Time

is One!
What is really at stake in the Bergson-Einstein debate

Elie During
Université de Paris Ouest Nanterre / Institut Universitaire de France


LECTURE SUMMARY
Lüneburg and Potsdam, June 22-23, 2016

based on the long-due manuscript of Bergson et Einstein: la querelle du temps
(Presses Universitaires de France, forthcoming)



My aim is to state, in the clearest possible way, what I take to be the true
philosophical issue behind Bergson’s much misunderstood confrontation with the
theory of relativity (1911-19221).
In order to do this, it is crucial to first get clear about what is implied by the so-
called “relativity of time”. The fundamental claim is not that time is relative to the
observer (reference frame), but more profoundly, that time is relative to the
intensities of motion encoded in the particular shape of a line of change whose
inflexions express dynamic as well as kinematic variations, tracing a “worldline”
through space-time. The underlying issue, I submit, is the entanglement of local time
and global time, “fiber-time” and “frame-time” (parameter-time and coordinate-
time) within the relativistic framework.
Now the relativity of global or frame-time could not come as a surprise to
Bergson: it was virtually conceded in his early criticism of the cinematographic
illusion (1907). The physical relativity of simultaneity and duration is merely a
variation upon a theme given by the “moving rows,” which Bergson described as the
most philosophically far-reaching among Zeno’s paradoxes (1896). What about the
relativity of local or fiber-time, and the resulting disparity in elapsed durations
(“proper times”) between successive events, famously illustrated by Langevin’s “twin
paradox”? Bergson struggled with the idea, and eventually failed to make a valid
case, essentially because he clinged to a perspectival understanding of relativity
(suggested by talk of “invariants” and the powerful analogy between special
relativity and projective geometry).

1
1911: “L’évolution de l’espace et du temps,” Paul Langevin’s lecture at the International Congress of
Philosophy in Bologna, is Bergson’s first exposure to relativistic ideas. 1922: first edition of Durée et
Simultanéité: à propos de la théorie d’Einstein.

1
 But what point was he trying to make, ultimately? Certainly not that there is one
duration, as opposed to the plurality of (variably dilated) relativistic times. In that
respect, it is important to remember that his main focus in Duration and
Simultaneity (1922) is the unity of material duration, which is only one among many.
Admittedly, there are specific reasons for holding that “matter” flows in a uniform
way, but (contra Bergson) uniformity does not need to be cashed out in quantitative
terms; it runs deeper than the metric equality suggested by the notion of a unique
and universal material time. As Whitehead acknowledged, uniformity may be
manifested by the space-time continuum itself, if not at a metrical level, at least
through the distinctive topological structure resulting from the regular distribution
of relations of causal connectability across space. As a result, the plurality of
measured times may not be as disjointed as they seem within the nexus of things.
Temporal discrepancies are tangible manifestations of the negativity affecting
spatiotemporal relations: space-time is hollowed out through and through, its causal
structure displays a thorough interweaving of connection and separation. (This can
be shown to derive from the joint action of the relativity principle and the principle
of local action: two “axioms” at the foundations of special relativity).
Of course, Bergson does not go that far, because his doctrine of duration as
active differentiation is compromised with persistent continuous schemes: it seems
his philosophy of nature is haunted by the ghosts of continuous media: aether,
fields, and the like2. Arguably, these schemes work as epistemological obstacles:
they suggest themselves as templates for cosmic totalization, but a totalization that
is spatial in nature, rather than truly temporal. (This point would require reexaming
Kant’s third analogy of experience, his discussion of the category of community or
coexistence, predicated upon the coordination of substances in space according to
universal attractive and repulsive forces). Even so, as ambivalent as Bergson is on the
issue of cosmic unity, he cannot be suspected of attempting to resurrect the
Newtonian “figure” of the universe. We should not assume that his aim in
confronting Einstein’s theory is to recover the immediate unity of durations, or even
to collapse them within a single Whole. This could only be achieved by artificial
means, by adopting a particular but ultimately arbitrary reference frame. But as we
know—and as he knows—there is no privileged viewpoint on the universe (relativity
principle). Moreover, connection takes time (locality principle). Accordingly, the
universe is disfigured for good, it resists any form of spatial unification we may
adopt, and this is exactly what Bergson takes to be Einstein’s main philosophical
contribution to cosmological thought.
Thus, durations cannot be framed. Although Bergson holds fast to the unity of
material time, he never suggests that such a unity could be effected by a particular
reference frame. This may come as a relief, or more likely as a disappointment. For
the best Bergson has to offer at this juncture is the uniformity of the operation of
measurement itself, which he believes has no clear temporal meaning unless it can

2
“Matter thus resolves itself into numberless vibrations, all linked together in uninterrupted
continuity, all bound up with each other, and travelling in every direction like shivers
through an immense body.” (Matter and Memory, chap. 4).

2
be referred to the lived duration of a virtual observer contracting and schematizing
durations that differ in nature from his/her own. But this is not enough to establish
the metric unity of material durations. Even if we grant Bergson the average
rhythmic uniformity of all human conscious processes, it would be begging the
question to infer from it the unity of measured times. For all we know,
consciousness itself may be an elaborate clock of some kind (Langevin suggested so
much in his 1911 lecture at the Société française de philosophie). Naturally, there
are good reasons to think that it is immune to local motion—consciousness itself is
not the kind of thing that moves around with the body, even our body literally
reaches to the stars…—, but to the extent that it does measure time, it is necessarily
compromised with space. So a generalized notion of measurement—predicated
upon the immanent rhythm of concrete becomings—will not settle the case: it will
only increase the initial feeling of perplexity raised by physical theory. Refracted and
dispersed through space, the temporal flows of extended matter keep dephasing.
Today, we know this for a fact. Matter dephases itself (as Simondon would put it).
This basic fact may well hold true of any real duration, as far as it is involved with
matter.
It would be quite wrong to think that Bergson’s struggle with relativistic times
only yields negative conclusions. The confrontation with Einstein acts as an optical
instrument, a magnifying glass of some sort, forcing the philosopher to increased
levels of precision. The main lesson to take home is that if some sort of totalization is
in order, it can only occur itself in time. This means that there is no readily available
super-duration acting as a bassline or substructure for all durations 3 . Cosmic
consciousness is introduced only as a regulative fiction, a limiting concept. There is
no global “survey,” durations are irreducibly plural. Hence, unity cannot be decreed.
It will not be achieved at once.
Temporal dispersion is in a sense irreducible. But as Bergson suspects, it may not
be irremediable. In order to see this, it is important not to charge him with views he
never held, such as the possibility of regaining a physical definition of absolute time.
More fundamentally still, we should refrain from conflating time with duration, as if
Bergson’s contribution came down to redefining time qua duration, while leaving
measured time aside as mere spatial illusion. On the contrary, what strikes me as his
most important contribution is the way he worked out a new problem of time as
distinct from duration. Nowhere does this appear more clearly than in Bergson’s
1922 essay: as it happens, “real time” is not another name for “lived duration,” it is
explicitly presented as a variety of measured time—the time actually measured by
clocks! So, for all the affinities one may find with certain topics developed in
Husserl’s Krisis, it would be disastrous to view the whole affair as just another
desperate attempt to rescue subjective time from its objectification through
mathematical projection.

3
In that respect, the various versions of “cosmic time” later devised from the perspective of
cosmological models of the expanding universe can only appear as artificial fixes. Bergson
cannot be reproached for not discussing them in advance, but I doubt he would have had
much to say about them.

3
 I have argued elsewhere that Bergson’s primary concern is cosmological in
nature and doesn’t owe much to the overused opposition between Clock Time and
Conscious Time. As should be clear by now, it touches on the more interesting
problem of coexistence: the possibility of recovering a measure of connectedness
compatible with the radical scientific reshaping of simultaneity and duration, the
possibility of achieving a meaningful sense of community in a disfigured universe.
(Hence the crucial question: in what sense are Langevin’s twins contemporaneous?).
In the absence of any overall physical connecting medium (aether or otherwise) we
are left with the formal aether of space-time, and cosmic unity can only be achieved
through a web of interlocking durations capable of “surveying” each other in some
way. (This raises the delicate issue of action at a distance, which I cannot dwell upon
here). Even then, unity can only concern a particular perspective on the universe:
not the universe as such, but the material universe laid out in geometrical patterns.
(With the pending question: what is it that we call “matter”? This too must be
answered in temporal mode, following the dialectics of duration and simultaneity).
Finally, I will show that if Bergson advocates anything, it is the formal unity of
the concept of time as the medium of both change and coexistence. My contention
is that this formal unity essentially involves some measure of extended simultaneity
beyond “proper time”. Indeed, simultaneity is required in order to make sense of the
very notion of duration. Duration without simultaneity has nothing specifically
temporal about it. It is at best a certain way of connecting things, or phases of being,
through what Bergson variously describes as overlap, mutual penetration, or
contraction. Even memory is not enough. In order to yield the expected temporal
dimensions of change, the topology of local connections must be complemented by
some sense of perspective on time—this is where the notion of survey comes into
play, in order to achieve or perform a unity that cannot be presupposed in the
notion of duration, which I take to have only local import. (This raises the delicate
problem of accounting for the non-local component of form itself. Here Whitehead,
Merleau-Ponty or Ruyer can act as crucial relays between us and Bergson.)
What is needed, in short, is a dialectics of situation and perspective, involving
local as well as global determinations of time. Models of regional simultaneity in
contemporary (meta)physics point to such a dialectics, but their relevance largely
remains to be spelled out. One thing at least is clear: the formal unity of the time-
concept is not static unity, but a unity achieved in the active relating of the three
dimensions of order, duration and coexistence.
Lines of change qua lines will not bring us far, even if we endow them with
intensive features and immanent memory. There is a lesson to be taken here for us
“Bergsonians” and/or “Deleuzians,” prone as we are to consider duration in strictly
local terms—contracting and propagating effects from place to place, “de proche en
proche,” as the phrase goes. But there is an equally instructive lesson for those who
are inclined to draw hasty metaphysical conclusions from the consideration of space-
time diagrams, and more generally from matters of geometry. Intuition, properly
understood, should work the other way round: from metaphysics to diagrams, not
from diagrams to metaphysics. This is one of the recommendations Paul-Antoine
Miquel and I make in our 2015 Kyoto Manifesto, “Nous, bergsoniens…” (available in
French on academia.edu, forthcoming in Japanese and English).

4
 Again, durations may not be totalized, but time is one. Bergson’s classicism
proves more resistant in that respect than many contemporary musings regarding
the alleged “disappearance of time” in general relativity or quantum gravity. I will
explain why this should be of concern to us beyond particular issues in philosophy of
physics. At stake are the relations between science and metaphysics, the limits of
phenomenology, critical vitalism as an alternative to mainstream naturalism, and the
prospects of Bergsonism in the 21st century.



(PERSONAL) BIBLIOGRAPHY

Henri Bergson, Durée et simultanéité [1922], edited by E. During, Paris, Presses
Universitaires de France, 2009.
Elie During, « Bergson et la métaphysique relativiste », Annales bergsoniennes, III,
dossier « Bergson et la science », Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, coll. « Epiméthée »,
2007.
— « Durations and Simultaneities: temporal perspectives and relativistic time in
Whitehead and Bergson », in Handbook of Whiteheadian Process Thought, Michel Weber
(ed), vol. 2, Frankfurt / Lancaster, Ontos Verlag, 2008, p. 259-282.
— « Temps kaléidoscopique et temps universel : la cosmologie bergsonienne à
l’épreuve de la », in Lire Bergson, C. Riquier & F. Worms (eds), Paris, Presses Universitaires
de France, 2011.
— « Vie et mort du cinématographe : de L’Evolution créatrice à Durée et Simultanéité »,
in Camille Riquier (ed), Bergson, Paris, Cerf, 2012.
— « On the Intrisically Ambiguous Nature of Space-Time Diagrams », Spontaneous
Generations: A Journal for the History and Philosophy of Science, vol. 6, n°1, 2012.
— « Langevin ou le paradoxe introuvable », Revue de métaphysique et de morale, n°4,
december 2014.
— « Notes on the Bergsonian Cinematograph », in F. Albera & M. Tortajada (eds), Cine-
Dispositives. Essays in Epistemology across Media, Amsterdam, Amsterdam University Press,
2015.
— « Généalogie d’un paradoxe », preface to Paul Langevin, Le Paradoxe des jumeaux :
deux conférences sur la relativité, Paris, Presses de l’Université Paris Ouest, 2016
(forthcoming).
— « Coexistence and the Flow of Time », in S. Abiko, H. Fujita, Hisashi & Y. Hirai
(eds), The Anatomy of Matter and Memory: Bergson and Contemporary Theories of
Perception, Mind and Time, Tokyo, Shoshi Shinsui, 2016 (forthcoming).
Elie During and Paul-Antoine Miquel, « Nous, bergsoniens : Manifeste de Kyoto », in
S. Abiko, H. Fujita, Hisashi & Y. Hirai (eds), The Anatomy of Matter and Memory: Bergson and
Contemporary Theories of Perception, Mind and Time, Tokyo, Shoshi Shinsui, 2016
(forthcoming, available on acamedia.edu).