Lecture Course on Chapter Three of Bergson's Creative Evolution

Ecole Supérieure de Saint-Cloud
I. 14 March 1960

In the first part of this work, Bergson aims to present philosophy, and to show the necessity of conceiving of it as genetic philosophy. He thus comes to grips with something essential in philosophy. In effect:

a) philosophy has, prior to him, laid claim to be genetic;

b) cosmology—in ancient metaphysics—is portrayed as genesis;

c) Kantian inspired philosophy—representing modern metaphysics —is also portrayed as a genesis.

The third chapter of Creative Evolution is written counter to all these claims. In passing, it should be noted that for Bergson, to a certain extent, Kantianism acts as a "reference point." To differing degrees, Kantianism claims to be a philosophy of genesis. To be precise, there is no genesis of the phenomenon, but in fact there is a genesis of the intelligibility of phenomena.

After Kant, with Maïmon and Fichte, the claim becomes explicit. In effect, they both say that it is necessary to pass from a transcendental philosophy to a genetic one.

But Bergson says that this genesis is badly enacted:

— either because it is a genesis of intelligence derived from matter;

— or because it is a genesis of matter derived from intelligence.

In both cases, it is not a true genesis because, taking as a point of departure one of the terms, the other is immediately given, for there is a fundamental reciprocal relationship between the two.

In such a case, how are we to conceive a real genesis?

Bergson says that genesis must be double, in the sense that it must account for matter and intelligence at the same time, and consequently for their reciprocity. How does Bergson present the problem in the first two paragraphs of chapter three?

He indicates first:

A. The Method To Follow

1. What is to be "gained" from the approach taken in the first chapter? Bergson shows a difference in kind between the inorganic and the organized, between the inert and the living. In effect, one of the main functions of the method is to show differences in kind. How does Bergson understand this difference in kind? According to him, this does not arise from a special principle of life (many others have said this before him and, as such, were "anti-vitalists"), but from the fact that the living is a natural system—that is, one that has duration, while the inert is a system that is artificially—that is, approximately—closed. The former, on the contrary, is not closed, but open.

The theme of the first chapter thus highlights the fact that, in order to explain a difference in kind, it is not necessary to appeal to a special principle of the living. This does not resemble the second type of system, but "the whole of the universe." The living is a small "whole." Is this an idea inherited from Platonism? No, for Plato compares the Whole to the living, whereas the reverse is the case for Bergson.

No, since for Plato, it is a comparison that contains the idea of the Whole pre-existing the parts: totality implies interiority. For Bergson, it is the opposite: there is neither totality nor interiority within the Whole, for it would then be a closed system—i.e. inert—and consequently incomparable to the living, which is an open system.

The living is not a closed system (for Bergson, there is no finality, other than external); the living has a tendency to individualize itself, but without ever succeeding. It is this failure of individualization that characterizes the living.

Bergson thinks that in being guided by the comparison of the Whole to the living, one will find in the universe a principle of genesis that takes into account matter and its tendency to form closed systems. He has never linked life to interiority, to an internal finality. If there is finality, it can only be external, for the living system is never closed.

2. Same theme in the second chapter: difference in kind between instinct and intelligence. But there is...