Sport, Ethics and Philosophy, 2013

Vol. 7, No. 2, 231–244, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17511321.2012.745588

BERGSON AND ATHLETICISM

Geoffrey Callaghan

The work of Henri Bergson has gone almost completely unnoticed in philosophy of sport literature.
This in no way indicates the level of relevance his programme may carry for the subject. Many of the
entrenched debates that have historically helped to shape the field are mirrored by Bergson’s own
concerns regarding perception and skill acquisition. As such, a thorough study of how the Bergsonian
programme might approach the topic of athletic action is in no wise an idle pursuit – in fact, very
much the opposite. My intention in this paper is twofold: first, to indicate the natural commerce that
exists between Bergson’s philosophy and the philosophy of sport; second, and perhaps more
ambitiously, to demonstrate that his approach to perception and action not only anticipates, but in
some cases may help to edify, certain unresolved issues within the field. The paper develops in three
parts. In part I, I provide a brief summary of Bergson’s theory of perception as it is developed in
Matter and Memory (1896). Parts II and III will apply that theory to two of the central aspects
of human motor activity: in part II, I investigate what it is to be in possession of skilled motor
behaviour – to make that behaviour ‘automatic’, as it were; in part III, the controversial subject of
what it is to acquire and modify skilled motor behaviour will be examined.

KEYWORDS Bergson; consciousness; memory; information-processing; direct-perception

Part I: Bergson’s Theory of Perception

The reason Bergson’s theory of perception seems to be of immediate relevance to a
study of athletics is the central place it attributes to action. He argues that a theory of
perception must ‘start from action, that is to say our faculty of effecting changes in things,
a faculty attested by consciousness and towards which all the powers of the organized
body are seen to converge’ (Begson 1896, 67). For Bergson perception isn’t fundamentally
epistemological, but practical; it isn’t about coming to know the objects of perception, but
about how those objects can be used. Because of this, the body becomes central to
Bergson’s theory. As Bergson notes, the living body is ‘a kind of centre whence is reflected
on the surrounding objects the action which these objects exercise upon it’ (ibid., 57). In
this way, images to the body are perceived only in and through their possible or eventual
use by the body – the object perceived is just another way of expressing how the body
can actively pursue and utilise that object (ibid., 4–5). Bergson divides his investigation
into two distinct parts: first, he investigates the idea of pure perception a theoretical idea
only (ibid., 68), which centres purely on the relation of the body to its surrounding images;
next, he introduces the faculty of memory into the perceptual process, which in turn
allows him to more concretely describe the temporal process constitutive of perceptual

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awareness. As both of these aspects are central to a full understanding of Bergson’s theory
of perception, I will deal with each in turn.

Pure Perception
Bergson elucidates two conceptions of images: (a) the idea that images influence
only each other, in a manner in which the effect is always proportionate to the cause he
calls this ‘the universe’ (ibid., 12); and (b) the idea that images undergo a bodily influence,
exposing those images to the scrutiny of the perceptual process. To Bergson, ‘pure
perception’ is nothing more than the suppression or filtering of those aspects of the object
in which a living being’s function finds no interest. In turn, it will be just those remaining
viable aspects from that suppression that will in fact constitute the living being’s
perception. The exact language Bergson uses to articulate this process is one of
‘abandonment’ – in particular, the abandonment of an object’s real action (i.e., its material
extensity ‘in the universe’) in order to manifest a virtual action i.e., ‘the eventual influence
of living beings upon [it]’ (ibid., 30). This ‘virtual action’, one might say, is precisely the
action of the object as it is isolated or filtered by a consciousness. Here, consciousness and
virtuality collapse – in fact, for Bergson, ‘consciousness means virtual action’ (ibid., 48).
Without the presence of a consciousness, all objects would remain fully enclosed – always
present to themselves, but never for anything else. It is only through consciousness that an
object will abandon its self-enclosed ‘real activity’, instead expressing its ‘virtual
dimension’, thereby becoming an ‘object of perception’ for that consciousness. In other
words, consciousness is what makes an object an object-of-perception.
Now, as far as this description goes, virtual action may appear to have a purely
negative character: the representation of an object is the measure of our possible actions
upon that object through a discarding of that which does not hold the body’s interest. And in
one sense, this would be a fair description. But there is another sense – a much more
important sense – in which the process takes on a positive interpretation. As Bergson writes,
‘conscious perception signifies choice, and consciousness mainly consists in this practical
discernment’ (ibid., 46). It is the discerning capacity proper to consciousness that ensures the
fundamentally active quality of perception. In other words, perception isn’t merely a passive
filtering of ‘that which does not hold the body’s attention’, but is an active choosing (by
consciousness) of just those aspects of the object that can appropriately be taken up for use.
In this very important way, Bergson’s theory of perception shifts from a concern regarding
how it is that we can (passively) perceive an object to one that asks why it is that we (actively)
perceive just this portion of the whole (ibid., 34).
It is at this point that a quick discussion of the role of the brain and cerebral centres
in Bergson’s theory will begin to make sense. Bergson draws a distinction between the
brain and the spinal cord: whereas pure automatism has its seat in the spinal cord,
voluntary action requires intervention by the brain (ibid., 18). Although any advanced
motor activity will require a collaboration of both features, the brain has a particular role in
this capacity: viz., to ‘allow the stimulation received to reach at will this or that motor
mechanism of the spinal cord, and so to choose its effect’ (ibid., 19). For Bergson, the
brain’s function is twofold: first, to indicate any number of possible movements to the
organism; then, upon that indication, to organise one of them into some actual movement
(through that organism’s sensory-motor apparatus). But this does not then mean that the
brain becomes the active centre from which perceptions are produced - as we just saw,
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that role is reserved for consciousness. Instead, according to Bergson’s account, it is much
better to conceive the brain as a mere ‘switchboard’ – an organ that guides or funnels the
indetermination of the living organism toward some chosen action. In other words,
perceptions don’t happen in the brain – the brain is ‘no more than a kind of central
telephonic exchange: its office is to allow communication, or to delay it’ (ibid., 19). For our
purposes, the important lesson to take away from Bergson’s alternative conception of the
brain is this: the more advanced a particular organism’s cerebral functioning has become,
the greater will be the period of hesitation between some stimulation and a consequent
action/reaction by that organism. As the brain (switchboard) increases in complexity, the
number of ‘possible actions’ indicated by that brain (switchboard) to the organism will
increase in turn, ultimately resulting in a greater capacity for choice (or hesitation)
between which ‘possible action’ that organism will choose. This is all due to the reciprocal
relationship that exists between the brain and consciousness: while the function of the
brain details a plan of the movements among which we have a choice, we will in fact
consciously perceive only those aspects of the material world which our movements could
actually affect (ibid., 35). In a word, our perception limits the field of images while our brain
traces possible movements upon that field. And in this way, there exist only two possibilities
by which the indetermination of the will can be diminished: either (a) by ‘cutting one of
the threads’ (i.e., nerve endings) that lead from the periphery of the body to its centre (i.e.,
brain); or (more importantly for our purposes), (b) when a stable habit has formed (ibid.,
41). Without the presence of either of these diminishing forces, consciousness would
continue to enjoy the full freedom of choice over all the finite aspects of the objects it
discerns.

Perception with Memory

As mentioned, much of the preceding description of perception is the subject of a
mere ‘theoretical exercise’ on the part of Bergson. In reality, perception is never experienced
in this pure state. Rather, it is always experienced as a duration; and as such, it involves the
idea of memory. Memory is that which makes perception proper to the subject. Without
memory, perception would remain exclusively ‘within the province of things’ (ibid., 68–9).
Recall that perception, as a pure idea, expresses the virtual action of an object on our body –
the object turns toward the body that aspect of itself that can be used by the body. And
thus, if we went no further than this, ‘the part of consciousness in perception would thus be
confined to threading on the continuous string of memory an uninterrupted series of
instantaneous visions, which would be a part of things rather than ourselves’ (ibid., 68;
emphasis added). But of course, this is not the case. Perception is bound up in duration, and
because it is, it is a faculty proper to the subject rather than to the images perceived. To wit,
‘it is memory above all that lends to perception its subjective character’ (ibid., 80).
To understand how Bergson conceives memory, and particularly how he regards the
role of memory in the perceptual process, we must deviate somewhat from the traditional
view of memory as a simple preservation of past images. If the survival of past images are
to acquire any kind of utility (which, as we saw above, is Bergson’s starting point for a
theory of perception), they must interact with, and in fact take the form of, a present
perception. In other words, the recalling of an image is only relevant to perception if it
adds something useful to it: ‘perceptions are undoubtedly interlaced with memories, and
inversely, a memory . . . only becomes actual by borrowing the body of some perception
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into which it slips’ (ibid., 72) Bergson’s idea is that the past survives in two distinct forms:
(a) in motor mechanisms (what I will call ‘motor memory’); and (b) in independent
recollections (what I will call ‘representational memory’) (ibid., 87). How a present
perception will then come to utilise past images through memory directly corresponds to
these two distinct forms: (a) through the action itself (i.e., the automatic setting in motion
of a mechanism adapted to circumstances); or (b) by an effort of consciousness (i.e., a
seeking into the past for those representations best suited to enter into the present).
Whereas the former ‘utilisation’ is stored up in the body as a mechanism (a closed system
of automatic movements), the latter is expressed as an independent event – ‘the image,
regarded in itself, was necessarily at the outset what it always will be’ (ibid., 90).
It is important to understand how these two kinds of memory operate in distinction
from one another. The first kind of memory is expressed as an action of the body. It need
not go out and search for an appropriate manifestation to achieve its utility – the memory
is already ‘at hand’ whenever that appropriate manifestation presents itself (think here,
e.g., of a ‘reflex motion’ induced by a doctor’s mallet) (ibid., 93–7). Bergson’s second kind
of memory operates in a manner quite different to this. The idea of ‘representational
memory’ draws on certain aspects of Bergson’s philosophy that are notoriously difficult to
understand.1 It should first be noted that this kind of memory bears some similarity to a
more traditional ‘photographic’ account of memory. In both cases, the memory-image
preserves exactly the same form it had upon its initial inception. In Bergson’s case
however, the memory-image is anything but ‘stored’ in some spatial apparatus (such as
the brain). Instead, as we will see further in Parts II and especially III, the memory is
contracted through the free development of consciousness toward some actual state of
affairs. It is a spiritual event on the part of an organism – not a material one. In any event, a
representational memory of an image is not fundamentally practical (as is motor memory),
but it can become so in an important way: ‘the only regular and certain service which the
second memory can render to the first is to bring before it images of what preceded or
followed situations similar to the present situation, so as to guide its choice’ (ibid., 103;
emphasis added). In the fuller picture of Bergson’s theory of perception, this becomes a
vital component for action indeed. It is through the process of representational memory
integrating itself into the present image that consciousness becomes actualised, and
thereby ‘useful’ to the subject. Since it is ‘the chief office of consciousness to preside over
action and to enlighten choice’ (ibid., 182), without representational memory conscious-
ness would be impotent, and hesitation and choice impossible. It is through an organism’s
representational memory that the idea of consciousness can take hold of a perception, in
particular by expressing itself through that organism’s ability to ‘choose’ one of any
number of past recollections that will inform some present action. In a word, it is
representational memory that ‘offers to the sensori-motor mechanisms all the recollections
capable of guiding [the organism] in [its] task and of giving to motor reaction the direction
suggested by the lessons of experience’ (ibid., 197).
All of this is perfectly in line with our original departure point for a Bergsonian
theory of perception. For Bergson, perception has its interest in action – it ‘bends’ to
action through the central image of the body (the body being but a channel for the
transmission of movements into actions). For choice to be possible in these actions,
consciousness must be present. And for consciousness to be possible, the past (as
memory) must endure in and through the present. Whereas it is the body that gives the
past an objective means for becoming actual, it is the past that gives the body a choice in
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its action. Bergson’s theory of perception is a mutually coordinative, tightly integrated

system of psychophysical elements. It is this system I will now attempt to apply to an
examination of skilled motor activity.

Part II: Skilled Motor Behaviour

It can be said that while in the process of learning a skill, we slowly come to ‘know’ it.
How one then interprets the phrase ‘coming to know’ will determine a wider
understanding of what it means to ‘acquire a skill’. For example, if my goal is to ‘know’
how to play tennis, I must first learn to perform the various skills proper to that activity -
how to stroke the ball (presumably on both sides of my body), with a particular piece of
equipment (a tennis racquet), such that the ball is kept ‘in play’ over some vague period of
time. To acquire these skills, it is generally agreed,2 at least some degree of motor-memory
must be achieved such that the relevant skills will become more or less automatic to the
athlete (depending on the stage at which the skill has been acquired, the limitations of
environmental or physiological factors etc.). But by what process do skills such as these in
fact become ‘automatic’ (i.e., a part of motor-memory)?
There is an ongoing debate in sports science literature regarding the model upon
which to understand skill acquisition. The first model, often called the ‘cognitive’ or
‘information-processing’ model, is characterised generally as an executive or central
command system approach to motor behaviour (cf. Adams 1971; Anderson 1982). In its
most banal form, this model regards such behaviour to be part of a closed-loop process
between a given perception and an executive (central) response to that perception. In
particular, here, a memory trace selects and initiates a given movement plan, while a
relevant perceptual trace compares the movement in progress with the correct memory.
All of this is accomplished through a ‘central executive’ (brain centre) which directs the
process from its inception to its completion. Over time, theories began to develop that
took a very different approach to skill acquisition, and their emergence can be attributed
to the work of at least two pioneers in the field: Nikolai Bernstein and J.J. Gibson. Both
thinkers strongly resisted a centralist explanation of motor activity and skill acquisition: the
former due largely to what he termed ‘the degree of freedom problem’;3 and the latter,
due to the development of his own theory of ecological affordances.4 The specifics of each
thinker’s concerns need not detain us here. What is important to note, however, is that the
combination of these two approaches has led to new and different ways of understanding
motor activity and skill acquisition,5 and that the emergent trend that has developed bears
a good deal in common with Bergson’s own theory of perception.
Recall that for Bergson, perception begins in the body – more specifically, it begins
from the action (actual or possible) of that body. The entire bodily organism, including the
brain, is so constructed as to be but a transmission site for various stimulations and
movements such that, without the interruption of consciousness, the body would perform
in just the same way as any other image (i.e., a direct cause-effect relationship). In motor
memory, the body resolves to just this direct cause-effect condition – the activity
performed occurs without any intervention by consciousness. As Bergson (1912, 111)
notes, ‘[t]o know how to use a thing is to sketch out the movements which adapt
themselves to it; it is to take a certain attitude, or at least to have a tendency to do so
through . . . motor impulses’. For Bergson, to use something (or to ‘acquire a skill’) is to
have the ability to trace it out internally – it is for the body to ‘know’ the motor diagram
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from the inside. In this way, being in possession of a skill bears all three marks of a habit: it
demands (a) the repetition of the same effort; through (b) a decomposition, then a
recomposition of the whole action; and finally (c) is stored up in a mechanism, i.e., a closed
system of automatic movements which succeed each other in the same order (ibid., 89–
90). The first point here is uncontroversial: one would be hard pressed to find a theoretical
model for skill acquisition that would flat out deny repetition to constitute an integral part
of the process. The second point, however, demands some attention.
Bergson uses the terms ‘decomposition’ and ‘recomposition’ in reference to what is
happening when the body repeats a movement. By doing so, he presumably has
something like the following in mind: when repeating a movement, the body can in fact
be said to separate that movement into its discrete internal units (these ‘units’ being the
geometrical points along which the movement is traced) such that the movement can
then be put back together (recomposition) as the full, fluid motion the athlete will come to
experience as ‘the skilled action’ (stored bodily mechanism). In other words, it is only by
separating the movement into its internal units that the body can come to ‘understand it
internally’; and only by ‘understanding it internally’ can the body come to store that
movement as an automatic response. In this way, repetition leads to automatism; and,
prima facie at least, the idea has some appeal. But of course, it bears asking whether or not
there exists any empirical support for such an explanation. Dreyfus and Dreyfus, who in
1980 were commissioned by the AFSC (Air Force Office of Scientific Research) to write a
report on the issue of directed skill acquisition (and who have, subsequent to this,
continued to publish widely on the topic6) posited a five-stage approach to skill
acquisition based on their assessment of jazz improvisation techniques (Sudnow 1978),
chess mastery (De Groot 1965) and flight improvement among air force officers. For our
purposes, what is interesting to note is that stage 1 (novice) of Dreyfus and Dreyfus’s
approach literally takes up this notion of ‘decomposition’. They write: ‘The instruction
process begins by decomposing the task environment into context-free features which the
beginner can recognize without benefit of experience’ (Dreyfus and Dreyfus 1980, 7;
emphasis added). Now, on the surface there appears to be an important difference
between how Dreyfus and Dreyfus employ the term ‘decomposition’ in this context and
how it has been explained through the Bergsonian programme. Whereas for Bergson
‘decomposition’ is attributed to the action itself, for Dreyfus and Dreyfus ‘decomposition’
happens at the level of the environment in which the action will be performed. As it turns
out, however, these two ideas are actually not that far apart. Just how they aren’t will go a
long way toward establishing a model upon which to understand Bergson’s conception of
stored bodily mechanisms.
As alluded to earlier, J.J. Gibson proffered a theory of ecological affordances which
argues an organism’s actions to be direct responses to environmental conditions rather
than to executive commands issued from the brain. For Gibson, the environment tunes the
organism for action such that the organism’s movements spontaneously coordinate
around given environmental constraints.7 Take as an example the transition from ‘walking’
to ‘climbing’ when ascending towards a summit. What happens in this transition isn’t
based on the perception of a spectrum of properties to be deciphered by a memory trace
– rather, the transition is a direct consequence of changing environmental conditions (in
this case the mountain side’s becoming steeper).8 What is important to note is that,
according to Gibson’s theory (1977), there is an isomorphic relationship between the
environment and action – to speak of one is to, at the same time, speak of the other. And,
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for our purposes, this idea is helpful in showing how the Bergsonian notion of
‘decomposition’ is perfectly commensurable with the empirical studies done by Dreyfus
and Dreyfus.9 The task constraints offered by the environment (Gibson) induce a
decomposition of those environmental conditions (Dreyfus and Dreyfus 1980) which are
experienced simultaneously as a decomposition of the action itself (Bergson). In other
words, we decompose the environment at the same time - and even in the same way - as
we decompose our bodily action. And this whole process is what rounds out the final four
stages of the Dreyfus and Dreyfus model (1980, 8–14). In stages 2 and 3, the original
decomposition is recomposed through an awareness and recognition of the whole action
by the subject; while in stages 4 and 5, that whole action comes to be ‘stored in a
mechanism’ – ‘the learner discovers that without his consciously using any rules, situations
simply elicit from him appropriate responses’ (ibid., 12). In the way just described,
Bergson’s intuition regarding motor memory/skilled motor behaviour seems to have
legitimate support in sport science literature. But of course, a lot more work needs to be
done before we can justifiably claim that Bergson has relevance to the field. To do that, we
must not only explain what skilled motor behaviour is for Bergson; we must further explain
what it is to acquire and modify such skilled behaviour – and this latter explanation is an
aspect of Bergson’s philosophy that is both exciting and controversial.

Part III: Acquiring and Modifying Skilled Motor Behaviour

Information-processing models of skill acquisition have a very strong claim against
their direct perception rivals: whereas direct perception theories have a difficult time
accounting for the role of memory in the perceptual process, cognitive models generally
make memory the cornerstone of their theories (cf. Moran 1996, chapter 1). The strength
of this claim should be evident: clearly memory has something to do with skill acquisition
and execution – even some of the most noteworthy thinkers working on alternative
approaches to cognitive theories have come to admit as much (cf. Kelso 1995, 187–8;
Davids, Handford and Williams 1994, 516–17). Bergson lies somewhere between these two
approaches. In agreement with the cognitive approach, Bergson (1912, 313–16) makes
memory the cornerstone for his theory of perception; but unlike those approaches, he
vehemently rejects a reduction of memory to ‘brain-states’ or an executive control centre.
Instead, Bergson proposes his own unique conception of memory – one that is explained
as an emergent quality of consciousness based on an organism’s biological tendencies.
And once again, such an account bears points of reference to different ideas going on in
the field of sports science.
In relation to skilled motor behaviour, consciousness plays two important roles for
Bergson: (a) it directs the original acquisition of a skill towards becoming an automated
response of the bodily mechanism; and, in addition to this, (b) it directs the acquired skill-
set toward the execution of new and previously unexperienced movements. Consider the
following anecdote. Two tennis players take the court. Betty prepares to serve. Her
opponent, Fred, is awaiting that serve in the appropriate position. These two players have
played each other before, and Fred is confident he knows exactly what to expect from
Betty’s serve. Betty doesn’t have an especially powerful serve, but it is one that at least
deserves the respect of ‘regular positioning’ (i.e., a foot or two behind the baseline). Fred
suddenly becomes aware of a change. In but a moment, he notices that Betty has shifted
from an overhand to an underhand service position – something Fred had not
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experienced when playing Betty before! Fred is of course forced to adjust his expected
action, in turn making the appropriate changes to how he will respond to this new and
unanticipated situation.10
This anecdote intimates something that happens frequently in sport situations.
Often it is the case that when the athlete finds herself in the throes of competition, she will
have to respond to a number of variables she both did not anticipate, nor perhaps even
conceive of in advance of her performance. And incredibly, the athlete, more often than
not, responds well, and perhaps even naturally, to such unexpected circumstances. This
phenomenon – an ‘exclusively human phenomenon’, Bergson (1911, 183) notes – is
explained through what he calls a ‘process of attention’ (Bergson 1912, 127). Reflective
perception (i.e., perception that is strengthened and enriched by memory (ibid., 123–4) is
regarded as a circuit in which all elements (the memories, active and not, and the
perceived image) hold each other in a state of ‘mutual tension’. As Bergson writes,’ an act
of attention implies such a solidarity between the mind and its object, it is a circuit so well
closed, that we cannot pass to states of higher concentration without creating, whole and
entire, so many new circuits which envelop the first and have nothing in common with
them but the perceived object’ (ibid., 127) Due to this circuit (existing between an object
of perception and our memory), an object will continue to yield deeper and wider parts of
itself, while memory, at the same time, will develop an equivalently higher degree of
tension in order to project recollections towards it (ibid., 145). It is through this process
that Bergson’s account explains not only the role that consciousness plays in the original
acquisition of a skill, but the ‘creative’ role it plays with regard to executing the skill
according to the moment-by-moment adjustments that often need be made when faced
with the indeterminate details of any kind of sporting activity.
Now in some ways, Bergson’s description of a ‘process of attention’ gets perilously
close to the way a closed-loop information-processing account of memory and skill
acquisition would explain the issue. In both cases, an individual perception is both
informed and developed by reference to some relevant mental state (memory), such that
the circuit between the perception and memory will come to output a relevant response,
ostensibly experienced as a bodily action. But there is a crucial difference between the two
approaches, and it is one that bears with it deep philosophical implications for the
Bergsonian programme. There are two significant concerns, often mentioned by rivals of
information-processing approaches to skill acquisition, that call into question the
theoretical viability of such approaches. Bergson shares these concerns. The first concern
is called ‘the storage problem’ – it is this: it seems unreasonable, and maybe even
empirically untenable (cf. Bernstein 1967) that incredibly complicated sets of skills come to
be ‘stored’ as motor programs in the brain; there are simply far too many discrete
movement patterns for one executive to handle. For his part, Bergson provides a very
straightforward response to this concern: these skills aren’t ‘stored’ in the brain at all – they
are stored in the body as a mechanism, or exist as representational memories which are
only virtually in existence (i.e., until of course they become inserted into an actual
perception). But how Bergson will respond to the next concern – and especially the
concern that falls out from it – is where he will really begin to carve out his own space in
the field. We can call this second concern ‘the homunculus problem’. It asks: if motor
information is processed in a way analogous to a closed-looped system (such as a
computer program), what exactly is acting as the executive governing that system? Is it
some kind of Cartesian homunculus? God, perhaps?11 This concern becomes especially
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pesky when considering new and previously unexperienced muscle-joint groupings. Here,
‘the homunculus problem’ seems quite naturally to lead to a third concern – let’s call it ‘the
creativity problem’ – which questions how a deterministic model for skill acquisition can
successfully account for the intuitive ‘creative’ aspect involved in much skilled motor
behaviour. And interestingly, this periphery concern ended up being almost more
devastating to the alternative models that first launched these critical attacks against the
information-processing model than it was to that model itself. Take, for example, the direct
perception model. According to that model, the subject’s perception (and resultantly,
action) is a direct response to environmental conditions. How then, one may legitimately
ask, can the subject be said to improve that skilled action within the same environmental
conditions? It seems an inescapable conclusion of that theory that the same subject would
move in the very same way when put into the same environmental situation. But this
conclusion doesn’t seem to hold up to empirical scrutiny (cf. Ullman 1980). Even more to
the point, in a recent article, Eriksen levels a similar concern at the Dreyfus and Dreyfus
model for skill execution. Recall that, upon that model, as an athlete becomes more
proficient, she becomes more intuitive. Or, in other words, she becomes ‘less conscious’:
‘According to Dreyfus and Dreyfus, the very nature of intuitive behaviour implies that no
accessible or conscious thoughts are produced during this kind of skill execution. Explicit
thoughts and reflection are not necessary because the response to the situation relies on
bodily dispositions that react immediately to the specific situation’ (Eriksen 2010, 79). In
both cases, these theories avoid ‘the homunculus problem’, only to get caught in the net
of ‘the creativity problem’. In other words, the determinism that crops up in their
approaches isn’t ‘in the head’ (information-processing theories), but ‘in the environment’
(Gibson) or some kind of combination of the two (Dreyfus and Dreyfus). But the
Bergsonian programme doesn’t suffer from this shortfall. Bergson has an interesting way
to get around ‘the problem of creativity’ in motor action, and it is one that shares a similar
structure to another approach recently developed in sports science literature.
The dynamic systems approach to action first took its lead from studies done in the
fields of mathematics and the physical sciences.12 According to such an approach, motor
skill execution is an emergent phenomenon that arises from the constituent elements of a
complex dynamical system – not a set of instructions issued by a central executive, or as a
direct consequence of environmental conditions. As Jane E. Clark outlines in her article ‘On
Becoming Skillful’ (1995), movements emerge in a dynamical system according to four
criteria: (a) to the constraints at hand – of the organism, the environment and the intended
task (cf. Newell 1986), e.g., a movement to pick up a heavy rock will emerge differently than
will a movement to scoop a handful of sand; (b) to the self-organisation of the system –
from a state of disequilibrium to equilibrium, according to the constraints undergone; (c)
to the patterns that emerge according to the particular tendencies of a given virtual state
space (i.e., a geometrical model for all possible states of a dynamical system) which map
out the ‘attractors’ for that space;13 and (d) to the stability of the dynamical system as
represented by these ‘attractors’ (Clark 1995). What Clark has shown by outlining these
four criteria is that the emergence of movement is not as mechanistic as information-
processing models would have you believe; nor is it as underdeveloped as direct
perception models propose. It is a non-linear emergent process that develops according to
how a number of tendencies particular to the system at hand (in this case, a biological
system) come to be organised in relation to each other. That organisation is not
necessarily an unpredictable one (emergent phenomena do show patterns), but it doesn’t
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therefore follow the same deterministic blueprint as do the classic mechanistic models it
sets itself against.
Now, there are no doubt many important questions that need be addressed in
relation to a theory as complicated as this one.14 However, for the purposes of this paper,
it will be enough to show how a dynamic systems approach to motor activity bears points
of commensurability to the Bergsonian programme; and, more precisely, that these points
will help to explain the very unique way Bergson can overcome ‘the creativity problem’ in
relation to skilled motor execution. Let us quickly recount where we are at this stage: as
was explained in reference to Bergson’s idea of ‘a process of attention’, there is a ‘circuit’
that is created between the perceived image and the representational memory for that
image, such that ‘the external object yields to us deeper and deeper parts of itself, as our
memory adopts a correspondingly higher degree of tension in order to project
recollections towards it’ (Bergson 1912, 145). Here, the image does not spontaneously
trigger a stored memory schema for some action (cf. Schidmt 1975 and Adams 1971);
rather, it builds tension around a particular representational memory, ‘attracting’ to it
certain tendencies that will be taken up by the body. And the key for Bergson is this: all of
this is done under the auspice of consciousness. It is the positive, free character of
consciousness – that oft-criticised spiritual aspect of Bergson’s philosophy (cf. Russell 1977;
Santayana 1913; Heidegger 1962, esp. sections 5, 10, and 82; and Piaget 1972) – that will
open his approach past the purely deterministic models employed by alternative theories.
This ‘free aspect of consciousness’ is of course not an unfettered one: the ‘possibility space’
for the emergent action is characterised topologically in terms of its ‘attractors’ – i.e., those
‘singular’ points in the state space which have the highest probability of being actualised
(cf. DeLanda 2002, 22–7). But it too isn’t fully determined: for Bergson, consciousness is a
spiritual matter – not an epiphenomenal one: ‘to touch the reality of spirit we must place
ourselves at the point where individual consciousness, continuing and retaining the past
in the present enriched by it, thus escapes the law of necessity’ (Bergson 1912, 313). As
explained by Clark, ‘attractors’ will be generated by the environmental and intentional
constraints of the situation. Translated into Bergsonian language, this just means that it
will be according to these constraints that the degree of tension undergone by the
memory contraction towards the present perception will be developed. But these
constraints do not fully determine the action – consciousness has a discerning, and
therefore creative, capacity in choosing which memory will ultimately come to inhabit the
perception. In a word: for Bergson, the emergent creative action isn’t determined ‘in
advance’ of the performance (a stored action sequence that linearly and mechanistically
leads to a corresponding movement) but is determined through performing the action
itself. That action, like all other actions, will then become part of the determined past,
which will contribute in time to further shape the singular points of salience (‘attractors’) of
the state space for all ‘yet-to-be-determined’ future action.
We are now finally in a position to provide a robust Bergsonian explanation for the
unanticipated situation encountered earlier in this section by our tennis player Frank. In
such situations, consciousness will select among the number of applicable memory
contractions the one that it will eventually insert into the bodily mechanism of the athlete.
That selection will be constrained by the ‘attractors’ of the particular state space; or, in
Bergsonian language, by the mutual tension built up around the present perception and
the memory being contracted towards that perception (e.g., Frank has seen a ‘short ball’
before; he has previously experienced a ball that was hit ‘underhand’; and so on). Finally,
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11

through the insertion of the selected representational memory into Frank’s bodily
mechanism, an adjustment to his internal motor diagram occurs such that his ostensible
action takes on a more appropriate form to what was initially anticipated. In situations like
these, we get a clear picture of the role consciousness (memory) plays in aiding the athlete
in her performance. It is consciousness that will contract for Bergson the appropriate
memories to help the athlete with the myriad novel situations she will experience each and
every time she is asked to perform her skill. And in this way, Bergson seems to have provided
at least some kind of a response to one of the most difficult hurdles facing any theory of
motor activity: viz., what accounts for the creative aspect of such activities? Whether his
response is convincing in all of its particulars is not altogether of immediate importance. Of
more importance is the general lesson Bergson’s approach to motor skill acquisition can
teach us: first, that there is a pragmatic character inherent to all motor activity; second, that
memory plays a vital role in such activity; third, that memory is primarily a function of
consciousness, not of (deterministic) brain-states; and finally, that movements emerge
according to the interplay between the freedom of consciousness and the constraints of a
given perceptual framework. Two of these lessons (the first and the second), I have shown to
bear much in common with more developed, empirically confirmed, theories in the field of
sports science. It is my hope that the present work will at least stimulate some discussion
regarding the other two ‘scientifically less palatable’ lessons.

NOTES
1. The difficulty has led some to dismiss Bergson’s whole philosophical approach as
‘mystical’: cf. Russell (1957, 13–17).
2. Cf., e.g., Criscimagna-Hemming and Shadmehr (2008); Atwell, Cooke, and Yeo (2002); and
Brashers-Krug, Shadmehr, and Bizzi (1996).
3. Degrees of freedom in action sequences are just the combinatory ways an action can be
performed through different muscle-to-joint groupings (human body ¼ 790 muscles x
100 joints, ignoring axes of rotation: Kugler, 1986). The ‘problem’, outlined by Bernstein,
is that the executive sequence ordering system that is supposed to account for each
unique combination appears to have less degrees of freedom than do the innervational
impulses – cf. Bernstein (1967) and Reed (1982, 108–9). It is a problem best expressed
through the many empirical findings by Bernstein and his associates that the same action
could be performed by different sets of muscle-to-joint sequences; and alternatively, that
the same sets of muscle-to-joint sequences could produce more than one corresponding
action.
4. Gibson’s theory of affordances is an evolutionary theory in which the environment offers
to organisms invariable conditions that are specially apt to induce particular actions by
those organisms – ‘what we perceive when we look at [objects] are their affordances, not
their qualities’ (Gibson 1977, 75).
5. In particular, I’m thinking here of ‘actions systems theory’ (cf. Reed 1982; Turvey 1991)
and, more directly, ‘dynamic systems theory’ (cf. Kelso 1995; McMorris, 2004; and Glazier,
Davids and Bartlett 2003).
6. Cf. (among others), Dreyfus (2002); Dreyfus, Dreyfus and Duesund (2003); Dreyfus and
Dreyfus (2005; 2007).
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7. For a clear explanation of Gibson’s theory of perception, cf. Davids, Handford and
Williams (1994, 508–9).
8. For empirical studies supporting a Gibsonian direct-perception theory, cf. Turvey (1977;
991); Turvey and Kugler (1984); von Hofsten (1979); Hay and Koth (1988); and
Savelsbergh, Whiting and Bootsma (1991).
9. It is my contention that there is significant enough overlap between all of these thinkers
that drawing this relation is, for hermeneutic purposes, perfectly legitimate. All three
expressly avoid a reduction of the perceptual process to a central processing model. All
three promote an embodied or phenomenological approach to action. The similarities I
point to in this section do not extend beyond these areas of commensurability.
10 Incidentally, this anecdote finds its support in history: 15th seeded Michael Chang
defeated world number one Ivan Lendl in an early round of the 1989 French Open using
an underhand serve. Some claim that it was the lack of conventionality of Chang’s serve
that led to the victory (see Garber 2009).
11 For a good treatment of the limitation of the Cartesian approach to movement, cf.
Hogen (2009).
12 For a good overview of these theories, cf. Luenberger (1979); or Strogatz (1994).
13 For a more detailed philosophical treatment of virtual state spaces and their ‘attractors’,
cf. DeLanda (2002, 9–41; especially the section devoted to ‘Deleuze’s ontological
interpretation of state space’, 26–30).
14 For more on dynamic systems theory in relation to biomechanics, cf. Glazier, Davids and
Bartlett (2003).

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Geoffrey Callaghan, McMaster University, Philosophy, 1280 Main Street West, Hamilton,
Ontario, L8S 4L8 Canada. E-mail: geoff_cali@hotmail.com