F.H. Bradley and the Unreality of Motion

“Motion implies that which is moved is in two places in one time.”

In Chapter V of Appearance and Reality, F.H. Bradley argues against the reality of motion. He holds that the difficulties of motion stem from the problem of the One and the Many: the problem of reconciling and harmonizing Unity with Diversity and Identity with Successiveness. Bradley introduces the dilemma of motion thus:

“Motion implies that which is moved is in two places in one time; and this seems not possible. That motion implies two places is obvious; that these places are successive is no less obvious. But, on the other hand, it is clear that the process must have a unity. The thing moved must be one; and, again, the time must be one. If the time were only many times, out of relation, and not parts of a single temporal whole, then no motion would be found. But if the time is one, then, as we have seen, it cannot also be many. A common “explanation” is to divide both the space and the time into discrete corresponding units, taken literally ad libitum. The lapse in this case is supposed to fall somehow between them. But, as a theoretical solution, the device is childish. Greater velocity would in this case be quite impossible; and a lapse, falling between timeless units, has really, as we have seen, no meaning. And where the unity of these lapses, which makes the one duration, is to be situated, we, of course, are not, and could not be, informed. And how this inconsistent mass is related to the identity of the body moved is again unintelligible.” (Bradley, Appearance and Reality, 37) [My emphasis]

In order to fully appreciate the thrust of Bradley’s argument—and his very brief presentation thereof—it is necessary to cover the morphology of “motion,” and its core features: Thing, Place, and Time.

Thing:

Now, a moving thing must be self-identical—it must be One throughout its movement. The thing is a “continuant” or an “endurant,” and it “continues” or “endures” in and through its movement.

Place:

Motion, as Bradley says, implies two places, A and B. Clearly, these two places are different and antagonistic—they repel and exclude each other in space; or, to use a metaphor, they “recede” and “diverge” from each other. The “separateness” and mutual-exclusivity of these two points, A and B, is evidenced by the fact that they are “pushed apart” (to use another metaphor) by a kind of intangible “filling.” This intangible “filling” is “diffused” or “outspreaded” between the two points (it has a sort of “thickness” or “voluminousness” to it—in a negative sense, since there is no tangible “thing” or “body” that has or possesses the “thickness” or “voluminousness” in question). This negative “diffusion” or “outspreadedness” prevents the two points, A and B, from either collapsing “into” each other, or collapsing into a third point that lies half-way “between” them; it secures the integrity of the “here” and “there” by ensuring that the “here” remains “here” and does not “fall” into the “there,” and that the “there” remains “there” and does not “fall” into the “here.”

Time:

Furthermore, the span of time in and through which the motion occurs must itself be One—it must be a “solid” and “indivisible” duration (e.g., a “specious present”—a felt “Now”). But what is “unified” and “solidified” in and through this period? What “fills” this One time? A duality of aspects: On the one side, we have a “flowing stretch” wherein the object is “here”-and-swelling-into-the-“there”; on the other side, we have a “flowing stretch” wherein the object is “there”-and-fading-from-the-“here”.) The “unity” and “indivisibility” of the period or duration “concentrates” and “fuses” these two aspects into a “fluid” and “continuous” whole—into an “uninterrupted and unitary slide.” If the time-span or period in and through which motion unfolds was not a One, but a Many, then the life-blood of motion—unity, fluidity, and continuity—would vanish. When Bradley speaks of taking the “one time” (i.e., the One, indivisible, unitary, and “filled” duration) as being “many times”, he is alluding to any standpoint which denies the “lapse” the characteristic of “indivisibility.” This alternative view conceives the “lapse” as consisting of an infinity of punctiform and serially-arranged, lapse-less instants (i.e., durationless “Nows”). The following diagram is an illustration of the “punctiform” view that Bradley quickly rejects. 

“If the time were only many times...then no motion would be found.”

For Bradley, such an option is futile. Bradley’s worry is that such a view fails to take the motion seriously—indeed, it doesn’t account for the “continuity” and “fluidity” of movement in the slightest. There would never be a time when an object is in motion; for, every object would be fixed and immobile at every point-instant—an object would be stationed at a point in space at each moment in time (i.e., a “Now”). Motion does not consist in a serial arrangement of abrupt, static, and violent “jerks” and “jolts”—regardless of whether these “jerks” and “jolts” happen at point-instants or are themselves relations “between” point-instants (neither of which appears intelligible in its own right). On the contrary, to borrow an expression from William James, motion is “without breach, crack, or division.” Or, in the words of Henri Bergson, motion is a “solid and undivided whole.” Motion is legato, not staccato. 

If motion’s “salvation” requires its richness and qualitative splendor to perish, let motion be damned—for there is nothing left of it to be “saved.” We would be left with a fictitious abstraction—a barren, mathematical conception of a “something” that can’t be called “motion.” Indeed, motion—or what is left of it—would be reduced to the “annihilation” of an object from one point, at one moment, only for it to “reappear” at another point, at another moment—surely, that is not “motion.” Ironically, motion’s “salvation” necessitates its unreality. 

The Contradiction:

“Motion implies that which is moved is in two places in one time.”

For Bradley, motion’s unreality stems from a restlessness and self-discrepancy embedded within its internal-structure. Similar to how the two points, A and B, (i.e., the “here” and the “there”), “exclude” and “repel” each other in space, motion’s two internal aspects—two “flowing stretches”—end up “excluding” and “repelling” each other within the process itself. The “stretch” wherein the object is “here”-and-swelling-into-the-“there” must precede the “stretch” wherein the object is “there”-and-fading-from-the-“here”. Likewise, the “stretch” wherein the object is “there”-and-fading-from-the-“here” must succeed the “stretch” wherein the object is “here”-and-swelling-into-the-“there”.

The moving object’s occupation of point A (i.e., the “here”) “falls” inside the earlier “flow;” and the moving object’s occupation of point B (i.e., the “there”) “falls” inside the later “flow.” But motion involves the “concentrating” and “fusing” of these two successive “flows” into a “solid” and “indivisible” unit—One time. And such a result implies that the two points, A and B, are both occupied by the moving object in One time. And so, we find that “Motion implies that which is moved is in two places in one time.” Thus, motion is unreal—it is an appearance.