I. Method.

The critic must understand that philosophical intuition, far from excluding science, presupposes it, and in fact, builds upon it. The difference between metaphysical and aesthetic intuition lies in their goals. The artist seeks to express, to externalize in a sensory form an inner state; the philosopher, although he also translates intuition into images, uses these images as springboards to propel the mind towards a reality that these images can at best only symbolize. The intention in philosophy is to stimulate thought to achieve a certain intellectual tension that allows the contemplation of the intuited reality, despite its inexpressibility.

Philosophy’s objective is not the transposition of intuition into the sensory realm, but rather its translation into intellectual insight that encourages a transformation in our understanding of reality. Philosophy seeks to alter how we conceptualize the world and ourselves within it, aiming for a deeper comprehension that underpins our theoretical and practical engagement with life. It involves a dynamic apprehension of becoming, a radical shift from seeing life and reality as static entities to be described and analyzed, to experiencing them as continuous, fluid processes to be lived and intuited.

Bergson’s philosophy, therefore, stands at a unique crossroads between poetry and science, invoking the aesthetic to illuminate the scientific, guiding thought beyond the confines of habitual understanding towards a direct, albeit challenging, apprehension of life’s flow and the essence of consciousness. His work demands of us a mental agility to move beyond the solidification of experiences into concepts, urging a kind of intellectual rebirth where we learn to perceive not merely with the mind in its habitual state of analysis and categorization, but with the entirety of our being, attuned to the incessant becoming of the world.

In this way, Bergson rehabilitates philosophy as the art of seeing reality not as it is dissected and categorized by science or represented and evoked by art, but as it is lived and experienced from the inside. This insight does not set Bergson against science or art; rather, it situates his philosophy as a bridge between the two, a sort of meta-discourse that invites a reconsideration of both in light of a more profound, comprehensive vision of reality. Through his metaphors and his rigorous appeal to intuition, Bergson offers a roadmap for navigating the complex terrain of existence, making his philosophy not only a theoretical enterprise but a practice of living more deeply.