AN ANTI-POSITIVIST CONCEPTION OF PROBLEMS

Abstract

This paper critically examines the relation between problems and the formation and development of concepts in Bergson’s work, as well as in Bachelard, Canguilhem and Deleuze. Building on work by Elie During, I argue that it is not only Bergson but also Deleuze who shares with the French epistemological tradition an “anti-positivist” conception of concept formation, founded upon the posing and solving of novel problems as opposed to the acquisition and verification of empirical facts. Contrary to During, however, I argue that it is not Bergson but Deleuze who furnishes us with an “anti-positivist” conception of problems that is adequate to this anti-positivist conception of concept formation. Deleuze’s anti-positivist view of problems holds, firstly, that genuine problems require the creation of novel terms in which to state and solve them. He shares this view with Bergson, Bachelard and Canguilhem. Secondly, however, Deleuze holds that a problem’s “truth” is not to be evaluated with reference to its eventual solutions (as is the case in Bachelard and Canguilhem), nor with reference to some privileged and contentful experience of reality (as with Bergson), but is rather a matter of its purely intrinsic productivity.

Keywords:

• Bergson
• Bachelard
• Canguilhem
• Deleuze
• problems
• concepts

disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 For Cavaillès’s claim, see his Sur la logique et la théorie de la science 78. For Canguilhem, see generally Vie et mort de Jean Cavaillès; Cassou-Noguès 223. For Foucault, see his “Introduction” x.

2 For a good account of the uses of the name “Bergson” in various interpretations of the history of twentieth-century French philosophy, see Bianco.

3 On the “content” of intuition, as well as Bergson’s “nonstandard positivism,” see Gunter, “Dialectic of Intuition” 25:

intuition can, by “dividing and subdividing” itself, give rise to concepts that have meaning and use [ … ] because they have, in their purely intuitive and ultra-linguistic state, a unique kind of meaning and significance. It is difficult to talk about the unspeakable. But it is clear that Bergson’s intuition cannot be noetically empty, i.e., devoid of conceptual content. And it is clear that there must be a route of transition from this prelinguisitc, presymbolic “imageless thought” [ … ] to the sorts of linguistic and symbolic meanings with which we are more familiar.

See also Bergson’s Introduction to Metaphysics (Creative Mind 133–69), where he straightforwardly claims that one can know in an intuitive if non-conceptual way certain things, such as the inner subjective flow of experience, time or duration, etc. Of course, this intuitive knowledge, if it is to be communicated, can only be communicated by means of concepts. Nevertheless, in so far as intuitive knowledge here plays the role of a touchstone for any adequate conception of time, change, duration, etc., the experience must have content in some sense.

4 On this, see also Deleuze, “Lecture Course” 84.

5 It is worth noting here that, despite Deleuze being a major focus of this article, my reading of Bergson is developed through a direct engagement with Bergson’s own work, rather than Deleuze’s influential if slightly idiosyncratic interpretation of Bergson. I draw on Deleuze’s reading of Bergson only where it supports my own. For a critical reflection on the differences between Deleuze’s Bergson and Bergson himself, see Gunter, “Gilles Deleuze.”

6 On the proximity and distance between Bergson and Canguilhem on this point, see Feldman; Sholl.

7 For a sustained critical reflection on the relation between Bachelard and Deleuze, see Williams chapter 4.

8 Deleuze never deals at length with Canguilhem, but he was clearly aware of his work. In Difference and Repetition (323 n. 22), Deleuze references, though without further treatment, Canguilhem’s problem–theory distinction in On the Normal and the Pathological.

9 On the objectivity of problems in Deleuze, see also Domenech-Oneto and Roque.

10 We also find an extended version of it throughout Deleuze’s Logic of Sense. See also Deleuze and Guattari 16.

11 On this, see also Bowden 189–95.