Il problema mente-corpo in Henri Bergson e l'esternalismo in filosofia della mente. Spunti per un modello ontologico

Summary

This article compares Henri Bergson's early 20th-century philosophy of mind with contemporary externalist theories, particularly the 4E Cognition approach (embodied, embedded, enactive, extended). It argues that Bergson anticipated key externalist ideas, especially his theory of pure perception, which places experience within things themselves before the split into subject and object. The authors propose that Bergson's ontology offers a coherent framework for organizing experimental data within an externalist model, suggesting an undivided level of reality as the impersonal origin of subjective consciousness.

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Abstract

In this article we contrast Henri Bergson’s mind-body theory with the latest developments in Philosophy of Mind, more specifically, in so-called “Externalism”. This paper has two specific aims. First, we argue that the work of this French philosopher anticipated the main theoretical concepts of Externalism. Indeed, Bergson’s theory of perception shares many important features, which have not been adequately recognized until now, with so-called 4E Cognition (embodied, embedded, enactive, extended). Second, we show how Bergson’s basic ontology, which frames his interpretation of conscious experience, could offer a coherent theoretical framework to systematize experimental data in an externalist model. Bergson’s theory of “pure perception” goes beyond correlation, showing that our experience, in its purest state, takes place within things themselves, at a level of reality that precedes the bifurcation of experience into a subject and an object. This undivided level of reality can be considered the impersonal origin of subjective consciousness.

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