the maudsley reader in phenomenological psychiatry · some ideas about...

Part I

Chapter

1Intellectual background

Introduction

This chapter gives a selection of purely philosophicaltexts which influenced the phenomenological approachto psychiatry. They make up a tradition which has beencalled the ‘phenomenological movement’ in Europeanthought (Spiegelberg 1969; Spiegelberg 1972). Beforepresenting these individual philosophers we offer a briefaccount of their unifying features. This is treacherousterritory because the question ‘What is phenomen-ology?’ has been highly resistant to one answer. Further-more, it is a question for philosophers and historians ofideas and we write here as psychiatrists. With these twoimportant cautions in mind some points can be made.Firstly, phenomenology is not synonymous with thenotion of subjectivity ordinarily understood. It isnot simply the detailed description of mental events(Ratcliffe 2009). Secondly, phenomenology is not a doc-trine nor primarily is it a school. Indeed, rather like theconceptual analysis ofMoore and Russell, it is a methodof inquiry first and foremost, despite real disagreementsexisting within the phenomenological movement as tothe precise nature of that method (Spiegelberg 1969).As such, it can be applied to different areas of concernand is by no means limited to mental phenomena.‘Phenomenon’ for Husserl and others is simply ‘thatwhich appears’. Hence, a phenomenological psychiatryis by no means confined to studying abnormal mentalphenomena, but can include the phenomenon of theclinical consultation, of inpatient services, the scienceof psychiatry, how mental illness manifests to widersociety in the media, amongst other themes. Many ofthese themes have yet to be addressed systematically byphenomenological psychiatry.

Simon Glendinning (Glendinning 2007) offerssome ideas about phenomenology’s relationship tophilosophy and about the nature of phenomeno-logical inquiry itself. He tries to identify some

shared features of philosophers typically recognizedas ‘phenomenologists’.

� Phenomenology is a way of doing philosophy, andin particular, has a role to play in developing acritique of the default natural scientific outlook,the ‘natural attitude’.

� Phenomenology eschews any constructivetheoretical work: phenomenology does not seek toadvances theses or defend positions.

� Phenomenology emphasizes description orelucidation rather than explanation or analysis.Phenomenology is an effort to make explicit thatwhich was implicit, to become reflectively awareof that which was already evident.

� Phenomenology works to avoid ‘blinkers’ andprejudice: perhaps the strongest appeal toempirically minded psychiatrists lies in this idea ofavoiding theoretical assumptions and distortions.Phenomenology urges us to return to what isgiven as given, as phenomena.

� Phenomenology eschews a ‘narrow argument’style of persuasion but rather seeks that the readeror listener comes reflectively to terms withsomething pre-reflectively before his or her eyes.Rather than taking the reader through a seriesof argumentative steps, phenomenology seeks toshow the world in a clear and explicit way: hence,being ‘convinced’ is more akin to ‘seeing’ things ina certain way and hence obviously true, ratherthan being persuaded of the truths of certainpropositions.

We now offer some very brief introductions to indivi-dual philosophers, either phenomenologists themselvesor others who influenced the movement, together withsample texts.

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Section 1

Chapter

2Influences on phenomenology

Franz Brentano (1838–1917)

Editors’ introductionBrentano was an important impetus to both Husserl andJaspers. Further, his work continues to be of crucialimportance to philosophy of mind and cognitive sciencethrough his notion of intentionality as a defining featureof the mental (Smith 1994). The other crucial notionfrom Brentano of importance for phenomenologicalpsychiatry is that of descriptive psychology. We willdiscuss both these concepts briefly; selections from hiswritings where he presents these notions follow.

For Brentano, psychology is an immature science.He believes that psychology waits on advances fromphysiology to mature. Hence, Brentano makes a dis-tinction between ‘genetic’ or ‘explanatory’ psychologyand ‘descriptive’ psychology. The explanatory psych-ology is based on physics and physiology and answerscausal questions whereas descriptive psychology isrelatively freer from this dependence on basic science.Rather, for Brentano, descriptive psychology is akinto philosophy of mind and philosophical psychology(Mulligan 2004). However, he still thinks that in somesense descriptive psychology is empirical, and refersto it as such, due to a belief that it is based on ‘inner’perception. Mulligan helpfully describes Brentano’sconception of descriptive psychology thus:

. . . conceptual truths about and analyses ofpsychological phenomena in which classifications, theidentification of the fundamental types of psychologicalphenomena, and claims about relations of necessaryco-existence are prominent (p. 67)

(Mulligan 2004).

Descriptive psychology is prior to explanatory psycho-logy: one needs to have a clear account of the natureof the mental phenomenon to be investigated prior tocausal and explanatory claims being made. Whereasdescriptive psychology yields exact and exceptionlesstruths, explanatory psychology will reveal contingentcausal mechanism that could logically be differentfrom mental phenomenon yet still underpin them.

The notion of intentionality has widely beentaken up as a mark of the mental, the definingcharacteristic of mental states. For something to beintentional is to say that it intends or is about some-thing. Thus intentionality is the aboutness ofthought (Jacquette 2004). Further, there are nomental acts without a presentation, without anintended object. Intentionality allows Brentano toadopt a dualism based upon this idea of content:physical phenomena lack intentionality, whereasintentionality is the defining characteristic of mentalphenomena. It is worth stressing, however, that thisnotion of ‘aboutness’ and intentionality doesn’tnecessarily imply the idea of the mind somehowstretching out of the body toward the world, butrather suggests the mind taking on properties ofthe intended object. Part of the reason for this isBrentano’s indebtedness to Aristotle. For Aristotle,the soul takes in sensory and intelligible formsand thus, ‘Sensing and thinking, for a BrentanianAristotelian is, to repeat, a form of taking in’ (Smith1994, p. 41), a taking in of the form, but not the matter.So intentionality is not so much about the mind beingdirected to external objects, but rather, such aboutnessis towards objects that are immanently within themind, having been taken up by the senses.

Brentano, F. (1888–9), ‘The conceptof descriptive psychology’From (1983/1995) Descriptive Psychology. Edited andtranslated by Benito Müller. London: Routledge: 137–8.Originally a lecture given in 1888–9.

1. By this I understand the analysing descriptionof our phenomena.

2. By phenomena, however, [I understand] thatwhich is perceived by us, in fact, what is perceivedby us in the strict sense of the word.

3. This, for example, is not the case for the externalworld.

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4. To be a phenomenon, something must exist initself [in sich sein]. It is wrong to set phenomena inopposition to what exists in itself [an sichSeiendes].

5. Something can be a phenomenon, however,without being a thing in itself, such as, forexample, what is presented as such [dasVorgestellte als solches], or what is desired as such.

6. One is telling the truth if one says the phenomenaare objects of inner perception, even thoughthe term ‘inner’ is actually superfluous. Allphenomena are to be called inner because theyall belong to one reality, be it as constituents oras correlates.

7. By calling the description of phenomenadescriptive psychology one particularlyemphasizes the contemplation of psychicalrealities. Genetic psychology is then added to itas the second part of psychology.

8. Physiology has to intervene forcefully in the latter,whereas descriptive psychology is relativelyindependent of it.

9. Descriptive psychology is the prior part(of psychology). The relationship between itand genetic psychology is similar to the onebetween anatomy and physiology.

10. The value of descriptive psychology.

(a) It is the foundation of genetic psychology.(b) It has a value in itself because of the dignity

of the psychical domain.

Brentano, F. (1874), ‘The distinctionbetweenmental and physicalphenomena’From (1995) Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint.Edited by Oscar Kraus and Linda L. McAlister, translated byAntos C. Rancurello, D. B. Terrell and Linda L. McAlister.London, Routledge: 77–100. Originally published in 1874.

All the data of our consciousness are divided into twogreat classes – the class of physical and the class ofmental phenomena . . .

Our aim is to clarify the meaning of the two terms“physical phenomenon” and “mental phenomenon,”removing all misunderstanding and confusion con-cerning them. And it does not matter to us whatmeans we use, as long as they really serve to clarifythese terms.

Every idea or presentation which we acquireeither through sense perceptions or imagination isan example of a mental phenomenon. By presenta-tion I do not mean that which is presented, butrather the act of presentation. Thus, hearing asound, seeing a colored object, feeling warmth orcold, as well as similar states of imagination areexamples of what I mean by this term. I also meanby it the thinking of a general concept, provided sucha thing actually does occur. Furthermore, everyjudgement, every recollection, every expectation,every inference, every conviction or opinion, everydoubt, is a mental phenomenon. Also to be includedunder this term is every emotion: joy, sorrow, fear,hope, courage, despair, anger, love, hate, desire,act of will, intention, astonishment, admiration,contempt, etc.

*****

Every mental phenomenon is characterized by whatthe Scholastics of the Middle Ages called the inten-tional (or mental) inexistence of an object, and whatwe might call, though not wholly unambiguously,reference to a content, direction toward an object(which is not to be understood here as meaning athing), or immanent objectivity. Every mental phe-nomenon includes something as object within itself,although they do not all do so in the same way. Inpresentation something is presented, in judgementsomething is affirmed or denied, in love loved, in hatehated, in desire desired and so on.

This intentional in-existence is characteristicexclusively of mental phenomena. No physical phe-nomenon exhibits anything like it. We can, therefore,define mental phenomena by saying that they arethose phenomena which contain an object intention-ally within themselves.

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Another characteristic which all mental phenomenahave in common is the fact that they are onlyperceived in inner consciousness, while in the caseof physical phenomena only external perception ispossible. . . . However, besides the fact that it has aspecial object, inner perception possesses anotherdistinguishing characteristic: its immediate, infallibleself-evidence. Of all the types of knowledge ofthe objects of experience, inner perception alonepossesses this characteristic. Consequently, when wesay that mental phenomena are those which are

Part I: Intellectual background

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apprehended by means of inner perception, we saythat their perception is immediately evident.

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Let us, in conclusion, summarize the results of thediscussion about the difference between mentaland physical phenomena. First of all, we illustratedthe specific nature of the two classes by means ofexamples. We then defined mental phenomenaas presentations or as phenomena which are basedupon presentations; all the other phenomena beingphysical phenomena. Next we spoke of extension,which psychologists have asserted to be the specificcharacteristic of all physical phenomena, while allmental phenomena are supposed to be unextended.This assertion, however, ran into contradictionswhich can only be clarified by later investigations.All that can be determined now is that all mentalphenomena really appear to be unextended. Furtherwe found that the intentional in-existence, the refer-ence to something as an object, is a distinguishingcharacteristic of all mental phenomena. No physicalphenomena are the exclusive object of inner perception;they alone, therefore, are perceived with immediate

evidence. Indeed, in the strict sense of the word, theyalone are perceived. On this basis we proceeded todefine them as the only phenomena which possessactual existence in addition to intentional existence.Finally, we emphasized as a distinguishing characteris-tic the fact that the mental phenomena which weperceive, in spite of all their multiplicity, always appearto us as a unity, while physical phenomena, which weperceive at the same time, do not all appear in the sameway as parts of one single phenomenon.

That feature which best characterizes mental phe-nomena is undoubtedly their intentional in-existence.By means of this and the other characteristics listedabove, we may now consider mental phenomenato have been clearly differentiated from physicalphenomena.

Our explanations of mental and physical pheno-mena cannot fail to place our earlier definitions ofpsychology and natural science in a clearer light. . . .

We must consider only mental phenomena in thesense of real states as the proper object of psychology.And it is in reference only to these phenomena thatwe say that psychology is the science of mentalphenomena.

Chapter 2: Franz Brentano (1838–1917)

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Section 1

Chapter


Wilhelm Dilthey (1833–1911)

Editors’ introductionDilthey’s influence on phenomenological psy-chiatry is crucial and is most clearly illustrated byJaspers’ adoption of Verstehen or ‘interpretativeunderstanding’ (Outhwaite 1986; Rickman 1987).Although understanding another is clearly a com-plex activity, for the German hermeneutic traditionthere is nothing particularly mystical or technicalabout the concept of Verstehen: it is simplythe everyday understanding of another, whether areal individual or a fictional or historical figure,which we all engage in. In contemporary philoso-phical terminology this is often termed folkpsychology.

Dilthey’s hermeneutic project was similar to thatof the neo-Kantians (Broome 2008). He was inter-ested in the ‘historical sciences’ and his Kantianquestion was the reflection on the possibility ofsciences that took the human mind as their objectof study (Outhwaite 1986). Dilthey’s work on ver-stehende Psychologie is a crucial part of this widerconcern. ‘Understanding’, as Outhwaite puts it (p. 27)is on this conception, experiencing another person’s‘thoughts and emotions from the inside by “puttingoneself in their shoes” (sich hineinversetzten) and reli-ving their experiences (nacherleben)’ (Outhwaite 1986).For Dilthey, such an approach should work in parallelwith causal understanding. Further, Verstehen shouldnever be complete, incapable of error, and explicitlyrelies on imagination. Its goal is to attempt to under-stand the individual and works by analogy (Makkreel1998).

Dilthey, W. (1894), ‘Ideas about adescriptive and analytical psychology’From (1976) Dilthey: Selected Writings. Edited byH. P. Rickman. Cambridge University Press: 88–97.Originally published in 1894.

The task of laying a psychologicalfoundation for the human studiesExplanatory psychology, which at present absorbssuch a large measure of work and interest, establishesa causal nexus which claims to explain all mentalphenomena. It tries to explain the constitution ofthe mental world according to its constituents, forcesand laws, in the same way as physics and chemistryexplain the physical world. . . . The difference betweenexplanatory and descriptive science assumed here,corresponds to ordinary usage. By an explanatoryscience we understand the subsumption of a rangeof phenomena under a causal nexus by means ofa limited number of unambiguously defined ele-ments (i.e. constituents of the nexus). This conceptdescribes an ideal science which has been shapedparticularly by the development of atomic physics.So explanatory psychology tries to subsume mentalphenomena under a causal nexus by means of alimited number of unambiguously defined elements.This is an extraordinarily bold idea containing thepossibility of an immeasurable development of thehuman studies into a strict system of causal know-ledge corresponding to that of the physical sciences.Every psychology wants to make the causal relation-ships of mental life conscious but the distinguishingmark of explanatory psychology is that it is con-vinced that it can produce a complete and transpar-ent knowledge of mental phenomena from a limitednumber of unambiguously defined elements. Itwould be even more precisely characterized by thename constructive psychology.

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[T]he human studies must work towards more defin-ite procedures and principles within their own sphereby trying them out on their own subject-matter, justas the physical sciences have done. We do not showourselves genuine disciples of the great scientific

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thinkers simply by transferring their methods to oursphere; we must adjust our knowledge to the nature ofour subject-matter and thus treat it as the scientiststreated theirs. We conquer nature by submitting to it.The human studies differ from the sciences becausethe latter deal with facts which present themselves toconsciousness as external and separate phenomena,while the former deal with the living connections ofreality experienced in the mind. It follows that thesciences arrive at connections within nature throughinferences by means of a combination of hypotheseswhile the human sciences are based on directly givenmental connections. We explain nature but we under-stand mental life. Inner experience grasps the pro-cesses by which we accomplish something as well asthe combination of individual functions of mental lifeinto a whole. The experience of the whole contextcomes first; only later do we distinguish its individualparts. This means that the methods of studyingmental life, history and society differ greatly fromthose used to acquire knowledge of nature.

Descriptive and analytical psychologyIf we try to gain knowledge of the comprehensive anduniformpattern ofmental life we shall see if a descriptivepsychology can be developed. Psychological analysis hascertainly establishedmany individual connections in ourmental life.We can follow the processes which lead froman outer impression to the development of a perceptualimage; we can pursue its transformation into a memory;we can describe the formation of fantasies and concepts.We can also describe motive, choice and purposiveaction. But all these particular patterns must beco-ordinated into a general pattern of mental life. Thequestion is can we pave the way for this?

The decisive fact for the study of mental structureis that the transitions from one state to another, theeffect of one on another are part of inner experience.We experience this structure. We understand humanlife, history and all the hidden depths of the humanmind because we experience these transitions andeffects and so become aware of this structurewhich embraces all passions, sufferings and humandestinies. Who has not experienced how imagesthrusting themselves on the imagination suddenlyarouse strong desire which, confronted with greatdifficulties, urges us towards an act of will? In theseand other concrete connections we become awareof particular transitions and effects; these innerexperiences recur and one connection or another isrepeated until the whole structure becomes secure,empirical, knowledge in our inner consciousness.It is not only the major parts of this structurewhich have an inner connection in our experience,we can become aware of such relationships withinthe parts themselves. The process of mental life inall its forms, from the lowest to the highest, isfrom the beginning a unified whole. Mental lifedoes not arise from parts growing together; it isnot compounded of elementary units; it does notresult from interacting particles of sensation or feel-ing; it is always an encompassing unity. Mentalfunctions have been differentiated in it but theyremain tied to their context. This has reachedits highest form of development in the unity ofconsciousness and the unity of the person andcompletely distinguishes mental life from the wholephysical world. Knowledge of this context of lifemakes the new theory that mental processes aresingle, unconnected representations of a pattern ofphysical events, completely unacceptable.

Chapter 3: Wilhelm Dilthey (1833–1911)

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Section 1

Chapter


Max Weber (1864–1920)

Editors’ introductionJaspers acknowledges a great debt to the sociologistMax Weber, both as a friend but also as the means bywhich he was introduced to Husserl and Heidegger(Jaspers 1981). Intellectually, Weber’s conception of‘ideal types’ has had a profound influence in phenom-enological psychiatry (Schwartz and Wiggins 1987;Ghaemi 2009), both in it being used to try to clarifywhat is thought of as a ‘typical’ presentation or symp-tom, but perhaps more strongly, used as an equivalentterm as ‘essence’ when talking about the definingfeatures of a given psychopathology (Broome 2006).However, although psychiatrists may think in termsof prototypical features, it would be mistaken toconflate this with Husserl’s concept of essence, asdiscussed below.

On most readings, Weber’s concept of ideal typeis a construct one uses to interrogate the social world(i.e. phenomena involving meaning and value) (‘Theconstruction of abstract ideal-types recommends itselfnot as an end but as a means’ (p. 90) (Weber 1904/2004)). Husserlian essences, however, are the result ofperforming the eidetic reduction (see below, pp. 15–16,24–35). Thus, one measures empirical reality usingthe ideal type and compares the ideal type to empir-ical reality but this is done interpretatively ratherthan statistically. Husserlian essences, however, areobtained by bracketing away empirical reality. Inother ways too, Weber’s notion of ideal types differsfrom Husserl’s notion of essence: in particular, Webersuggested that ideal types are variable for any ques-tion, depending upon the researcher’s question(Weber 1904/2004, p. 91; Parkin 2002), whereasessence is necessary and a priori. Further, ideal typesdo not exist in reality (‘In its conceptual purity, thismental construct (Gedankenbild) cannot be found any-where in reality. It is a utopia.’ (Weber 1904/2004,p. 90)). As such, we should not, for Weber, expectanything we encounter tomatch the ideal type perfectly.

Burger offers a useful definition ofWeber’s notoriouslyhard to pin down idea (Burger 1976, p. 134):

Ideal types are statements of general form asserting theexistence of certain constellations of elements which areempirically only approximated by the instances of theclass of phenomena to which each type refers.

Thus, ideal types vary, their structure is determinedby the investigators’ concerns and the problemsstudied, and are never fully instantiated in empiricalreality. Hence, the ideal type may serve as an extremeend of continuum that actual existent cases onlyapproximate towards (the clearest, most distinctexample of delusion we use to recognize other delu-sions but never expect to meet in reality, for example).The subject matter of psychiatry, given its proximityto the phenomena of meaning, intentions, values andinterpretations, and given its pragmatic nature, mayfind the notion of ‘ideal types’ more germane thanthat of essences as developed by Husserl initiallyin the fields of mathematics, logic, grammar andgeometry.

Weber,M. (1904), ‘“Objectivity” in socialscience and social policy’From (2004) The Methodology of the Social Sciences.Translated by Edward A. Shils and Henry A. Finch. Jaipur,India: ABD Publishers: 49–112. Originally published byFree Press in 1949.

We have in abstract economic theory an illustrationof those synthetic constructs which have been desig-nated as “ideas” of historical phenomena. It offers usan ideal picture of events on the commodity-marketunder conditions of a society organized on the prin-ciples of an exchange economy, free competition andrigorously rational conduct. This conceptual patternbrings together certain relationships and events ofhistorical life into a complex, which is conceived asan internally consistent system. Substantively, this

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construct in itself is like a utopia which has beenarrived at by the analytical accentuation of certainelements of reality. Its relationship to the empiricaldata consists solely in the fact that where market-conditioned relationships of the type referred to bythe abstract construct are discovered or suspectedto exist in reality to some extent, we can make thecharacteristic features of this relationship pragmatic-ally clear and understandable by reference to an ideal-type. This procedure can be indispensable for heuris-tic as well as expository purposes. The ideal typicalconcept will help to develop our skill in imputation inresearch: it is no “hypothesis” but it offers guidance tothe construction of hypotheses. It is not a descriptionof reality but it aims to give unambiguous means ofexpression to such a description. It is thus the “idea”of the historically given modern society, based on anexchange economy, which is developed for us by quitethe same logical principles as are used in constructingthe idea of the medieval “city economy” as a “genetic”concept. When we do this, we construct the concept“city economy” not as an average of the economicstructures actually existing in all the cities observedbut as an ideal-type. An ideal type is formed by theone-sided accentuation of one or more points of viewand by the synthesis of a great many diffuse, discrete,more or less present and occasionally absent concreteindividual phenomena, which are arranged accordingto those one-sidedly emphasized viewpoints into aunified analytical construct [Gedankenbild]. In its con-ceptual purity, this mental construct [Gedankenbild]cannot be found empirically anywhere in reality. It isa utopia.

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When a genetic definition of the content of the con-cept is sought, there remains only the ideal-type in thesense explained above. It is a conceptual construct[Gedankenbild] which is neither historical reality noreven the “true” reality. It is even less fitted to serve asa schema under which a real situation or action is tobe subsumed as one instance. It has the significance ofa purely ideal limiting concept with which the real

situation or action is compared and surveyed for theexplication of certain of its significant components.Such concepts are constructs in terms of which weformulate relationships by the application of thecategory of objective possibility. By means of thiscategory, the adequacy of our imagination, orientedand disciplined by reality, is judged.

In this function especially, the ideal-type is anattempt to analyze historically unique configurationsor their individual components by means of geneticconcepts. Let us take for instance the concepts“church” and “sect.” They may be broken downpurely classificatorily into complexes of characteris-tics whereby not only the distinction between thembut also the content of the concept must constantlyremain fluid. If however I wish to formulate theconcept of “sect” genetically, e.g., with reference tocertain important cultural significances which the“sectarian spirit” has had for modern culture, certaincharacteristics of both become essential because theystand in an adequate causal relationship to thoseinfluences. However, the concepts thereupon becomeideal-typical in the sense that they appear in fullconceptual integrity either not at all or only in indi-vidual instances. Here as elsewhere every conceptwhich is not purely classificatory diverges from real-ity. But the discursive nature of our knowledge, i.e.,the fact that we comprehend reality only througha chain of intellectual modifications postulates sucha conceptual short-hand. Our imagination can oftendispense with explicit conceptual formulations as ameans of investigation. But as regards exposition,formulations in the sphere of cultural analysis is inmany cases absolutely necessary. Whoever disre-gards it entirely must confine himself to the formalaspect of cultural phenomena, e.g., to legal history.The universe of legal norms is naturally clearlydefinable and is valid (in the legal sense!) for histor-ical reality. But social science in our sense is con-cerned with practical significance. This significancehowever can very often be brought unambiguouslyto mind only by relating the empirical data to anideal limiting case.

Chapter 4: Max Weber (1864–1920)

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Section 1

Chapter


Henri Bergson (1859–1941)

Editors’ introductionBergson is not commonly acknowledged as aninfluence on phenomenological psychiatry, andperhaps this state of affairs is similar to his ratherunder-acknowledged and diffuse influence on philo-sophy more generally (Matthews 1996; Gutting 2001;Mullarkey 2010). For our purposes, Bergson’s workwas a direct influence upon both Scheler and theFrench psychiatrist Minkowski. In particular, it wasBergson’s early work, translated as Time and FreeWill, that impacted upon psychopathology. Here,Bergson offers a sustained critique of how mental lifeis viewed, and specifically how the tools and ways ofthinking about the physical, external, world have beenimported into the discourse of how we think aboutour mental life. For Bergson, using the language ofmechanism in the domain of the living is, as it were, acategory mistake (Guerlac 2006). Newtonian physicspresents a world of quantity, of measurement andmathematization, and importantly for Bergson, theidea of reversibility. Equations can be reformulatedin the opposite direction, reversed, yet, we are unableto draw this parallel with mental life and specifically forBergson, time, and thinking in time, is irreversible(Guerlac 2006). The quantitative differences in thephysical world, captured in measurement, are, Bergsonargues, not present in mental life where the differencesthat occur are those of quality. The dominant psych-ology of Bergson’s day led to the danger of thinking ofthese distinct qualities as quantitative differences inintensity and hence, trying to measure them (Guerlac2006), viewing them as differences in degree ratherthan kind. From these concerns about the scienceof psychology Bergson’s important work uses theseinsights to discuss the living, the nature of conscious-ness and, importantly, time and free will. Bergsonsituates his own work as a response to Kant: praisingKant for his Newtonianism and demonstrating theimportance of external apperception in the experience

of space, but argues against Kant and Kantiansemploying these insights in thinking about inner life,and also in their seeming conflation of space with theradical alterity that is time. Unlike space, time is not ahomogenous mileu (Guerlac 2006).

Bergson, H. (1910), Selections fromTime and Free Will: An Essay on theImmediate Data of ConsciousnessFrom (2008) Time and Free Will: An Essay on theImmediate Data of Consciousness. Translated byS. L. Pogson. New York: Cosimo: 10–155. Originallypublished in 1910.

Neither inner joy nor passion is an isolated inner statewhich at first occupies the corner of the soul andgradually spreads. At its lowest level it is very like aturning of our states of consciousness towards thefuture. Then, as if their weight were diminished bythis attraction, our ideas and sensations succeed oneanother with greater rapidity; our movements nolonger cost us the same effort. Finally, in cases ofextreme joy, our perceptions and memories becometinged with an indefinable quality, as with a kind ofheat or light, so novel that now and then, as we stareat our own self, we wonder how it can really exist.Thus there are several characteristic forms of purelyinward joy, all of which are successive stages corres-ponding to qualitative alterations in the whole of ourpsychic states. But the number of states which areconcerned with each of these alterations is more orless considerable, and, without explicitly countingthem, we know very well whether, for example, ourjoy pervades all the impressions which we receivein the course of the day or whether any escapefrom its influence. We thus set up points of divisionin the interval which separate two successive formsof joy, and this gradual transition from one to theother makes them appear in their turn as different

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