Bergson, Time and Free Will, Ch 1, §31 "Intensity and Pitch. The Part Played by Muscular Effort"

by Corry Shores
[Search Blog Here. Index-tags are found on the bottom of the left column.]

[Central Entry Directory]
[Bergson, Entry Directory]
[Bergson Time and Free Will, Entry Directory]

[The following is summary; my commentary is in brackets.]

Bergson, Time and Free Will

(Essai sur les données immédiates de la conscience)

Chapter I, "The Intensity of Psychic States"

Part X: "Sensation of Sound"

§31 "Intensity and Pitch. The Part Played by Muscular Effort"

Sounds can vary in pitch. It might seem that we sense a higher pitch as somehow being greater than a lower pitch. (44-45) In the very least, we usually visualize higher pitches as taking a higher place spatially than lower ones.

But we also note that to make a higher note requires greater effort. Hence we make the mistake of considering higher notes as causing greater intensities of sensation.

Also, high notes resonate more toward our heads, and low notes closer to our chest. Hence we visualize higher notes as taking-up a higher place along a vertical axis. Also, to make higher notes, we must move our vocal muscles upward.

And, because physicists measure higher notes as having higher frequencies, we think that our impression of them as being greater has been vindicated. However, if we disregard the muscular efforts used to produce higher notes, we would find them only qualitatively different, and not quantitatively different. (46b)

[Next entry in this series.]

Images from the pages summarized above, in the English Translation [click on the image for an enlargement]:

Images from the pages summarized above, in the original French [click on the image for an enlargement]:

Bergson, Henri. Time and Free Will: An Essay on the Immediate Data of Consciousness, Transl. F. L. Pogson, (New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 2001).

Available online at:

http://www.archive.org/details/timeandfreewill00pogsgoog

French text from:

Bergson, Henri. Essai sur les données immédiates de la conscience. Originally published Paris: Les Presses universitaires de France, 1888.

http://www.archive.org/details/essaisurlesdonn00berguoft