1133 MLN MLN 120 (2005): 1133–1145 © 2006 by The Johns Hopkins University Press The Virtual, the Symbolic, and the Actual in Bergsonian Philosophy and Durkheimian Sociology ❦ Frédéric Keck Today, we have a problem with the symbolic. Psychoanalysts explain “abnormal” acts as violations of a symbolic order inscribed in the unconscious by culture, and cognitivists conceive “normal” minds as computational machines manipulating natural symbols through logi- cal inference. Yet we still don’t know what is a symbolic rule or a symbolic norm or symbolic efficacy, and we still need a word to understand how language affects our daily life at the most intimate level. Concepts are not just arbitrary constructions: they point toward a reality, which they can also obscure. They are like dresses on a body; they can become used and old-fashioned, they may have always been badly cut, but we need to use them, otherwise we would be naked and dumb. The concept of the symbolic has become so over-determined that it has uncovered a phenomenon that we have yet to see and describe. Henri Bergson’s philosophy, since it is a method for identifying problems and clarifying concepts, can be a useful tool that can recast the problem of the symbolic in new terms today. We need to understand the mode of existence of language, the way it affects the life of our body, the constraints it imposes on our freedom, the forms of inventions and repetitions it allows—all themes that are central in Bergson’s philosophy. We can, therefore, find here lines of problema- tization of the symbolic which might be useful for today. Two lines of problematization can be drawn in Bergson’s work. First, we can show