ARTICOLI / 8 / Peter A. Y. Gunter /
It is often assumed that Bergson’s intuition is a dead end: much goes into it, but nothing comes out of it. In this article I attempt to show that this is not so. Intuition is understood by him as containing noetic content (ideas, notions) which can be developed in the sciences and elsewhere. In this article there is an effort to show how his notions of variable lived space and the dynamic character of physical matter could lead, for example, to theories of fractal dimension and theories of the creation and expansion of matter. Bergsonian intuition can never be the simple acceptance of our ordinary ideas as we customarily think them. It involves two gestalt shifts: one that takes us from our ordinary spatial concepts to a fundamental dynamic insight, a second shift which takes us from the insight to a new approach to the world. One is made to leave the cave and then, newly enlightened, to return to it.
