"Some other faculty than the intellect is necessary for the apprehension of reality"

Henri Bergson’s assertion, “Some other faculty than the intellect is necessary for the apprehension of reality,” challenges the dominance of rational analysis as the sole path to understanding the world. For Bergson, the intellect, with its emphasis on abstract reasoning and logical division, is fundamentally constructed to serve action and manipulation of the external world. While it excels at categorizing, distinguishing, and conceptualizing, it inevitably distorts or fragments the continuous flow that comprises reality itself.

Reality, according to Bergson, is dynamic, fluid, and ever-changing, more akin to a living process than to a fixed object that can be dissected and studied from afar. The intellect, by slicing this undivided continuity into static concepts, offers only a partial and often misleading image of the wholeness of phenomena. Where the intellect falters, Bergson proposes another mode of engagement: intuition. Intuition, as he uses the term, refers not to haphazard guesswork but to a deeper, more immediate sympathy or identification with the flow of experience itself. Rather than standing outside and analyzing, intuition involves entering into the movement of reality, feeling its rhythm, and grasping the qualitative essence that eludes intellectual abstraction.

This perspective has lasting significance for philosophy, psychology, and even art. The drive to master the world through analysis has led to immense advances, but it may also occlude aspects of experience that cannot be reduced to measurable data or intelligible categories. Emotional depth, the texture of lived time, the uniqueness of individual moments, all these resist being grasped solely by intellect. Bergson therefore calls for a broader understanding of knowing, in which cognitive faculties are complemented by sensibility, empathy, and a direct, participatory engagement with the world. Only by cultivating such faculties can one hope to encounter reality in its full vibrancy and complexity.