ABSTRACT
Ordinary dualism is too sharp. It postulates two systems, but cannot explain why there are two, and in one form (subjective idealism) it tries to derive one of these systems from the other, the world of science from the world of consciousness, while in its other form (materialistic realism) it does the opposite (MM, 14-16). We might think it odd to call either of these systems dualistic and indeed Bergson does not explicitly do so, and distinguishes ‘materialists’ and ‘dualists’; but he talks of what they are ‘fundamentally agreed on’ (MM, 11), and does seem to think of these various systems as ultimately amounting to dualism. The point seems to be that idealism is forced to say something about the world of matter-it cannot just ignore it-and so it tries to derive it from the privileged world of consciousness, while materialism does the opposite for the same reason. Both of them in fact use a distinction based on space where they should use one based on time, for ‘matter is considered as essentially divisible and every state of the soul as rigorously inextensive’ (MM, 293). (See MM, 293-5.) No doubt there is some truth in the idea that each of idealism and materialism has some difficulty in explaining the phenomena that seem to ground the other, and has to resort to talk of (mere) appearances, without explaining why the appearances should be as they are. So does Bergson do any better?
