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 neither the thing itself nor a representation in the mind. Nor can it be dismissed as a fiction. In "Matter and Memory," Bergson redefines the world as a totality of images, breaking the habit of separating things and representations from the beginning. Here the image is present as something visible, but it is also present as something that does not need to be seen by someone to be valid. Therefore, perception is not an act of creating the world anew, but an operation of cutting out of the continuum of the world only what is necessary for the act. The body is the center of this extraction, and the brain and nervous system are positioned not as devices for generating the world, but as filters that sort and relay it.

This composition simultaneously contains a critique of both idealism and realism. Idealism tends to recover the world on the side of representation and confine external resistance and coincidence to the mind. On the other hand, realism and materialism, by thinking that matter produces representations, assume an extra capacity of representation generation on the part of things. Bergson believes that objects are themselves imageries, and that representations are merely parts selected according to the action potential of the body. The difference between perception and matter is then explained not as an essential rupture but as the difference between the whole and the part.

More importantly, it is pointed out that any attempt to unilaterally guide matter from spirit or spirit from matter will invariably lead to a cycle. To lead matter from spirit requires a principle on the part of spirit that gives rise to matter, and to lead spirit from matter requires a principle on the part of matter that gives rise to representation. Both result in the surreptitious introduction of the other's presuppositions. By placing the intermediate concept of imagery, Bergson avoided this impasse and showed the way to recast the mind-body problem not as a dichotomy but as a difference between functions and roles.