Bergson's Hand
Toward a History of (Non)-Organic Vitalism
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 5339403 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Hisashi Fujita (0000-0003-0582-6744), Roxanne Lapidus |
| Year | 2007 |
| Volume | 36 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 115-130 |
| Publication date | 2007-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | SubStance (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0049-2426 • E-ISSN: 1527-2095 |
| Publisher | Project MUSE (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1353/sub.2007.0042 |
| OpenAlex | W2086285714 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 5 |
| References cited | 1 |
Bergson's Hand: Toward a History of (Non)-Organic Vitalism Hisashi Fujita Japan Society for the Promotion of Science translated by Roxanne Lapidus "Today vitalism is sterile, but it will not always be so." -Henri Bergson Introduction Let me say at the outset that my question is not whether or not Bergson was a vitalist. If vitalism is defined as a theory that proposes a "vital force" underlying phenomena which transforms matter into living, organized matter while stressing its irreducibility to physico-chemical phenomena, and if one takes into account the bergsonian notion of life that is "more than anything else, a tendency to act upon inert matter" (CE, 96), as well as his notion of the "élan vital" ("the explosive force-due to an unstable balance of tendencies" [CE, 98]), then incontestably there is a kind of vitalism in Bergson. My concern here is to understand what kind of vitalism is at work in Bergson's philosophy.1 This being so, where in his work should we focus on the intertwined relationships between life and matter, mind and body, the organic and the inorganic, the body and the machine, and so on? I propose to approach this question via the notion of the "organ," a notion that seems to give a key to Bergson's vitalism. For the term "organ" is an amalgamation of various meanings, whose condensation into a single word is highly significant for our inquiry. Let's look at a few of organ's meanings. First of all, it means machine, for in Greek organon means "instrument of work, tool." Next it means a part or member of a body-either individual, or social. Finally, organ can be a voice-a medium of communication, as a newspaper is the "organ" or voice of a party.2 Like the theory of life in Creative Evolution which unmistakably calls forth the theory of knowledge, the "organ" possesses its specific organon, which could be useful for our inquiry into a unique vitalism. More generally, a whole series of words like organ, organized being, organic, organism, organization, organicism, organon, as well as organum, orgue (musical organ), and even (not unreasonably here) orgasm or orgiasm,3 belong to a constellation of words related to the org (shorthand for this [End Page 115] semantic system), and have played a decisive role in the traditional problematic of vitalism. Characterized by a certain intervention, intermediation or interpretation at the very heart of immediacy, the org prompted certain vitalist philosophers to overthrow the traditional division between life and death, body and machine, organic and inorganic, and so on. Rather than demonstrating this thesis, I would like to give an example of it. I would like to approach Bergson's vitalism in the context of the "the org" by concentrating on the theme of "the hand." More precisely, on the forcefully exerting hand or arm [le bras s'efforçant]. This figure recurs throughout Bergson's oeuvre: Time and Free Will takes up the forcefully exerting hand from the start, in the category of muscular effort; Matter and Memory speaks of the amputated hand; in Creative Evolution we recall the hand that plunges into a mass of iron filings; in The Two Sources of Morality and Religion, we find the movement of the hand carried from one point to the other-an indivisible, moving and multiple gesture. One might wonder if such a theme is worth pursuing, especially since it is merely an example, a metaphor or an analogy, and not a philosophical notion. But Bergson himself stressed the power of metaphor. Taking this term in its etymological sense-that is, taking it as transposition of senses or alteration of meaning between the representable and the unrepresentable, Bergson exhorts us, "Let us not be duped by appearances: there are cases in which it is imagery in language which knowingly expresses the literal meaning, and abstract language which unconsciously expresses itself figuratively" (CM, 49). In the spiritual, vital or metaphysical domain, the
Epistemology · Vitalism · Philosophical and Theoretical Analysis · Philosophy
| Unique citing works | 5 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,29 |
| Citation span | 2009 - 2014 (6) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 5 |