Henri Bergson vs The Cambridge Platonists: Bergsonian Durée and Morean Divine Space

In Bergson’s famous analysis of time, he critiqued what he saw as a spatialization of time and its transformation into divisible, measurable units. This, according to Bergson, was to impose our intellectual, quantitative thinking onto a fundamentally qualitative reality. Time, or what Bergson called duration (durée), is mobile and living; it is not composed of an aggregate of individual moments but a flowing qualitative multiplicity that resists rigid segmentation. It is only once we visualize time spatially, as on a timeline, that we fool ourselves into conceiving time as if it were space. Moreover, Bergson was critical of the Platonist tradition for having prioritized the static realm of the forms as more “real” than the transitory world of experience. Yet in this paper, we argue that far from refuting Platonism, Bergson’s critique of spatialized time can equally and ironically be applied to his own concept of space and that Henry More, the Cambridge Platonist, offers a concept of space that escapes these objections.

Bergson was correct to regard space as that which separates, yet it is, simultaneously, that which unites everything in one inseparable stream. In other words, while Bergson rightly notes that space is used to divide time and material objects, one might retort that space itself is indivisible. By contrast, when Henry More considers any two separate “blocks” of space, he notes that these blocks can only be spatially divided by more space; hence, they are fundamentally united, and any dissection of space from this prior wholeness and unity is extrinsic to the reality of space itself. Space itself is not parted, yet its presence constitutes the gaps (between contiguous entities) and distances (between non-contiguous entities) that help shape the distinctions between material parts. Even if one states that conceptual grids can be created to mentally divide space, the lines that separate them are regarded as one-dimensional and lacking density. Thus, they do not truly separate space but merely overlay it with a grid for practical purposes. When one mentally conceives of objects within space, it is the objects that do the parting, not the space itself. 

Thus, measured space can be distinguished from space in itself. Measured, divisible space arises from the extrinsic grid laid upon it by the intellect. Space itself, however, could be regarded as lacking an intrinsic measure. Distinctions are thus not inherent to our thought of space itself but to the secondary objects we introduce into that space in an attempt to measure it, for we can imagine a space that is not differentiated by objects. Thus, similar to how Bergson distinguished between the measures of time and duration itself, we can arguably distinguish in our minds between the material measures of space and the phenomenon of space itself, which remains conceptually indivisible. In this sense, space is analogous to duration in bearing both a property of multiplicity and unity and potentially non-quantifiability. One can, therefore, apply to space the same distinction Bergson makes between measured time and duration. Thus, space is not merely the a priori condition of experience but, like our encounter with durée, the pathway toward a sympathetic relationship with the whole. Morean space therefore not only sidesteps Bergson’s critique but performs a similar role to his view of durée.

In turn, one might turn Bergson’s spatialization of time on its head, arguing that it is only the temporalization of space that causes space to seem parted, while the phenomenon of space itself eludes distinctions. If one follows a popular line of mereology, one could argue that spatial regions are phenomenologically processed first as wholes and only later dissected into constituent parts. Of course, this “later” is a temporal process, in which time’s scalpel reveals or produces parts. Space qua space is a unified entity, and it is only the temporalization of spatiality that causes disunity. As soon as one attempts to measure space, they undertake the attempt in time, and so have lost sight of space itself.

Moreover, there is a need to transcendentally affix many of the primary terms in Bergson’s philosophy in order to ground them. For instance, Bergson defined matter as having a tendency towards immobility; simultaneously, he asserts that the movement of duration is reality itself. Thus, matter and its tendency toward immobility can only be a deviation away from the real. There is, then, a hierarchy of being within Bergson’s metaphysics. Bergson’s vision, therefore, begins to resemble the very Neoplatonic metaphysic he distanced himself from. It is a similarity not lost on Étienne Gilson, one of Bergson’s students, as well as many contemporary commentators. Similar critiques can be leveled against Bergson’s views on consciousness, life, and freedom. While Bergson attempts to ground them within a purely immanent framework, these concepts play both an immanent and transcendent role within his actual philosophy.  

We again contrast these problems in Bergsonism with Henry More’s concept of divine space. Morean space is both transcendent and immanent, constituting the possibility and omnipresent ‘where’ of every particular place or thing. It is intimately present within and without every material object and entity, yet is not reducible to matter, for space is not matter but that in which matter exists. Space is intimately present with, yet ultimately transcendently beyond, matter. Thus, while Bergson’s concept of a purely immanent durée suffers from inconsistency, More again offers a direction towards a more coherent (and inevitably Neoplatonic) view of space and time. By taking a lesson from Morean space, Bergsonian durée might be regarded as part of a greater Neoplatonic framework (a merger that More already hinted at in his joint discussions of absolute time and absolute space). The transcendence of divine time and space thus becomes the bridge through which God is close to material creation while remaining beyond it. While Bergson occasionally gestures toward the theological in his concept of durée, More’s more philosophically coherent concept of divine space completes the project and offers a path forward in our search for a more integrated view of both time and space.