Thursday, September 12, 2019

Acceleration and Life-Force

Via Calculus, Physicists can only approximate, no matter how closely, to to the continuity of Motion.  In contrast, if, as Kant proposes, there is a Schematism, then there is also a direct perception of Motion to which their representation approximates.  Accordingly, Bergson's criticism that Physics spatializes Duration does not necessarily apply to Schematism.  But even granted one or the other means of a direct perception of Motion, neither explains Acceleration, which consists in not merely Motion, but an increase in rate, thereby leaving the objective actuality of Acceleration still in question.  However, despite his innovation, Bergson shares with Kant, and with most of theorists of Temporality, the attribution to Time of mere Continuation.  So, little attention is given to how Newton's discovery of a correlation between Force and Acceleration might apply to a special case of the former---Life-Force.  In other words, even Bergson does not consider that the essential character of Temporality is not mere Continuation, but Growth, on the basis of which Continuation a special case.  So, if the Temporality of a Human is essentially Growth, then so, too, is that of Schematism, from which it follows that there is an Epistemological ground of the direct perception of Acceleration.

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