Bergson and Darwin: From an Immanentist to an Emergentist Approach to Evolution

Bergson and Darwin:

From an Immanentist to an Emergentist Approach to Evolution

Introduction

At first glance it seems impossible to connect Bergson and Darwin. The French philosopher distinguishes between "the metaphysics of life" and "the knowledge of the living" (la métaphysique de la vie et la connaissance du vivant) (PM, 28).¹ He defends a metaphorical conception of evolution as an expression of some psychological force, which has nothing to do with physics (CE, 257). This is evolution as "a current passing from germ to germ," "an immense wave, which starting from a centre spreads outwards," as élan vital (CE, 27, 266). He asserts that we live the creativity of life as an internal feeling "by sympathy" and that we cannot think it in terms of "pure understanding" (CE, 164). Indeed, our intelligence (l'intelligence) "rejects all creation" (ibid.). It proceeds by abstraction, separation and elimination. Science is a dimension of intelligence, and the life sciences are characterized by a "natural inability" to understand life (CE, 166). He criticizes the Darwinian interpretation of evolution as mechanistic and artificial, because it is focused on chance and natural selection. The British naturalist is fighting against Creationism. He seems to reject all use of teleological explanations that appeal to divine design or to an internal vital force. He attempts to explain life with the help of natural selection, which is, in his terms, a "hypothesis" that can explain some large and independent "classes of facts" (AP I, 9). Hence, he seems to present a "well tested theory."

In spite of this seemingly unbridgeable gap, we will ask three questions. First, is Bergson speaking of Darwin himself, or of the Neo-Darwinian approach when he refers to a mechanistic and artificial explanation? Second, does Darwin truly assert that we can explain evolution solely with the help of natural selection and accidental hereditary variations? And third, why do we think it impossible to connect Bergson and Darwin? Are there good reasons, or are we not the victims of an a posteriori reconstruction of history? Can a more adequate reading of the relation between the two be linked to one of the most acute contemporary debates in the philosophy of biology?

As I will show, the difference between Darwin and Bergson exists. The French philosopher tries to understand life as a conscious activity. Thus, the ontological and cosmological difference between life and matter is lived by consciousness, and not explained by science. It is when we look from inside ourselves by intuition that we feel this sympathy with life, as an"immanent" and metaphysical force acting outside of us, in the material world. Darwin, on the contrary, supports his hypothesis of natural selection by pointing to the role of artificial selection in the formation of domestic breeds. However, this intervention is exercised by man, and in no way indicates that nature acts intentionally. Nature has neither purpose nor consciousness.

Nevertheless, we will show that, even if this metaphysical force acts in the world, it is a finite one. This means that the vital principle itself, as a metaphysical cause, is "a part of the effect that it produces" and "has to come into existence with it" (CE, 164). It is a "tendency;" it is not exactly a final cause. Thus Bergson rejects the model of mechanism produced by the intellect, but he is also very cautious about the use of teleology (another intellectualist model coming from Greek philosophy), since a final cause is a necessary one. For him, necessity is just a "repetition," a specific becoming in which "creation" disappears. Necessity is not a metaphysical cause, like the so-called Aristotelian "pure Act." It is an effect of duration and becoming.²

As for Darwin, when he tries to explain the relation between hereditary variations and natural selection, even when simply dealing with facts and searching natural laws, he finds what he calls "a great difficulty," and declares that "he is aware...