HTA 1.1, Henri Bergson, "Introduction to Metaphysics"

Abstract

This episode is part one of seven of the lecture series [HTA 1] on Bergson's "Introduction to Metaphysics."

Essay Prompt

• How does the intuition of concrete duration prove that I am connected to everyone else and everything else in existence?

  • In your answer, include, with personal examples:

    • the distinction between intuition and analysis;
    • the intuition of/to oneself in unity and multiplicity, in totality and detail;
    • the capacity of intuition vs. images vs. concepts to communicate duration;
    • the distinction between elements and parts;
    • the outward, listening movement from self to world/others; and

    • at least one image or metaphor from Bergson’s text, such as:

      • sketch of the tower of Notre Dame
      • the color orange on a spectrum with red and yellow
      • psychological studies
      • a ball moving through the air, in motion along a curve

Guiding Questions

• What is it like to experience the intuition of concrete duration, including the memory of one’s own concrete duration as well as the concrete duration(s) of others?

• How do we harmonize with our own concrete duration? How do we listen in order to augment and to dilate ourselves and our imaginations to others’ concrete durations and to their lived perspectives?

• Which is clearer to the mind: intuition or analysis?

• How are elements different from parts? Reference the argument about psychological studies isolating a specific element of consciousness.

• How am I connected to others through the intuition of concrete duration?

• Why does motion come before stasis? A curve before a point? An integral before a differentiation?

• What is the significance of the analogy of the artist in Paris sketching the tower of Notre Dame?

• Between which two extremes does metaphysics operate?

• Did concrete duration begin with my birth? Will it outlive me?

• What is the significance of the analogy of orange as one shade amidst many in a manifold, one shade on a fluid and notch-less continuum between shades across the visible light spectrum?