The normal and the pathological in Bergson.pdf

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The Normal and the Pathological in Bergson

Author(s): David LapoujadeSource: MLN, Vol. 120, No. 5, Comparative Literature Issue (Dec., 2005), pp. 1146-1155Published by: The Johns Hopkins University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3840703 .

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M L

N

This

is, however,

not

precisely

the notion

I

want to

talk

about,

but

rather a

similar

notion,

and one

that,

at

first

sight,

some

commentar-

ies have considered to be synonymous with attention to life. It is a

concept

that

appears only

in The

Two Sources

of Morality

and

Religion:

the

concept

of attachment

to

life. One

can

even

suppose

that

attachment to

life

plays

as central a

role in

The

Two Sourcesas

attention to life does

in

Matter and

Memory.

One

might

even

go

so

far as

to

say

that the main

problem

of The

Two

Sources,

he

very

core of

the

book,

is the

question

of attachment

to life.

Why

and

how

are we

attached

to life?

Why

can

we

not

find

any specific

analysis

of this

notion?

I think

that

this is

primarily

due

to the fact

that one

only

considers it as an extension, or a variation, of the concept of

attention

to

life.

Yet is it not

describing

a

new

type

of

equilibrium,

a

new kind

of

vitality,

and,

therefore,

a

new

type

of

pathology?

What

I

would like to

understand,

then,

is

precisely

how the

passage

from

attention to

attachment

is

the

sign

of

a

major

shift

in

Bergson's

thought,

because

it is

obvious

that such

a

shift

implies

that the

boundary

between the

normal and

the

pathological

(but

also be-

tween the

real and the

unreal)

has

been

displaced.

What

I

will

try

to

understand

is

the

reason for this transformation.

So,

if I

consider the

relation between the normal and the pathological, it is only from the

perspective

of this

passage

from attention

to attachment.

How

does

Bergson

define attention

to life ?

It is

not

a

psychological

attention,

but a

biological

attention,

which

belongs

to the human

species. Generally speaking,

one

can

define

it as an

encroachment

of

the

present

onto the

future,

essentially

as an

adaptive

capacity

of

anticipation.

Attention to life

defines the situation of

a balanced

life

[vie

equilibree].

t is from the

body-from

the brain-that

the intelli-

gence receives the weight or ballast of its equilibrium and its capacity

to

adjust

to the

requirements

of

the

material

(or social)

world. It is

through

the brain

that

the

solidarity

between our

psychological

life

and our motor

activity

is established

and maintained.

More

specifi-

cally,

attention

to life

requires

a

double movement

of call and

response:

D'un

c6ot,

l'etat sensori-moteur

. .

. oriente

la

memoire,

dont

il

n'est au

fond,

que

l'extr6mit6

actuelle

et

active;

d'autre

part

cette

memoire

elle-meme,

avec

la

totalite

de notre

passe,

exerce une

pouss6e

en

avant

pour

inserer

dans

l'action

presente

la

plus

grande

partie

d'elle-meme. 2 The call comes from the

present,

from the

present

of our

body.

And

this

present

calls

out

to

a definite

past,

which is

able to illuminate this

very

present.

The

response

comes

1147








DAVID

LAPOUJADE

from our

memory,

which,

on its

side,

is

always

expecting

the

present

to

insert

in

it the

biggest

part

of itself.

What

defines the

encroach-

ment mentioned earlier, or the intellectual equilibrium, is the accu-

racy

of the

adjustment

between the call and the

response.

There is a

constant

tension in

us

that

provokes

our interest in the outer

world,

and

that

forces us

to

answer its

unceasing

orders. It is as if

the outer

world

(social,

material)

were

constantly asking

us: what is to

be done

now?

Our intellectual

equilibrium

is

entirely

based on the structure

of

those sensori-motor

apparati

in

so far as

they

fix

our mind

and force

it

to take interest in

external life.

This

is

why Bergson

defines

attention to life in terms of a sense of reality. Inversely, any

reduction

of

this tension

will lose contact

with

reality,

taking

no

further interest

in

life:

Relachez cette tension ou

rompez

cet

6quilibre:

tout se

passera

comme si

l'attention se d6tachait de

la vie. 3

It is

from this

point

of

view

that

Bergson

describes the

activity

of

dreaming.

Moreover,

Bergson

sees in

the

loosening

(or

reduced

tension)

of

dreaming

an

imitation

of all

mental

pathologies:

.

..

le

reve

imite de tout

point

l'alienation

.

. .

tous les

sympt6mes

psychologiques

de la

folie se

retrouvent dans le

reve. 4

Mental

pathologies are defined, as in Janet, by a loss of the sense of reality,

as is

the case

in

psychosis

(I

will

not

go

into further

analysis

here

concerning

the

distinction

between mechanical and

dynamic

dis-

eases).

On this

level,

the

pathological

standard is

psychosis,

consid-

ered

as

a

loss of contact

with

reality.

And

what is

opposed

to

psychosis

is common

sense

[bon

sens]-normality

or the intellectual

equilib-

rium

of

common sense.

With

this

explanation, Bergson

offers

a

general

framework that

allows

us to think

relations between

the

normal

and the

pathological.

The normal

is the set of

pathologies

prevented, warded off, or counterbalanced by the bodily sensori-

motor

adaptation

to the

world. So it is to a

large

extent the

body-as

a

system

of habits-that

prevents

the

danger

of the mind

going

into a

psychotic

delirium. On

this

level,

the normal is

only

the

prevention

of

the

pathological.

What

happens

when

Bergson

introduces attachment

to

life ?

In

order

to

live,

adaptation

is

not

enough;

one needs to be attached

o

one's

own

life. Life has to

give

us a means to

be attached to it.

This

means that

the

possibility

does exist that man

can be detached

from

life and not be interested in it

anymore.

One can understand how

different the situation is

now,

especially

if

we

remember

that

the

notion of

attachment

is

actually inseparable

from what

Bergson

1148










DAVID

LAPOUJADE

occupy:

the

inevitability

of

death,

the

unexpected,

which undoes our

projects.

From this

point

of

view,

the

highest

form of

intelligence

would be the conception of determinism: a world in which no

particular place

could be said to

belong

to us. This is

the first

part

of

the neurosis. In other

words,

what becomes

pathological

now

is the

representation

of

reality

as such

(that

very

representation

that

was

preventing

pathologies

in

the intellectual

equilibrium).

Bergson's

general question

can be

posed

in the

following way:

what

attaches

individuals

to their own

life,

since

intelligence

and

memory

or common

sense

cannot do it?

One knows

the

solution for this

depression,

for this neurosis inherent to mankind. Under

pressure

of

a virtual instinct, man starts to invent stories [fabuler];but he doesn't

make

up

stories

just

for fun-he

invents

stories

in

order to

believe

them. And

to believe means to take them as real.

In

other

words,

one

invents stories inasmuch as the stories can be

regarded

as

perfectly

real.

They

must

have

the same

sensori-motor

efficacy

as

the

represen-

tations of

reality provided

by

our

knowledge;

otherwise,

we remain

on

the level of mere conviction

or

opinion.

It is

only

if

man

injects

elements of

personality

into the

real

world,

virtual

presences

on

the

basis of

which

he

acts,

that man

can be attached

to

life. One can

believe anything (and actually we do believe anything when we

consider the absurdities of

religions

in

History, says Bergson)

as

long

as

we

go

on

believing. According

to this

general description,

the first

form of

equilibrium

is not

in the

least threatened.

Religion

or,

if one

prefers,

the

act of

believing,

is

what

helps

man

face

reality,

and withstand

the

excess of

reality

that

pure

intelligence

would

otherwise

impose

on us.

Belief-the

act of

belief,

of

holding

fictions as real-is a

vital

act.

Besides attachment

to

life,

what

is its

vital

function?

Nous

devons

oujours

nous dire

que

le

domainede la vie est

essentiellement

celui de

l'instinct,

que

sur une

certaine

igne

d'evolution,

'instinct

a

c6ed

une

partie

de sa

place

a

l'intelligence,qu'une perturbation

de la vie

peut

s'ensuivre

et

que

la nature n'a

d'autre ressource

alors

que d'opposer

l'intelligence

a

l'intelligence.

La

representation

ntellectuelle

qui

retablit

l'equilibre

est d'ordre

religieux.8

Bergson goes

on: Nous

posons

une certaine activit6

instinctive;

faisant

surgir

alors

l'intelligence,

nous cherchons si

une

perturbation

dangereuse s'ensuit; dans ce cas, l'6quilibre sera vraisemblablement

retabli

par

des

representations

que

l'instinct suscitera

au

sein de

l'intelligence perturbatrice:

si de

telles

representations

existent,

ce

1150








M

L N

sont

des idees

religieuses

6elmentaires. 9 What is

properly

vital

in

belief

(that

is

to

say:

the

interpolation

of an

imaginary representation

in a chain of real representations), is the restoration of an equilib-

rium that is not

intellectual,

but natural.

In

other

words,

the

general

structure

is

totally

different from the

structure

of attention to life.

On

the

one

hand,

intellectual

equilibrium

is

produced

by preventing

deliria

[delires];

on the

other,

natural

equilibrium

is

produced by

introducing

deliria inside the

intellectual

plane

to

prevent

a

vital

deficiency

(or

its

threat).

On

one

hand,

it is

the

vital

deficiency

that

threatens

intelligence;

on the other

hand,

it is

the

excess of intelli-

gence

that threatens the vital

impulse.

How, then, can we define this attachment to life? Bergson writes:

La

religion

est ce

qui

doit combler chez les

etres

dou6s de

r6flexion,

un d6ficit

eventuel

de

l'attachement

a la

vie.... La

religion

statique

attache l'homme

a

la

vie,

et

par cons6quent

l'individu

a la

socite6,

en

lui

racontant des histoires

comparables

a

celles dont on berce les

enfants. '0 The

question

then becomes:

how do

those fictions

[fabulations]

attach

us

to life? We

cannot

be

satisfied

with an

answer

that

would

say:

they give

us

hope,

release

our

pain,

etc.,

because such

answers

beg

the

question.

Bergson first shows that fictions are projections. We project, behind

the

natural

phenomena, meaningful

intentions or

purposes.

In

other

words,

we

constitute a

universe

of

human

significations. Intelligence,

Bergson says,

under the

pressure

of

instinct,

gives

a

unity

or

an

individuality

to events that makes them human.1 One

goes

as

far

as

one

can with

knowledge

or

with

technics,

but this

knowledge

is

supplemented by

our

projections

which

give

us

confidence:

l'archer

tend

son arc et

vise;

mais sa

pensee

va

plut6t

a

la

cause

extra-

mecanique

qui

doit conduire la fliche

ou

il

faut,

parce

que

sa

croyance en elle lui donnera ... la confiance en soi qui permet de

mieux

viser. '2As

this

myth-making

function

develops,

the elements

of

personality

unfold

proportionally,

and form

an

entity

(for

ex-

ample,

the

spirits )

that

goes

on to achieve

divinity.

There is

only

a

difference

in

degree

between

the

player

who believes

in

his luck

and

the

priest

who lives

according

to

the

holy

texts.

This

is a classical

feature

of

religion:

the

myth-making

function is

anthropomorphic,

but

this statement

is

not made from a

critical

point

of

view since

it

is

about

grounding

the

religious

in the

vital

(and

considering

the loss of

religion as a depression of the vital

impulse).

There

is, however,

another

aspect,

one less

visible

perhaps,

but

also

quite important. Bergson says

that

religion gives

confidence,

confidence

1151








DAVID

LAPOUJADE

in

oneself,

confidence

in

the external

world. We

do

believe

in order

to be confident. And confidence is

synonymous

with attachment to

life. Lack of confidence comes from intelligent knowledge, knowl-

edge

of a

possible

order that threatens

my

existence. I

know

myself

as

a lack of

power.

And,

as

Bergson says,

adefaut

de

puissance,

nous

avons

besoin de confiance. 13

How does

man

regain

(or recreate)

this

confidence

by projecting

entities or

personalities

into the external

world? It

is

because those

projections give

him

a

place:

he is now

observed,

helped,

involved;

in

short,

he is

acknowledged

s

occupying

a

place

in the

world.

Why

a

place?

This is because

pure

intelligence

involves

thinking

the world with

an

order that excludes us. We

just

occupy a neutral, insignificant place among other places inside a

world with

necessary

laws,

blind to our

destiny.

What

our beliefs

give

us is a

privileged place.

And

what

is a

privileged place?

It

is the

central

one,

the

very

center. Belief

puts

us in the

very

center

of the

world

because

the forces of the

universe

organize

themselves

for

us. One

passes

from

anthropomorphism

o

anthropocentrism.

ere is the

Bergson's

description:

Considerons,

en

effet,

un animal

autre

que

1'homme.

l

use de tout ce

qui

peut

le servir.Croit-il

precis6mentque

le monde soit fait

pour

lui?

Non,

sans

doute,

car

il

ne se

repr6sentepas

le

monde,

et n'a d'ailleursaucune

envie de

sp6culer.

Mais ..

il

se

comporte

evidemment

comme si tout

etait

combine dans la

natureen vue de

son

bien et dans

l'interet

de son

esp&ce.

Telle est

sa conviction

v6cue;

elle le

soutient,

elle se confond avec son

effort

pour

vivre. Faites maintenant

surgir

la

reflexion:

cette

conviction

vecue;

elle le

soutient,

elle

se confond avec son

effort

pour

vivre.Faites

maintenant

urgir

a r6flexion:cette conviction

'evanouira;

'homme

va

se

percevoir

et se

penser

comme un

point

dans

l'immensite

de

l'univers. 1

se

sentirait

perdu,

si

l'effort

pour

vivre ne

projetait

aussit6t dans son

intelligence,a la placememe que cetteperceptionet cettepensee allaient

prendre, 'imageantagoniste

'une

conversion

des

choseset des evenements

vers

'homme

:

bienveillante u

malveillante,

une intention de

l'entourage

le suit

partout,

comme la lune

parait

courir avec

lui

quand

il

court.'4

In

other

words,

confidence here is the intellectual

feeling through

which

the

world reflects

for

man

a

central

place, through

which,

says

Bergson,

he is taken

into consideration. This is

a

kind of childish or

neurotic

confidence.

So we

can

see here what defines the

humanity

of man. Man does

not escape from his intelligence, does not leap beyond himself to

reach an

overhumanity.

He

does not leave his

intelligence

behind,

it

is

rather that his vital instinct inserts itself into

intelligence

and

1152








M

L

N

interpolates

its fictions into

it. On

the

contrary, humanity

expands,

since it

is

projected

all around man and reflected

by

him in his

religions. It is like a sphere or a bubble of humanity. These are the

closed societies.

Bergson says

that we cannot

escape

such

enclosure,

man's

turning

in on

himself,

in

the same

way

that

we

escape

from

the

depressive power

of

pure

intelligence.

With

static

religion,

one

does

not

escape

from the

sickness

of

mankind-one

only

makes it

livable.

This is because the

means to

get

rid of the

sickness

still

belong

to the

sphere

of

sickness.

And,

for

Bergson

as for

Nietzsche,

the

real sickness

is not to be

sick,

it is when the means of

getting

out

of

it still

belong

to it. This is the

case

for

religion.

It

protects

us from the

representa-

tions of pure intelligence but remains inside the closed society or

neurosis. To be

really

free,

one

should

escape

from

intelligence,

that

is to

say, leap

over our neurotic and childish

humanity,

to

reach

a kind

of

overhumanity.

This means

introducing

a new kind of

confidence,

a

new

kind of

attachment to

life,

in

short:

a

new

kind of health. This is what

happens

with

mysticism,

when

Bergson says

that

mysticism

aims

at a

more than human man. This

is

what

Bergson says:

...

pourquoi,

des

lors,

l'homme

ne

retrouverait-il

pas

la

confiance

qui

lui

manque

[because

he looks for

it

outside of

himself]

ou

que

la

reflexion a

pu

ebranler,

en

remontant,

pour reprendre

de

l'elan,

dans la

direction

oiu

l'lan

etait

venu?

Ce n'est

pas

par l'intelligence,

ou

en

tous cas

avec

l'intelligence

seule,

qu'il pourrait

le

faire ....

Son attachement a

la vie

serait d6sormais ...

joie

dans

lajoie,

amour

de ce

qui

n'est

qu'amour....

La

confiance

que

la

religion

statique apportait

a l'homme s'en trouverait

transfiguree....

C'est

maintenant d'un

detachement

de

chaque

chose

que

serait

fait

l'attachement a

la

vie.l5

In

other

words,

attachment

to

life

(confidence)

has

changed

its

nature

with

the

leap

out of

intelligence.

This

leap

is

actually

a

conversion. But this remains

very

abstract

if

one doesn't describe

the

actual

process by

which

the

leap

is

performed.

What

is this

leap?

What

is this new kind of confidence

or

attachment

to life that

Bergson

calls

a

transfigured

confidence?

Bergson

insists

again

on the

question

of

the normal and the

pathological

(discussing

at the same time with

Janet)

in connection with the

mystic ecstasy.

He

says

that there

is

something

abnormal

(but

not

pathological)

in

this

process.

I

will

quote

the entire

passage

here,

for

it

is

essential:

La

verite

est

que

ces

etats

anormaux,

leur

ressemblance et

parfois

sans

doute aussi leur

participation

a

des 6tats

morbides,

se

comprendront

sans

1153








DAVID

LAPOUJADE

peine

si l'on

pense

au bouleversement

qu'est

le

passage

du

statique

au

dynamique,

du clos

a

l'ouvert,

de la vie habituelle

a

la vie

mystique.

Quand

les profondeurs obscures de l'ame sont remuees, ce qui monte t la surface

et arrive a la

conscience

y

prend,

si l'intensit6 est

suffisante,

la

forme d'une

image

ou d'une

emotion

... L'une et

l'autre

peuvent exprimer

que

le

bouleversement

est

un

rearrangement systematique

en vue d'un

equilibre

superieur....

Ebranlee dans ses

profondeurs

par

le

courant

qui

l'entrainera,

l'ame ne cesse

de

tourner sur elle-meme .

.

.,

elle

s'arrete,

comme si elle

6coutait une voix

qui l'appelle.

Puis,

elle se laisse

porter,

droit

en

avant.16

Bergson

is rather

allusive here.

He refers to a new

kind

of

equilib-

rium.

The

balance is not intellectual

(as

in

attention

to

life);

it is

neither natural (as in the case of attachment to life in its first form),

it

is vital.

Only

the

mystical

plane

of

life reaches the vital

equilibrium.

What

is

going

to

define this

new

kind of

equilibrium?

It is

as

if

there

were a moment

when,

as

Bergson puts

it,

the relations

between

the

conscious and the unconscious are disturbed.

It is

because

we

are

passing

from the

superficial

self to the

profound

self,

a

distinction

made

in

Time and

Free Will.

It is about

giving

up

the first

self,

giving up

the social

self,

the

mastery

of

intelligence (adaptation),

to

religious

projections

that

used to

help

us

to live. We

have to

give

up

the

mastery

of this self (still playing and dreaming of omnipotence). This is

because,

as

Bergson

puts

it,

the

system

is

changing

(there

is a

systematic rearrangement).

We cast

off the self that relied on the

calls

or

appeals

of the

body

(or

of

social,

the material

situations)

to which

memory

answered.

We

remember that was the

system

of

action

that

described

attention

to life. What's

going

on then?

A

reversal of this

entire

system:

it is

now the

memory

(or

the

spirit)

that calls

from

the

depth

of itself

(and

becomes active when

the

sensibility

allows).

This

is

creative

emotion, generatrice

de

pensee, says Bergson.

Now,

it

is

the

depth of our past that operates in the manner of a vocation, passing

completely

into

action,

as a function of its own

requirements

and no

longer

because of

material or social

requirements;

it is

the

moment

when one

can

say:

I

was made for

this,

this

very

future.

The

present

becomes

a

bridge

between our

deepest past

and our

most

personal

future. Life has

totally changed:

we

do not construct ourselves

according

to the

calls of the

present;

it is rather the

present

that

answers the calls

of

our

past

(what

Bergson

calls the

voice ).

The

system

is

totally

reorganized.

So we see what confidence is made of. The leaps indicate it. It

consists

precisely

in

not

controlling anymore,

not

mastering any-

more,

but

abandoning

oneself to the

necessity

to create

one's own

1154








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The normal and the pathological in Bergson.pdf

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