Kant and Bergson Interpretation: Bergsonism, Kant's Critical Philosophy

Author: Gilles Deleuze
Translator: Zhang Yuling, Guan Qunde
Country: France
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2002-02-01
Features: The rationality of legislation. — We have seen that the function of desire may have an advanced form: as long as it is not determined by the representation of the object (sensory or rational), nor by the emotional state of pleasure or pain — this emotion connects such representations with the will — but rather by a pure formal representation, this pure form being the form of universal legislation. The moral law does not appear as a comparable and psychological general concept (for example: "Do not do unto others what you do not want others to do to you," etc.). The moral law requires us to regard the maximum of our will as a "principle of universal legislation." At least a behavior that adheres to this logic is morally valid, that is, the maximum of a behavior can be consistently regarded as a universal law. Universality, in this sense, is an absolute logic. The form of universal legislation belongs to reason. If the representation of understanding is not limited to the conditions of the sensible, then it does not actually consider anything determined. A representation that is unrelated to all emotions, to all matter, and to all sensible conditions must be rational. But here, reason does not reason: the awareness of the moral law is a fact, "not an empirical fact, but a unique pure rational fact, which in reason appears as one that is initially legislative."① Therefore, reason is the legislative function that directly operates in the function of desire. In this regard, it is called "practical pure reason." The function of desire finds its determination within itself (not in some matter or a particular object), and is precisely called the will: "the autonomous will." What is the essence of transcendental practical synthesis? Kant's formula has various forms in this regard. But when asked what the nature of a will fully determined by a simple form of law (therefore, unrelated to the natural legislation of all sensible conditions or phenomena) is, we should answer: it is a free will. When asked which law can determine such a free will, we should answer: the moral law (as a pure formal universal legislation). The corresponding implication is this: practical reason and freedom may be one and the same. But the issue is not this. From the perspective of our representations, it is the concept of practical reason that leads us to the concept of freedom, as if it were something necessary that is connected to the previous concept, belonging to it but not "in it." In fact, the concept of freedom is not within the moral law, because it itself is an idea of speculative reason. But if the moral law does not make us know that we are free, then this idea is purely problematic, limited, and uncertain. Only through the moral law do we know that we are free, or our concept of freedom acquires an objective, positive, and determined reality. In the autonomy of the will, we thus find a transcendental synthesis, which, by necessarily connecting the concept of freedom to the concept of practical reason, gives it an objective, determined reality.
Is judgment a function? — Judgment is always a complex operation, it consists in subsuming the particular under the general. The person making a judgment is always an expert: an expert, a doctor, a judge. Judgment means a real talent, an intuition.① Kant is the one who raised the question of judgment at its technical level or its own specificity. In some famous texts, Kant distinguished two cases: either the general is already given, understood, and it is enough to apply it, that is, to determine the particular it will apply to ("the necessary use of reason," "determinative judgment"); or the general remains a question, it itself still awaits finding ("the hypothetical use of reason," "reflective judgment")②. However, this distinction is more complex than it appears: it should be interpreted both in terms of examples and implications. The first error would be to think that only reflective judgment implies invention. Even when the general is given, "judgment" is still needed to subsume. There is no doubt that transcendental logic differs from formal logic because it includes certain rules that indicate the conditions under which a given concept is applied③. But these rules cannot be reduced to the concept itself: to apply an understanding concept, there is a schema, which is a creative act of the imagination that can show the conditions under which a particular case is subsumed under the concept. Thus, schematization is already a "specialty," and the schema is a schema of "returning to the case under the law." Therefore, if we think that understanding itself is judgment in itself is wrong: understanding cannot use its concepts for other purposes than judgment, but this use of judgment implies a unique behavior of the imagination, and also a unique behavior of reason (so in the Critique of Pure Reason, determinative judgment appears as a certain use of reason).
Whenever Kant speaks of judgment, he does so as if it were a function, in order to show the originality of its behavior, the specificity of its product. But judgment always involves many functions and shows the consistency among them. Judgment is said to be determinative because it shows the consistency among functions under a determinative function, that is, because it determines an object that is consistent with a function first taken as legislator. Thus, theoretical judgment shows the consistency among functions, this consistency determining an object that is consistent with understanding as legislator. Similarly, there is a practical judgment that determines whether a possible action is one that is subject to the moral law: it shows the consistency between reason and understanding when reason is in the driver's seat. In theoretical judgment, the imagination provides a schema consistent with the understanding concept; in practical judgment, understanding provides a type consistent with the law of reason. In other words, judgment determines an object, the consistency among functions is determined, and one function exercises a determinative or legislative function. Therefore, it is important to determine the two types of judgment, the "determinative" judgment and the "reflective" judgment.
A doctor knows what typhoid is (concept), but in a particular case (judgment or diagnosis), he does not recognize it as typhoid. We tend to see in diagnosis (diagnosis means a talent and a specialty) an example of a determinative judgment, because the concept is assumed to be known. But as for a particular case, the concept itself is not given: it is probable or completely undetermined. In fact, diagnosis is an example of reflective judgment. If we want to find an example of a determinative judgment in medicine, we should rather consider a therapeutic decision: at this point, the concept and the particular case are indeed given, but the difficulty lies in applying it (according to the patient's contraindications, etc.). Precisely, reflective judgment also has a specialty or invention. But this specialty is used differently here. In determinative judgment, the specialty is "hidden": the concept is given, either the concept of understanding or the law of reason; so there is a legislative function that guides or determines the original manifestation of the other functions, although this manifestation is difficult to appreciate. But in reflective judgment, from the perspective of positive functions, nothing is given: only raw material is presented, strictly speaking, it is not "shown." All positive functions operate relatively freely. Reflective judgment will show a free and undetermined consistency among all functions. That which has always been hidden and subordinate to determinative judgment becomes apparent and operates freely in reflective judgment.
There is no doubt that we can discover an existing concept through "reflection"; but reflective judgment is more pure, as if there were no concept of the thing it freely reflects, or the concept would (in some way) expand, become infinite, and undetermined. In fact, determinative judgment and reflective judgment are not two of the same kind. Reflective judgment reveals and releases a deeper layer that has always been hidden in determinative judgment. But determinative judgment only becomes judgment through this vivid layer. Otherwise, we would not understand why the Critique of Judgment is so titled, although it only deals with the problem of reflective judgment. This is because under a determinative and legislative function, all the determined consistencies of functions imply the existence and possibility of a free and undetermined consistency. Precisely in this free consistency, judgment is not merely unique (as it already is in determinative judgment), but it also shows the principle of its uniqueness. According to this principle, our various functions are essentially different; yet they also have a free and spontaneous consistency, which, according to the laws of rational interest, makes the operation of these functions under the leadership of one of them possible.
Judgment is always irreducible or unique: so it can be said to be "a" function (a talent or a special expertise). It is never composed of a single function, but is composed of the consistency among them, or in a consistency already determined by one of them as legislator, or more deeply in a free and undetermined consistency, which constitutes the post-object of a universal "critique of judgment."
First rule: Test the truth or falsity of the question itself, expose false questions, and coordinate the real in the level of the question and create.
In reality, we wrongly believe that truth and falsity only concern answers, and that they begin only with answers. This prejudice is social (because society and the language of commands "present" us with ready-made questions, as if they came from "city bureaucratic files," and force us to "solve" them, leaving us with little freedom). Moreover, this prejudice is cultivated in childhood and school: the teacher "presents" the question, and the student's task is only to find the answer. Thus, we are in a state of servitude. True freedom lies in the ability to decide, in the ability to pose questions: this "half-divine" ability not only means the disappearance of false questions but also the creative emergence of true questions. "In philosophy, and in many other places, truth lies in discovering and posing questions, not in solving them. Because a speculative question is solved as soon as it is posed. I mean that the answer is immediately present, although it may be hidden, that is, covered: all that needs to be done is to rediscover it. But posing a question is not simply discovering, but inventing. Discovery is directed at existing things, whether they are real or potential, so discovery will inevitably occur. Invention, on the other hand, makes the non-existent exist, and invention may never occur. The effort in mathematics, especially in metaphysics, is often to pose questions, to create terms for posing questions. In this case, posing a question and solving it are almost equal; the truly important question is only posed when it is solved."①
Not only the entire history of mathematics supports Bergson. But we can compare the last sentence of the above Bergson text with Marx's profound statement on practice: "Humans only pose problems they can solve." In both cases, it is not as if problems are shadows of pre-existing answers (the entire context shows the opposite). Nor does it mean that only problems are important. On the contrary, the answer is important, but the problem always has an answer corresponding to the way we pose it, the conditions we specify for it, the methods and terms we use to pose it. In this sense, whether from a theoretical or practical point of view, the history of humanity is the history of posing questions. That is, humanity creates its own history, and the understanding of this activity is the attainment of freedom. (Indeed, for Bergson, the concept of a problem transcends history and is rooted in life, or the life impulse: life is fundamentally formed in the activity of overcoming obstacles, posing problems, and solving problems. The constitution of the organism is both the posing and the solving of a problem.)②
But how to make this ability to form questions consistent with the standard of truth? When a question is posed, although it is easier to determine the truth or falsity in terms of answers, it seems very difficult to say what truth and falsity include when the answer is connected to the posing of the question. At this point, many philosophers seem to fall into a circle: they realize that truth and falsity must be proven both outside the answer and within the question, but they are satisfied with deciding the truth or falsity of a question based on whether it may or may not have an answer. And Bergson's greatest contribution lies in trying to find a false determinacy within the expression of a "false question." This gives rise to the above general rule and its supplementary rule.