Methodology and Time

Author: Aisha (Research Scholar)

Kant and Bergson have quite different views on space and time. So we might be led to believe that one is right and the other wrong, or while we uphold one, we need to reject the other. My suggestion is that their theories can be read as complementary rather than contradictory if we think about the methodology that each philosopher has applied.

The focus of this piece will be on time – how Kant and Bergson’s different methodologies shape their theories of time. I won’t be talking about space. Kant speaks of time as a formal structure of experience, whereas Bergson speaks of time or duration (la durée) as he calls it, as a dynamic, lived reality.

Kant’s Methodology

Kant’s view of time is part of his critical philosophy. Kant’s methodology is transcendental. He is looking for the a priori conditions that make experience possible. He shows that time is a necessary condition of experience and knowledge. By establishing the subjective a priori conditions necessary for knowledge, he wants to mark the boundary of human cognition. And also give synthetic a priori judgments a firm foundation. This is the focus of his critical project in the Critique of Pure Reason. Knowledge is empirical, and its subject is the range of spatiotemporal appearances.

Thus, the transcendental method investigates not the objects of experience themselves, but the conditions that make experiencing them possible. For instance:

Instead of asking, “What is this object?”, Kant asks, “What are the necessary conditions for this object to be perceived and understood?”

Why the transcendental method?

First of all, we all know of Kant’s famous statement that Hume woke him up from his dogmatic slumber. Philosophy, so far, was steeped in speculative or transcendent (transcending experience) metaphysics. Kant expounded his critical philosophy and adopted the transcendental method to offer a defence of the metaphysics that is necessary to hold together the framework of experience, i.e. metaphysics of experience or immanent (internal to experience) metaphysics.

Second, transcendental realism contended that time subsists on its own, i.e. independently of objects, or that time inheres in the objects. Against this, Kant presents us with transcendental idealism, i.e. time is nothing other than the subjective condition under which all intuitions can take place.

Third, Berkeley’s idealism maintained that objects are subject-dependent. Kant’s critical idealism regards only those conditions to be subject-dependent that enable the objects to be objects of experience. To say that the subject constitutes its objects is therefore not to say that objects are created by our representations.

Bergson’s Methodology

Bergson adopts a phenomenological and intuitive method, focusing on how time is experienced rather than how it structures cognition. He emphasises direct, lived engagement with duration beyond abstract reasoning. For Bergson, knowledge is not abstract but experiential and rooted in time as it is lived.

He criticises Kant’s approach for intellectualising time and emphasises the need to reconnect with the immediacy of lived experience. In An Introduction to Metaphysics, he writes, “It (intelligence)  can place itself within the mobile reality, and adopt its ceaselessly changing direction; in short, can grasp it by means of that intellectual sympathy which we call intuition. The mind… has to reverse the direction of the operation by which it habitually thinks, has perpetually to revise, or rather to recast, all its categories.”    

Regarding Bergson’s method, Deleuze says in Bergsonism: “Intuition is not a feeling, an inspiration, or a disorderly sympathy, but a methodologically prepared effort to enter into the thing itself.” Deleuze, interpreting Bergson, presents intuition as a philosophical method— a rigorous way of knowing that moves beyond abstraction into the becoming of things.

Hence, lived experience has been extolled as the starting point of philosophy, not abstract deduction. Thus, genuine knowledge of time—and by extension, of life—is an act of sympathy with becoming, rooted not in abstraction, but in the deep, experiential flow of consciousness.

Kant’s theory of time

Time is a form of sensibility that structures all inner and outer experience. As a universal and necessary form, it is not derived from experience.

Time is a single, continuous and divisible whole. A helpful analogy is a blank sheet of paper: it is uniform, featureless, and undifferentiated. Any point on the paper is identical to any other, except in terms of its relative location—left, right, top, bottom. Similarly, we can say Kant’s time is homogeneous, in the sense that it is neutral; every moment is interchangeable, and its identity is defined solely by where it falls in the temporal flow (e.g., “yesterday,” “today,” “tomorrow”).

Bergson’s theory of time

Time is lived. It is qualitative and heterogeneous, in that every moment is qualitatively different from the rest.

If we divide the flow of time into measurable packets, we lose its very essence as it’s a flow where moments interpenetrate rather than neatly succeeding each other. Divisible and measurable time is a spatialized abstraction.

One is represented by space (or rather, by the impure combination of homogeneous time): It is a multiplicity of exteriority, simultaneity, juxtaposition, order, quantitative differentiation, difference in degree. The other type of multiplicity appears in pure duration: It is an internal multiplicity of succession, fusion, organisation, heterogeneity, qualitative discrimination, or difference in kind; it is a virtual and continuous multiplicity that cannot be reduced to numbers

Philosophical implications

For Kant, time becomes an a priori subjective form for experience and knowledge.

For Bergson, time is the ground of freedom, creativity, and becoming.

The difference in their methodologies makes them emphasise different aspects of time relevant to their objectives. Kant foregrounds universality and objectivity, Bergson subjectivity and becoming.

Author Bio: Aisha is a PhD scholar in Philosophy at the University of Delhi.
Curious and reflective by nature, she engages deeply with ideas through the Socratic method and draws on Stoic principles to inform her thinking. As an existential feminist, Aisha explores themes of freedom, responsibility, and authenticity in lived experience. She is an active contributor to the Philotreat community, known for her active presence and thoughtful insights. For her, philosophy is not just an academic pursuit—but a meaningful way of life. 
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