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Henri Bergson on Possibility and Creation
Life as a Work of Art:
Henri Bergson on Possibility and Creation
Clara Zimmermann
The Possible: A Retroactive Movement of Intelligence
In a lecture delivered by Henri Bergson at the University of Oxford in 1920 and published in his last book under the title The Possible and the Real (Le possible et le réel), the French philosopher challenges the following widely held assumption prevalent in both philosophical theories and common sense. When we think to ourselves, “I shouldn’t have said that at the party,” or when, faced with tedious day-to-day tasks of a job that barely allows us to make ends meet, we say, “I should have chosen this career instead of that one,” and so on, we are not only assuming that things could have been different from what they are, but also that this “possibility” already existed beforehand. We imply that it was simply a matter of taking a different path from the one we actually took. In feeling guilt or regret, we romanticize the past, imagining that an alternative path was already mapped out somewhere, and we speculate about what might have happened had we acted differently. According to Bergson, by doing so, we assume that the possible precedes the real, and that the real, before being created, existed as a simple possibility. In other words, we imply that the possible is somehow less than the real, like an idea in an artist’s mind before its materialization into a work of art. The present seems to add something to the possible, as it requires possibility “plus a power to actualize it.”1 As a result, this view assumes that nothing genuinely new can be created that wasn’t already contained—albeit in potential form, and not yet in actuality—within the realm of the possible.
To clarify his notion of possibility, Bergson offers the following example: “Hamlet was doubtless possible before being realized, if that means that there was no insurmountable obstacle to its realization.”2 A problem arises, however, when we subtly shift from this merely negative sense of possibility to a positive one. In a negative sense, “possible” means “that which is not impossible” and, as Bergson notes, it goes without saying that the non-impossibility of Hamlet was a condition for its realization. Yet, we often switch from this negative notion to a positive one: we imagine Hamlet as a “pre-existence under the form of an idea,”3 meaning that any sufficiently informed mind, given the necessary conditions, could have created it.4 Bergson argues, however, that the idea of Hamlet existing in a mind other than Shakespeare's is absurd, because a mind in which Hamlet existed as a possibility would, by that very fact, be its creator— making this person Shakespeare himself.
Bergson suggests, however, that this tendency is merely a natural inclination of our intelligence and common sense. Since we anticipate many future events from our present perspective, we assume that the present was already anticipated in the past. In doing so, we envision time as a linear progression where not only the future is shaped by the present, but also the present is, in a sense, determined by the past.
For instance, we can anticipate many aspects of an important meeting we have tomorrow: the issues we will discuss, the people we will encounter, the order of our presentation, and so on. However, our representation will always remain “inadequate” and “abstract” compared to the actual event, because its realization “brings along […] an unforeseeable nothing which changes everything."5 This is because, in addition to the “general rules” and “recipes” which help us shape our future, we bear within ourselves the intuition of agency, the sense that we are creators ourselves. Just as a sculptor masters and shapes clay into a unique form, we continually mold “the material furnished [to] us by the past and present” to create our own unique and unforeseeable life.6 In this sense, Bergson maintains that to a certain extent, “we are what we do and we continuously create ourselves."7
Nevertheless, our common sense protests, and once something new has been created, we believe that it has always, already existed as a virtual possibility.8 Bergson attributes this to the “natural” illusion described above—the projection of the present into the past at the very moment an event has taken place. This mirage of the present in the past leads us to think that the real has always been there, as an image waiting to be materialized in flesh and blood. For example, we now believe that there was a “potential” romanticism within the classical authors, which made 19th-century Romanticism possible. However, according to Bergson’s theory, the influence of the Greeks on the Romantics could only have emerged retroactively, once Romanticism had been created as such. In other words, there would be nothing romantic in Classicism if Romanticism had not come into existence.
Yet, retrospectively, once Romanticism was created, we can assert that it was already present—as a “possibility”—within Classicism:
“If there had not been a Rousseau, a Chateaubriand, a Vigny, a Victor Hugo, not only should we never have perceived, but also there would never really have existed any romanticism in the earlier classical writers, for this romanticism of theirs only materializes by lifting out of their work a certain aspect, and this slice (découpure), with its particular form, no more existed in classical literature before romanticism appeared on the scene than there exists, in the cloud floating by, the amusing design that an artist perceives in shaping to his fancy the amorphous mass.”9
If this is difficult to grasp when thinking about life in general, nowhere else does it appear more clearly than through artistic creation. Against an “intellectualist” or a “rationalist” approach to creation, Bergson argues that a symphony, like Hamlet, could never have existed virtually—that is, in potentia—in the artist’s mind before being created. On the contrary, “from the moment that the musician has the precise and complete idea of the symphony he means to compose, his symphony is done.”10 In other words, the symphony only becomes possible once it has been created (i.e. the only time the idea can be precise and complete). Therefore, just as an image of a man presupposes the existence of the man plus his reflection in the mirror, the possible can only spring from the real, not the other way around.11
Accordingly, Bergson suggests that even if it is acceptable to assert that a work of art was possible in a negative sense—since there were no “insurmountable obstacles” to its realization—we should question whether, deep down, those obstacles didn’t become surmountable retroactively, as a result of creation itself.12 Bergson argues that a genuine work of art—a work of genius—reveals itself as such only retrospectively, by overcoming obstacles that were considered “insurmountable” beforehand. In other words, Bergson believes that an intuition or emotion expressed in a work of genius may have been considered inexpressible before the work's actual creation.
From Life to Art, From Art to Life
Of course, Bergson acknowledges that all creative activity has an “intellectual” dimension, which includes aspects of art creation that involve general techniques and other common elements shared by artworks within the same art movement. Consider Impressionism. Despite the differences between Monet and Renoir, both artists adhere to certain shared “rules” that categorize them as Impressionist painters. These include a strong emphasis on light and color, as well as the use of visible brushstrokes and unblended colors. In this sense, fabrication encompasses everything that can be shared and acquired through repetition and learning, involving all aspects of an artwork that can be anticipated beforehand. In short, fabrication represents the “impersonal” aspect of the work.
Moreover, Bergson defines a “fabricated object” as the result of a specific end—the artist’s “plan”—or of the total sum of its parts, which includes the different elements involved in the artistic process, such as techniques, materials used, and previous ideas. That being said, real creation must be distinguished from fabrication. In genuine creation, the artist transcends their initial concepts and manages to draw from within something more than what was initially conceived. While every invention—including both fabrication and creation—entails a process where a schematic representation (the original idea or the artist’s intuition) finds its expression, in fabrication this scheme remains unchanged throughout the process. It’s as if a filmmaker had a “plan” or scheme for a film that remained static through the creation process, reducing creation to a matter of executing this original idea. In contrast, Bergson argues that something fundamentally different occurs in true creation, where nothing of the primitive scheme remains in the final work.13
The point is that while fabrication is certainly a significant part of creation, absolute novelty requires an element that transcends fabrication. As Bergson suggests, “even with the knowledge of what explains it, no one, not even the artist, could have foreseen exactly what the portrait would end up being, since predicting this would be to produce it in advance of its being produced,”—an absurd hypothesis, as we have seen.14 Just as “general rules” and “recipes” help us predict and thus control much of our future, an artist can anticipate much of their work based on the various elements involved: the idea they seek to express, the physiognomy of the model, the colors on the palette, the techniques they will use, the effect they seek to produce in the viewer, and so on. All of these elements fall under what Bergson defines as “fabrication,” and they cannot—whether considered separately or together—predict the final work.
Novel creation arises from the artist’s effort to infuse freedom into the constraints of matter.15 Unlike the ease and automatism involved when imitating and repeating a pre-existing form, the creation of something new emerges from a reciprocal adaptation between form and matter.16 In this sense, while fabrication is immediate—since it involves executing a simple “image” predetermined by the artist’s scheme or plan—creation, on the other hand, involves a delay in time. If the artist has an initial plan, the struggle to achieve a viable and definite final product results in a “back and forth” between a multiplicity of versions and the original scheme. The challenge of aligning the scheme with the actual output, or vice versa, allows ideas to interact and intermingle, giving rise to a new form. Indeed, this arduous process distinguishes genuine artistic creation from the straightforward execution of fabrication.
Bergson considers this dynamic and difficult effort required in creation to be more valuable than the result itself. While life is indeed a continuous flow of duration, it is also composed of matter, which tends to repeat itself endlessly. In fact, every act of a living being tends to “imitate and recommence automatically.”17 Artistic creation is no exception to this rule. Once a masterpiece has been created, other artists will replicate and reproduce it—essentially fabricating it—until something truly novel emerges again. True creation, as we have seen, can only arise from an arduous effort of drawing from within more than the artist initially had. In this sense, Bergson says, “thought which is only thought, the work of art which is only conceived, [and] the poem which is no more than a dream” are nothing by themselves.18 Intuition dissipates in the air if it is not accompanied by the effort required for its material expression, whether through words or through visual perception.
Matter is not, therefore, a mere obstacle to the genius’ élan (creative impulse), but rather its “instrument and stimulus.” The resistance of matter challenges the artist’s intuition, while simultaneously preserving its imprint and calling for its intensification.19 Thus, if genius can only express itself intuitively—through a work of art—the new becomes communicable “in the language of ideas” only after being created, and even then, only in an approximate way.20
In Sum
As in the context of artistic creation, possibility is therefore more—and not less—than reality. When we look back and imagine all the other possible outcomes of our life, our intelligence is merely reflecting our present in our past. Since the same antecedents may lead to completely unpredictable outcomes, these outcomes become “possible” once they have been realized in the present. This means that while the past pushes and shapes the present, in turn, the present—through its perpetual novelty—continues to reshape the past. We can conclude, then, that both in art and in life, it is the real that makes the possible, rather than the possible becoming real. By placing the possible where it belongs, Bergson concludes that life “becomes something quite different from the realization of a program; the gates of the future open wide,” offering unlimited fields of freedom21
2 Bergson, H. “The Possible and the Real” in The Creative Mind, trans. Mabelle L. Andison, New York, Dover Publications, p. 43, p. 112. From now on “PR”
3 PR, p. 43, p. 112.
4 In this context, Bergson refers to the 17th-century German philosopher Gottfried Leibniz’s rationalist theory, which posits that, according to God’s will, we live in the best of all possible worlds. According to this view, even though we, as finite beings, cannot envision all other possibilities, they should be accessible to an omnipotent intelligence. The Creative Mind, “Introduction,”, p. 12, p. 13. From now on “PM” in reference to the original title: La Pensée et le mouvant.
4 PR, p. 63, p. 99.
6 PR, p. 39, p. 102.
7 Bergson, H. Creative Evolution, Trans. Donald A. Landes, London/New York, Routledge, 2023, pp. 55-56, pp. 6-7. From now on: “EC”.
8 PM, p. 8, p. 14.
9 PM, p. 14, p. 16 (our italicizing).
10 PM, p. 8, p. 13.
11 PR, p. 43, p. 112.
12 PR, p. 81, p. 113.
13 Bergson, H. “The Intellectual Effort” in Mind Energy, p. 213, p. 175. From now on “EI” in reference to the original title: L’effort intellectuel.
14 EC, p. 38, p. 6 (our italicizing).
15 EC, p. 18, p. 13.
16 EI, p. 221, p. 182.
17 Berson, H. "Life and consciousness" in Mind Energy, Trans. H. Wildon Carr, New York, Henry Holt and Company, 1920, pg. 24. From now on "CV" in reference to the original title: "La conscience et la vie"
18 CV, pp. 28-29, pp. 22-23.
19 CV, p. 29, pp. 22-23.
20 EC, p. 125, p. 224.
21 PR, p. 72, p. 115.
Errata:
The first sentence incorrectly referred to The Possible and the Real as a book title. It is actually a lecture published in Henri Bergson's final book, The Creative Mind (1934). This post has been updated to correct the error, though the mistake remains in the print version.
Clara Zimmermann is a PhD candidate at Université Paris-1 Panthéon-Sorbonne and the Institut Catholique de Paris, focusing on the aesthetics of Bergson and Kant. She teaches aesthetics and philosophy and has published articles in various academic journals.