our actions arrive ready-made.
Intellect is built for inert matter. It measures, categorizes and breaks things into separable pieces from outside; at ease only with the discontinuous and dead, it cannot grasp life.
Put simply Bergson: the intellect is made for lifeless matter. It measures, sorts and breaks things into separate pieces from the outside. At ease only with what is cut up and dead, it cannot grasp life.
Intuition, instinct in sophisticated form, is molded to life itself: it grasps reality from inside, whole and at one stroke, not in represented pieces, and it belongs to time.
Put simply Bergson: intuition, a refined form of instinct, is shaped to fit life itself. It grasps reality from the inside, whole and all at once rather than piece by piece, and it belongs to time.
Intuition completes intellect rather than rejecting it, and consciousness needs both. Rely on mechanistic intellect alone, though, and you get an impoverished world drained of creativity.
Put simply Bergson: intuition completes the intellect rather than rejecting it, and the mind needs both. But rely on the machine-like intellect alone and you get a poorer world, drained of creativity.
What is funny is what lacks self-awareness: the aspect of someone that resembles a thing, rigid, mechanical, moving without life. Laughter is society's corrective, jolting that automatism loose.
Put simply Bergson on comedy: we laugh at the side of a person that acts like a thing, rigid and mechanical, unaware of itself. Laughter is society's way of correcting this, jolting people out of autopilot.
Art, whatever its medium, has a single aim: to sweep away the useful symbols and accepted generalities that screen reality from us, and confront us with reality directly.
Put simply Bergson: all art, in any medium, has one aim: to clear away the practical labels and accepted generalities that hide reality from us, and bring us face to face with reality itself.
The thinkers of this era long to reach the real, life at its core, what we feel estranged from; for Shore each in some ways reworks the subject-object bridge problem.
Put simply Shore: thinkers of this period long to reach reality itself, life at its core, which they feel cut off from. Each in some way reworks the old puzzle of how a mind can reach the world outside it.
Natality: every new being who enters the world injects radical contingency into it, able to head in many directions along courses no one can foresee.
Put simply Arendt's "natality": every newborn brings real openness into the world. A new person can head in many directions, along paths no one can foresee.
14 of these 21 first come up in this lecture. Definitions are our paraphrase.
Where a claim here answers an earlier lecture, and where a later lecture answers a claim here. “Our inference” marks a link Shore does not state outright.
GoetheGoethe's charge against Mendelssohn: he treats beauty as an entomologist treats a butterfly, pinning it down until its color pales and nothing living is left. L2 · 46:35
BergsonIntellect is built for inert matter. It measures, categorizes and breaks things into separable pieces from outside; at ease only with the discontinuous and dead, it cannot grasp life. L7 · 39:12
Analytic intellect, like the pinned butterfly, cannot grasp the living wholeOur inference
KantFree will cannot be proven, yet without it there is no ethics at all. Kant therefore simply posits it, and, almost in passing, posits God too. L3 · 31:04
BergsonFree will is inseparable from qualitative time: because we live time as an undivided flow, we can act spontaneously, in ways no one could have fixed beforehand. L7 · 23:13
Where Kant merely postulates free will, Bergson tries to ground it in the nature of time.
HegelHistory's end, for Hegel, is a mystical point where all oppositions (freedom and necessity, is and ought, subject and object) dissolve into synthesis; nobody has ever witnessed it. L4 · 41:30
BergsonFinalism (teleology) holds that life moves toward an end planned from the start; Bergson rejects it: more determinism means less contingency and free will, which he wants room for. L7 · 27:08
A goal fixed in advance leaves no room for contingency or freedom
SpencerThe only knowledge worth the name comes from the sciences; no other source yields anything solid. L7 · 10:48
HusserlTreating consciousness the way natural science treats its objects almost inevitably turns it into a material thing, and that reification, as the 1910 manifesto argues, leads straight into absurdity. L11 · 13:42
Scientific objectivism expels the subject and ends in absurdityOur inference
BergsonIntellect is built for inert matter. It measures, categorizes and breaks things into separable pieces from outside; at ease only with the discontinuous and dead, it cannot grasp life. L7 · 39:12
BeauvoirSexuality, for Beauvoir, cannot be absorbed into the social order: eroticism is "a revolt of the instant against time," and trying to channel or exploit it risks killing it. L16 · 41:15
Shore sees Bergson's influence in Beauvoir's view that live spontaneity cannot be disposed of like inert matter: eroticism is a realm of freedom.
ArendtNatality: every new being who enters the world injects radical contingency into it, able to head in many directions along courses no one can foresee. L7 · 49:55
ArendtForgiveness alone among reactions is unpredictable: though a response, it keeps something of genuine action, starting afresh instead of being dictated by the deed that provoked it. L25 · 46:40
Forgiveness, like birth, begins something new that is not conditioned by what came beforeOur inference
Throughlines that pass through this lecture.
As they come up in the lecture.
Bergson born in Paris, the year Darwin publishes Origin of Species.
Cantor formulates the continuum hypothesis in set theory.
Time and Free Will Essai sur les données immédiates de la conscience
Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic Le Rire
Creative Evolution L'Évolution créatrice
Concerning the Nature of Time Concerning the Nature of Time
Duration and Simultaneity Durée et simultanéité
Bergson's polemic with Einstein over relativity and the nature of time.
Munich Conference: Chamberlain (with Daladier and Mussolini) cedes the Sudetenland to Hitler, promising "peace for our time".
Germany invades Poland; beginning of World War II.
Bergson, reportedly offered exemption from the Vichy anti-Jewish laws, refuses it and registers as a Jew.
Germany defeats France, occupies the north and establishes a collaborationist regime in the south.
Bergson dies aged 81, allegedly of a cold caught queueing to register as a Jew. Shore tells this as a story that may not have happened.