The Third Reality Dwelling on the Boundary: Untangling the cul-de-sac of Idealism and Realism with Image, 1896 to Today

The Third Reality Dwelling on the Boundary: Untangling the cul-de-sac of Idealism and Realism with Image, 1896 to Today

Image is a concept presented by Bergson as an intermediate reality that is neither a thing itself nor a closed representation of the mind. The world exists as a totality of images from the beginning, and perception does not create it anew but only cuts out the necessary parts according to the action potential of the body. Here the body is positioned as a privileged image, and the brain and nervous system are understood not as devices that generate the world, but as filters that select and relay it for action. This view criticizes both idealism, which recovers the world into representations, and realism, which attempts to generate representations out of matter. This is because idealism loses external resistance and chance, while realism runs into the difficulty of assuming extra capacities for matter. By placing imagery in the middle, the difference between perception and matter is explained not as a rupture but as a difference between the whole and its parts, paving the way t
o avoid circular thinking that tries to lead spirit and matter from one to the other. Bergson's attempt represents a philosophical shift that reorganizes the mind-body problem as a difference in function rather than a dichotomy.