Bergson’s Approach to Social Structures: The Centrality of Openness

Abstract

In this paper I examine the nature of social structures and argue that creative nonlinearity would appear to be a fundamental character of any open system. I begin with a re-clarification of Bergson’s central concept of ‘intuition’ and explain this is better understood – and better translated – as ‘insight’. I move on to examine the nature of societies by a discussion of a number of uses of Bergsonian thinking in business management. I consider the relationship between business and time and use Popper and Emmet to shed like on Pigogine’s understanding of open systems. I conclude by suggesting that, from a Bergsonian perspective, the contemporary recognition that a company is an open system requires the recognition that company building is not a matter of the achievement of stability but is, in contrast, a process of implicit knowledge building far from equilibrium.