Consciousness, Literature and the Arts
Archive
Volume 9 Number 1, April 2008
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Guerlac, Suzanne, ‘Thinking In Time, An Introduction To Henry Bergson’, Itaca and London, Cornell University Press, 2006, 230 pages, ISBN 978-0-8014-7300-5, paperback
Reviewed by
York Saint John University
‘You define the present as that which is, when it is simply what is happening. [ce qui se fait]. Nothing is less that the present moment, if you mean by that the indivisible limit that separates the past from the future’. When we think of this present as what ought to be [devant etre], it is no longer, and when we think of it as existing, it is already past…all perception is already memory’ (MM 166-167)[1]
As I am reading it, I realise I am experiencing its meaning in this very moment...always a bit later rather. An awareness that was awakened by Susan Guerlac’s guidance through Bergson’s thought.
Guerlac’s interpretation of Bergson begins with the selection of the texts she considers in depth: the Essai sur les données immédiates de la conscience [time and free will] and Matièr et mémoire [Matter and Memory]. On her view these provide the best introduction to his thought by presenting a rigorous account on the concept of duration and memory. Her reading of it aims at revealing Bergson’s process of thought: a thinking in time. ‘To turn to Bergson today requires re-learning how to read his work’ writes Guerlac, and her book allows the reader to do that. Coming from her expertise on Deleuze, she reads in Bergson the relevance of his work for scholars, intellectuals, but also practitioners in the contemporary context.
After an historical and cultural contextualisation of Bergson’s thought, Guerlac presents Bergsonianisms as a phenomenon of its popularization. This is followed by a short summary of other works. Furthermore, by introducing questions of determinism and humanism as parallel to developments in experimental psychology and sociology, she opens up the issue of time as crucial for modernity. But this is presented to us today, when the main focus is to cut and save time rather than to understand how its perception process works.
The central part of the book relates to Bergson’s thinking development in Essai sur les données immédiates de la conscience and Matièr et mémoire. Throughout, she gives us substantial extracts, thus allowing full appreciation of what she defines as a ‘zig-zag’ path therein.
Her account is to be placed in the context of the Anglo-American reception of Bergson’s thought. Moreover, the text shows particularly how his work might be important now, as it addresses the impact of Bergson on Gilles Deleuze, thus illustrating issues of relation between structuralism and post-structuralism. Very useful also to locate in Bergson a reference point for current debates in philosophy, cultural studies and, new media and film studies: when thinking for example to virtual reality, artificial intelligence, and chaos theory (reversibility irreversibility of time). Guerlac deals with Modernist issues such as matter, intuition, memory, and by relating them to the current urge of simultaneous and instant communication, she suggests a very inspirational parallel. Her style of writing is lucid and clear to focus on thought. Guerlac states that ‘Bergson’s texts teach the reader to let go of entrenched intellectual habits and to begin to think differently – to think in time’.