Friday 18 November 2022

The Image in Bergson

 

What is the best way to read Bergson?  I would say, no more than 3 pages at a time.  Anymore will cause overheating .  It will take an hour probably.  It is said that a matchbox full of Aristotle weighs as much as the world.  Bergson is like that.  He reads smoothly of course but that is no indication of ease of comprehension.

My interim understanding of the source of his 'image' and 'the aggregate of images'.

The image is something like the image in a mirror.  It's there but it's also part of a totality which includes the person that is standing in front of it.  It's a  totality that can be broken into the various elements that can be considered on their own as though they were subsistent or free standing. So when Bergson writes about affection and perception this sort of division is reflected.  As I understand it the image represents the totality that we are immersed it.  The perception is of a really out there as it is thing and the affection is bodily.  But the bodily affection is also an image.  However the affection is subtilised and becomes cerebral excitations. 
And then he gravels you.
"Affection is, then, that part or aspect of the inside of  our body which we mix with the image of external  bodies; it is what we must first of all subtract from perception to get the image in its purity.'

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