## 1. Life and works



Bergson was born in Paris on October 18, 1859; he was the second of
seven children of a Polish Father and English mother; both of his
parents were Jewish. Bergson was a notably exceptional pupil
throughout his childhood. Like his German contemporary, Edmund
Husserl, Bergson's original training was in mathematics. Bergson
won the first prize in mathematics for the prestigious "Concours
General," which led to the publication of his
solution to a problem by Pascal in 1877. Bergson nevertheless chose to
prepare for the Ecole Normale in the letters and humanities
section. His math teacher, disappointed, famously claimed, "you
could have been a mathematician; you will be a mere philosopher"
(quoted in Soulez & Worms 2002, p. 35).



In 1878, Bergson became a French citizen, although he could have
chosen English citizenship. He was accepted at the Ecole
Normale along with Jean Jaures and Emile Durkheim. He
discovered Herbert Spencer with enthusiasm, and studied under
Felix Ravaisson and Jules Lachelier. Bergson graduated from the
Ecole Normale in 1881. He was the second best at the highly
selective Agregation de Philosophie, thanks to a lecture
entitled "What is the value of contemporary psychology?"
He began a teaching post in Angers at the high school (the
lycee), and then moved to Clermont-Ferrand. There he taught
both at the Lycee and the University for the next five
years.



His first scholarly publication was in 1886, in the Revue
Philosophique; "On Unconscious Simulation in States of
Hypnosis" concerns the results of his observations at sessions
of hypnosis. Notice that Freud and Breuer's *Studies on
Hysteria* did not appear until 1896. This foreshadowed
Bergson's growing interest in the role of unconscious memories
within recognition--an interest that culminates in his being
elected president of the London based Society for Psychical Research
in 1913. In 1888, Bergson submitted two doctoral theses in Paris:
Essai sur les donnees immediates de la conscience,
published as a book (*Time and Free Will*) in 1889; and the
then required Latin thesis, Quid Aristoteles de loco senserit
(*Aristotle's Conception of Place*). In 1927, in a
footnote to *Being and Time*, Heidegger cited this second
thesis, claiming that Bergson's view of time remains within the
horizon of Greek metaphysics.



Bergson's second book, *Matter and Memory*, appeared in
1896. This book led to Bergson's election to the College
de France. In his second attempt, Bergson succeeded at obtaining a
post, and teaches at the Ecole Normale for two years starting
in 1898 (Soulez et Worms, 2002, pp. 80-81). The Dreyfus Affair
was raging, but Bergson (a Jew by birth) refused to take part in the
public debate. Bergson published *Laughter: an Essay on the Meaning
of the Comic* in 1900. He was appointed Chair of Ancient
Philosophy at the prestigious College de France. This marked
the beginning of his growing fame. In 1903, Bergson published, in the
prestigious Revue de metaphysique et de morale, an article
entitled "Introduction to Metaphysics" (later reproduced
as the centerpiece of *The Creative Mind* [*La Pensee
et le mouvant*] in 1934). The first of Bergson's works to be
translated in many languages, this article not only became a crucial
reading guide for Bergson's philosophy as a whole, but it also
marked the beginning of "Bergsonism" and of its influence
on Cubism and literature. Through Williams James's enthusiastic
reading of this essay, Bergsonism acquired a far-reaching influence on
American Pragmatism. Moreover, his imprint on American literature (in
particular, Wallace Stevens and Willa Cather, who created a character
called "Alexandra Bergson") is undeniable.



*Creative Evolution* appeared in 1907 and was not only the
source of the "Bergson legend," as well as of numerous,
lively academic and public controversies centering on his philosophy
and his role as an intellectual. The beginning of the next decade is
the apex of the "Bergsonian cult" ("le Bergson
boom"). *Creative Evolution* was translated into English.
Bertrand Russell (who publishes an article entitled "The
Philosophy in Bergson" in *The Monist* in 1912) objected
that Bergson wants to turn us into bees with the notion of intuition.
Russell also noted that any attempt at classifying Bergson would fail,
as his philosophy cuts across all divisions, whether empiricist,
realist or idealist (Soulez et Worms 2002, p. 124). Bergson's
lectures at the College de France were filled to capacity, not
only with society ladies and their suitors, but also with a whole
generation of philosophy students (Etienne Gilson and Jean Wahl
among others) and poets such as T.S. Eliot.



In January 1913, Bergson visited the United States for the first time
(Soulez et Worms 2002, p. 134). The week before he delivered his first
lecture at Columbia University (entitled "Spirituality and
Liberty"), The New York Times published a long article on him.
The enthusiasm this article generated may explain the traffic jam that
occurred before Bergson's lecture, the first traffic jam in the
history of Broadway. In the same year, Bergson gave the Presidential
Address, entitled "Phantasms of the Living and Psychical
Research," to the Society for Psychical Research in London,
England. The next year Bergson was elected a member of the
Academie Francaise; he was the first Jewish member in
its history. He also presented courses at the College de France
on Modern Philosophy and Spinoza. His international fame continued to
grow through the delivery of the Gifford Lecture at Edinburgh
University in Scotland in May and June; the lectures were called
"The Problem of Personality." Finally, in the same year,
the Roman Catholic Church, in opposition to evolutionary theory,
condemned Bergson's philosophy.



Of course, in the middle of this decade, war broke out, and Bergson
entered his political career, which took him first to Spain in 1917
(Soulez et Worms 2002, p.150). But more importantly, the French
government sent him to the United-States as a diplomatic emissary to
meet President Wilson (Soulez et Worms 2002, p. 154; see also Soulez
1989). After his first visit to the United States in 1913, he had
thought that peace would come only from Washington, D.C. (Soulez et
Worms 2002, p. 139). After his visit to Washington, Bergson said,
"I have just lived unforgettable hours. Humanity appeared to me
transfigured. [...] France was saved. It was the greatest joy of
my life." At this time, Bergson was also working with
Wilson's government to form a "league of nations," a
body that would include representatives of all nations and that would
aim at establishing and maintaining peace. The League of Nations
remained in existence until 1946, when it was replaced by the United
Nations.  Increasingly Bergson became more famous for his
political actions than for his philosophy.



1919 saw the publication of Bergson's *Mind Energy*, a
collection of essays concerned with metaphysical and psychological
problems. During the same year he retired from his teaching duties.
However, in 1922, Bergson was appointed president of the International
Commission for Intellectual Cooperation -- the precursor to
UNESCO. There, Bergson participated in a debate with Einstein, which,
according to Merleau-Ponty, seems to testify to a "crisis of
reason."  Bergson published his reflections on Einstein as
*Duration and Simultaneity* (see *Melanges*,
1972). There is some controversy surrounding this book. Bergson
allowed the book to be reprinted up to the sixth edition in 1931.
However Edouard Le Roy claims in a letter from 1953 (well after
Bergson's death) that he often spoke with Bergson about
relativity. Le Roy says, "[Bergson] added with insistence that
the defective state of his knowledge of mathematics did not allow him
to follow the development of generalized relativity in the detail such
a development required. Consequently [Bergson] thought it wiser to let
the question drop. This is why he refused to let *Duration and
Simultaneity* be reprinted" (Avertissement pour la
septieme edition, *Duree et
simultaneite*, p. 5, [Lawlor translation]). However,
in Bergson's will, he does not mention *Duration and
Simultaneity* as a text not to be republished. Thus, the editors
of the seventh edition in 1968 (Jean Wahl, Henri Gouhier, Jean Gutton,
Vladimir Jankelevitch) saw fit to reprint this book. In
a letter from November 1924, after complaining that in general his
writings on relativity had been badly understood by the
"relativist physicists." Bergson clarifies that his
writings on relativity should not be seen as dismissive of relativity
theory. He says, "For my part, I think that the theory of
relativity represents a very great advance, not only from the
viewpoint of physics, but also from the viewpoint of philosophy"
(Bergson, *Correspondences*, p. 1122 [Lawlor translation]). If
Deleuze's interpretation is correct, the confrontation that
*Duration and Simultaneity* develops is not one between Bergson
and Einstein but a confrontation between Bergson's
interpretation of multiplicities and Riemann's interpretation of
multiplicity, Riemann's interpretation being, according to
Deleuze, the basis of Einstein's theory (Deleuze, 1991, pp.
39-40, and also see below, "The Concept of
Multiplicity").



During the second half of the Twenties, Bergson suffered from severe
arthritis, which eventually forced him to retire from public life. In
1928, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature. Finally, in 1932,
he surprised everyone with the publication of his last major book,
*The Two Sources of Morality and Religion*, which gave rise to
renewed debates and misunderstandings about his philosophy and his
religious orientation. The final collection of his essays, *The
Creative Mind*, appeared in 1934.



Bergson died on January 3, 1941 at the age of 81. World War II had of
course already begun, and Germany, occupying France, had established
the Vichy government. There is a rumor that he had converted to
Catholicism near the end of his life, but there is no document to
support this rumor. In fact, in a letter to Emmanuel Mounier, Madame
Bergson quotes her husband saying "I would have converted [to
Catholicism], if I had not seen over many years the great wave of
anti-semitism preparing itself to expand over the world." Madame
Bergson continues in the letter to say that her husband had resolved
not to be baptized (Beguin and Thevenaz 1941, pp.
11-12; also Soulez and Worms, p. 277). Because of his fame, the
Vichy Government offered Bergson exemptions from anti-Semitic
regulations, but he refused. It is also rumored that he contracted the
cold that killed him while waiting in line to register as a Jew.
Apparently, in the same will which his wife mentions in the letter to
Mounier (Beguin and Thevenaz 1941, p. 12), Bergson had
instructed that all of his papers be destroyed. The story goes that
his wife obeyed this order, throwing all of her husband's papers
into the fireplace. There is a rumor that she destroyed a half-written
manuscript. The result of this destruction is that the Bergson
Archives in Paris (stored at Librairie Jacques Doucet on the Place de
Pantheon in Paris) contain only Bergson's personal
library. So, the situation is very different for Bergson than for many
other important French and German philosophers of the 20th Century who
have massive archives (Husserl, Heidegger, and Merleau-Ponty). The
lack of archival material is one reason why Bergson went out of favor
during the second half of the Twentieth Century. We shall return to
this problem of Bergson's temporary disappearance from the
philosophical scene.


## 2. The concept of multiplicity



The concept of multiplicity has two fates in the Twentieth Century:
Bergsonism and phenomenology (Deleuze, 1991, pp. 115-118). In
phenomenology, the multiplicity of phenomena is always related to a
unified consciousness. In Bergsonism, "the immediate data of
consciousness" (les donnees immediates de la
conscience) are a multiplicity. Here, two prepositions,
"to" and "of," indicate perhaps the most basic
difference between Bergsonism and phenomenology. Of course, this
phrase is the title of Bergson's first work, *Essai sur les
donnees immediates de la conscience*. The standard
English title of this work is *Time and Free Will: An Essay on the
Immediate Data of Consciousness*. It is the text that Sartre
claimed attracted him to philosophy.



*Time and Free Will* has to be seen as an attack on Kant, for
whom freedom belongs to a realm outside of space and time. Bergson
thinks that Kant has confused space and time in a mixture, with the
result that we must conceive human action as determined by natural
causality. Bergson offers a twofold response. On the one hand, in
order to define consciousness and therefore freedom, Bergson proposes
to differentiate between time and space, "to un-mix" them,
we might say. On the other hand, through the differentiation, he
defines the immediate data of consciousness as being temporal, in
other words, as the duration (*la duree*). In the
duration, there is no juxtaposition of events; therefore there is no
mechanistic causality. It is in the duration that we can speak of the
experience of freedom.



For Bergson, we must understand the duration as a qualitative
multiplicity -- as opposed to a quantitative multiplicity. As the
name suggests, a quantitative multiplicity enumerates things or states
of consciousness by means of externalizing one from another in a
homogeneous space. In contrast, a qualitative multiplicity consists in
a temporal heterogeneity, in which "several conscious states are
organized into a whole, permeate one another, [and] gradually gain a
richer content" (*Time and Free Will*, p. 122). Bergson
even insists that the word 'several' is inappropriate to
qualitative multiplicity because it suggests numbering. In *Time
and Free Will*, Bergson provides examples of a quantitative
multiplicity; the example of a flock of sheep is perhaps the easiest
to grasp (*Time and Free Will*, pp. 76-77). To constitute
a quantitative multiplicity, which is always done out of a practical
or utilitarian interest, one ignores the content of the space the
items occupy, which results in the space being homogeneous. In the
case of the flock of sheep, one ignores the fact that the pasture in
which they are feeding is beautiful and the fact that the sheep are
not strictly identical to one another. One focuses on what they have
in common. What one is interested in is the total number of sheep, be
it for meat or wool production. We are able to enumerate them because
each sheep occupies a discernable location within the field, because
they are juxtaposed to one another. Of course, the enumeration of the
sheep is represented by a symbol, a number. Similarly, a calendar or a
clock is a homogeneous form of time.



The idea of qualitative multiplicities is difficult to understand,
although it is the heart of Bergson's thinking. Normally, we
would think that if there is heterogeneity, there has to be
juxtaposition. But, in qualitative multiplicities, there is
heterogeneity and no juxtaposition. Qualitative multiplicities are
temporal; qualitative multiplicity defines the duration. As with
quantitative multiplicities, Bergson gives us many examples. But
perhaps, the most significant example is the feeling of sympathy
because, in the 1903 "Introduction to Metaphysics,"
Bergson defines intuition as sympathy. Here, in *Time and Free
Will*, he calls it a moral feeling (*Time and Free Will*,
18-19). Our experience of sympathy begins, according to Bergson,
with us putting ourselves in the place of others, in feeling their
pain. But, Bergson continues, if this were all, the feeling would
inspire in us abhorrence of others, and we would want to avoid them,
not help them. But then, one realizes that, if one does not help this
poor wretch, it is going to turn out that no one will come to my aide
when I need help. There is a "need" to help the suffering.
For Bergson, these first two phases are "inferior forms of
pity." In contrast, true pity is not so much fearing pain as
desiring it. It is as if nature committed a great injustice and what
we want is not to be seen as complicitous with it. As Bergson says,
"The essence of pity is thus a need for self-abasement
[*s'humilier*], an aspiration downward" into pain.
But, this downward aspiration develops into an upward movement into
the feeling of being superior. One feels superior because one comes to
realize that one can do without certain sensuous goods. In the end
however, one feels humility, humble since one no longer needs and
desires such sensuous goods. By denying ourselves of these goods, we,
in a way, reestablish justice. Later in the 1932 *Two Sources of
Morality and Religion*, Bergson shows that the feeling of sympathy
in fact progresses to the point of love for all things. In any case,
the feeling of sympathy is "a qualitative progress." It
consists in a "transition from repugnance to fear, from fear to
sympathy, and from sympathy itself to humility." There is a
heterogeneity of feelings here. The feelings are continuous with one
another; they interpenetrate one another, and there is even an
opposition between inferior needs and superior humility. If we tried
to juxtapose the feelings, that is, separate them spatially, the
feelings would have a different nature than when they interpenetrate.
There would be no progress from one to the other. They would be
isolated psychic states. Therefore, for Bergson, a qualitative
multiplicity is heterogeneous (or differentiated), continuous (or
unifying), oppositional (or dualistic) at the extremes, and, most
importantly, temporal or progressive (an irreversible flow). Bergson
also calls the last characteristic of temporal progress mobility; this
characteristic truly distinguishes duration from space, which is an
"immobile medium" (*The Creative Mind*, p. 180).
Finally, because a qualitative multiplicity is heterogeneous and yet
interpenetrating, it is inexpressible. The continuous and
heterogeneous multiplicity of consciousness is given immediately, that
is, without the mediation of symbols (Bergson 1992, 162). For Bergson
-- and perhaps this is his greatest insight -- freedom is
mobility. Because Bergson connects duration with mobility, in the
second half of the Twentieth Century (in Deleuze and Foucault, in
particular), the Bergsonian concept of qualitative multiplicity will
be dissociated from time and associated with space (Deleuze 1986).



In "Introduction to Metaphysics," Bergson gives us three
images to help us think about the duration and therefore qualitative
multiplicities (*The Creative Mind*, pp. 164-65). The
first is that of two spools, with a tape running between them, one
spool unwinding the tape, the other winding it up. (During his
discussion of Bergson, Heidegger focuses on this image in his 1928
*The Metaphysical Foundations of Logic*.) Duration resembles
this image, according to Bergson, because, as we grow older, our
future grows smaller and our past larger. The benefit of this image is
that it presents a continuity of experiences without juxtaposition.
Yet, there is a drawback: because a tape moves between the two spools,
the image presents the duration as being homogeneous, as if one could
fold the tape back over its other parts, as if the tape were
super-posable, implying that two moments in consciousness might be
identical. Yet, as Bergson says, "no two moments are identical
in a conscious being" (*The Creative Mind*, p. 164).
Duration, for Bergson, is continuity of progress and heterogeneity;
moreover, thanks to this image, we can also see that duration implies
a conservation of the past. Indeed, for Bergson and this is the center
of his truly novel idea of memory, memory conserves the past and this
conservation does not imply that one experiences the same
(re-cognition), but difference. One moment is added onto the old ones,
and thus, when the next moment occurs, it is added onto all the other
old ones plus the one that came immediately before. In comparison,
therefore to the past collection of moments, it cannot be the same as
the one immediately before, because the past is "larger"
for the current moment than it was for the previous moment. Although
Bergson does not say this, one might say that Tuesday is different
from Monday because Monday only includes itself and Sunday, while
Tuesday includes itself, Monday, and Sunday. This first image,
therefore, implies that duration is memory: the prolongation of the
past into the present. We shall return to the question of memory
below.



The second image of qualitative multiplicity is the color spectrum. We
saw in the first image of the spools that there is constant difference
or heterogeneity. The color spectrum helps us understand this, since a
color spectrum has a multiplicity of different shades or nuances of
color. Here we have heterogeneity, but there is a drawback to this
image as well. We lose the characteristic of continuity or unity since
the spectrum has colors juxtaposed. As Bergson says, "pure
duration excludes all idea of juxtaposition, reciprocal exteriority
and extension" (*The Creative Mind*, p. 164).



Bergson's third image is an elastic band being stretched.
Bergson tells us first to contract the band to a mathematical point,
which represents "the now" of our experience. Then, draw
it out to make a line growing progressively longer. He warns us not to
focus on the line but on the action which traces it. If we can focus
on the action of tracing, then we can see that the movement --
which is duration -- is not only continuous and differentiating
or heterogeneous, but also indivisible. We can always insert breaks
into the spatial line that represents the motion, but the motion
itself is indivisible. For Bergson, there is always a priority of
movement over the things that move; the thing that moves is an
abstraction from the movement. Now, the elastic band being stretched
is a more exact image of duration. But, the image of the elastic is
still, according to Bergson, incomplete. Why ? Because, for him, no
image can represent duration. An image is immobile, while duration is
"pure mobility" (*The Creative Mind*, p. 165).
Later, in *Creative Evolution*, Bergson will criticize the new
art of cinema for presenting immobile images of movement. As Deleuze
will show in his cinema books, however, Bergson does not recognize the
novelty of this artform. Cinema does provide moving images. In any
case, in "Introduction to Metaphysics," Bergson compares
all three images: "the unrolling of our duration [the spool] in
certain aspects resembles the unity of a movement which progresses
[the elastic], in others, a multiplicity of states spreading out [the
color-spectrum]." Now we can see that duration really consists
in two characteristics:  unity and multiplicity. This double
characteristic brings us to Bergson's method of intuition.


## 3. The method of intuition



As we already noted, Bergson's thought must be seen as an
attempt to overcome Kant. In Bergson's eyes, Kant's
philosophy is scandalous, since it eliminates the possibility of
absolute knowledge and mires metaphysics in antinomies.
Bergson's own method of intuition is supposed to restore the
possibility of absolute knowledge - here one should see a
kinship between Bergsonian intuition and what Kant calls intellectual
intuition - and metaphysics. To do this, intuition in
Bergson's sense must place us above the divisions of the
different schools of philosophy like rationalism and empiricism or
idealism and realism. Philosophy, for Bergson, does not consist in
choosing between concepts and in taking sides (*The Creative
Mind*, p. 175-76). These antinomies of concepts and
positions, according to him, result from the normal or habitual way
our intelligence works. Here we find Bergson's connection to
American pragmatism. The normal way our intelligence works is guided
by needs and thus the knowledge it gathers is not disinterested; it is
relative knowledge. And how it gathers knowledge is through what
Bergson calls "analysis," that is, the dividing of things
according to perspectives taken. Comprehensive analytic knowledge then
consists in reconstruction or re-composition of a thing by means of
synthesizing the perspectives. This synthesis, while helping us
satisfy needs, never gives us the thing itself; it only gives us a
general concept of things. Thus, intuition reverses the normal working
of intelligence, which is interested and analytic (synthesis being
only a development of analysis). In the fourth chapter to *Matter
and Memory*, Bergson calls this reversal of habitual intelligence
"the turn of experience" where experience becomes
concerned with utility, where it becomes human experience (Matter and
Memory, pp.184-85). This placement of oneself up above the turn
is not easy; above all else, Bergson appreciates effort.



Intuition therefore is a kind of experience, and indeed Bergson
himself calls his thought "the true empiricism" (The
Creative Mind, p. 175). What sort of experience? In the opening pages
of "Introduction to Metaphysics," he calls intuition
sympathy (The Creative Mind, p. 159). As we have seen from our
discussion of multiplicity in *Time and Free Will*, sympathy
consists in putting ourselves in the place of others. Bergsonian
intuition then consists in entering into the thing, rather than going
around it from the outside. This "entering into," for
Bergson, gives us absolute knowledge. In a moment, we are going to
have to qualify this "absoluteness." In any case, for
Bergson, intuition is entering into ourselves - he says we seize
ourselves from within - but this self-sympathy develops
heterogeneously into others. In other words, when one sympathizes with
oneself, one installs oneself within duration and then feels a
"certain well defined tension, whose very determinateness seems
like a choice between an infinity of possible durations" (The
Creative Mind, p. 185). In order to help us understand intuition,
which is always an intuition of duration, let us return to the color
spectrum image. Bergson says that we should suppose that perhaps there
is no other color than orange. Yet, if we could enter into orange,
that is, if we could sympathize with it, we would "sense
ourselves caught," as Bergson says, "between red and
yellow." This means that if we make an effort when we perceive
orange, we sense a variety of shades. If we make more of an effort, we
sense that the darkest shade of orange is a different color, red,
while the lightest is also a different color, yellow. Thus, we would
have a sense, beneath orange, of the whole color spectrum. So,
likewise, I may introspect and sympathize with my own duration; my
duration may be the only one. But, if I make an effort, I sense in my
duration a variety of shades. In other words, the intuition of
duration puts me in contact with a whole continuity of durations,
which I could, with effort, try to follow upwardly or downwardly,
upward to spirit or downward to inert matter (*The Creative
Mind*, p. 187). Thus Bergsonian intuition is always an intuition
of what is other. Here we see that Bergson has not only tried to break
with Kant, but also with Parmenides's philosophy of the
same.



Before, we leave this discussion, it is important to realize that
intuition, understood as my self-sympathy, like the one color orange,
is what Bergson calls a "component part" (The Creative
Mind, pp. 170-72). Just as the color orange is a real part of
the color spectrum -- the mathematical equation which defines the
light waves of orange, on the contrary, being not a component part,
for Bergson, but a "partial expression" - my own
duration is a real part of *the duration itself*. From this
part, I can, as Bergson would say, "dilate" or
"enlarge" and move into other durations. But this starting
point in a part implies - and Bergson himself never seems to
realize this- that intuition never gives us absolute knowledge
of *the whole of the duration, all the component parts of the
duration*. The whole is never given in an intuition; only a
contracted part is given. Nevertheless, this experience is an integral
one, in the sense of integrating an infinity of durations. And thus,
even though we cannot know all durations, every single one that comes
into existence must be related, as a part, to the others. *The*
duration is that to which everything is related and in this sense it
is absolute.



Because intuition in Bergson is "integral experience"
(*The Creative Mind*, p. 200), it is made up of an indefinite
series of acts, which correspond to the degrees of duration. This
series of acts is why Bergson calls intuition a method. The first act
is a kind of leap, and the idea of a leap is opposed to the idea of a
re-constitution after analysis. One should make the effort to reverse
the habitual mode of intelligence and set oneself up immediately in
the duration. But then, second, one should make the effort to dilate
one's duration into a continuous heterogeneity. Third, one
should make the effort to differentiate (as with the color orange) the
extremes of this heterogeneity. With the second and third steps, one
can see a similarity to Plato's idea of dialectic understood as
collection and division. The method resembles that of the good butcher
who knows how to cut at the articulations or the good tailor who knows
how to sew pieces of cloth together into clothes that fit. On the
basis of the division into extremes or into a duality, one can then
confront our everyday "mixtures" of the two extremes.
Within the mixture, one makes a division or "cut" into
differences in kind: into matter and spirit, for instance. Then one
shows how the duality is actually a monism, how the two extremes are
"sewn" together, through memory, in the continuous
heterogeneity of duration. Indeed, for Bergson, intuition is memory;
it is not perception.


## 4. Perception and memory



Since its publication in 1896, *Matter and Memory* has
attracted considerable attention (see, for example, Deleuze 1956). In
the Preface that he wrote in 1910, Bergson says that *Matter and
Memory* "is frankly dualistic," since it
"affirms both the reality of matter and the reality of
spirit" (Matter and Memory, p. 9). However, he is quick to warn
us that the aim of the book is really "to overcome the
theoretical difficulties which have always beset dualism"
(ibid.). In the history of philosophy, these theoretical difficulties
have generally arisen from a view of external perception, which always
seems to result in an opposition between representation and matter.
Thus, Bergson's theory of "pure perception," laid
out in the first chapter of Matter and Memory aims to show that
-- beyond both realism and idealism -- our knowledge of
things, in its pure state, takes place within the things it
represents.



But, in order to show this, Bergson starts with a hypothesis that all
we sense are images. Now we can see the basis of Bergson's use
of images in his method of intuition. He is re-stating the problem of
perception in terms of images because it seems to be an intermediate
position between realism and idealism (Matter and Memory, p. 26).
Bergson is employing the concept of image to dispel the false belief
-- central to realism and materialism -- that matter is a
thing that possesses a hidden power able to produce representations in
us. There is no hidden power in matter; matter is only images.
Bergson, however, not only criticizes materialism (its theory of
hidden powers), but also idealism insofar as idealism attempts to
reduce matter to the representation we have of it. For Bergson, image
differs from representation, but it does not differ in nature from
representation since Bergson's criticism of materialism consists
in showing that matter does not differ in nature from representation.
For Bergson, the image is less than a thing but more than a
representation. The "more" and the "less"
indicates that representation differs from the image by degree. It
also indicates that perception is continuous with images of matter.
Through the hypothesis of the image, Bergson is re-attaching
perception to the real.



In perception -- Bergson demonstrates this point through his
theory of pure perception -- the image of a material thing
becomes a representation. A representation is always in the image
virtually. We shall return to this concept of virtuality below. In any
case, in perception, there is a transition from the image as being in
itself to its being for me. But, perception adds nothing new to the
image; in fact, it subtracts from it. Representation is a diminution
of the image; the transition from image to pure perception is
"discernment in the etymological sense of the word," a
"slicing up" or a "selection" (Matter and
Memory, p. 38). According to Bergson, selection occurs because of
necessities or utility based in our bodies. In other words, conscious
representation results from the suppression of what has no interest
for bodily functions and the conservation only of what does interest
bodily functions. The conscious perception of a living being therefore
exhibits a "necessary poverty" ( Matter and Memory, p.
38).



If we can circle back for a moment, although Bergson shows that we
perceive things in the things, the necessary poverty of perception
means that it cannot define intuition. Turning back from the habitual
use of intelligence for needs, intuition, as we can see now, places us
above or below representations. Intuition is fundamentally
un-representative. In this regard, the following passage from the
third chapter of *Matter and Memory* becomes very
important:



> 
> If you abolish my consciousness ... matter resolves itself into
> numberless vibrations, all linked together in uninterrupted
> continuity, all bound up with each other, and traveling in every
> direction like shivers. In short, try first to connect together the
> discontinuous objects of daily experience; then, resolve the
> motionless continuity of these qualities into vibrations, which are
> moving in place; finally, attach yourself to these movements, by
> freeing yourself from the divisible space that underlies them in order
> to consider only their mobility - this undivided act that your
> consciousness grasps in the movement that you yourself execute. You
> will obtain a vision of matter that is perhaps fatiguing for your
> imagination, but pure and stripped of what the requirements of life
> make you add to it in external perception. Reestablish now my
> consciousness, and with it, the requirements of life: farther and
> farther, and by crossing over each time enormous periods of the
> internal history of things, quasi-instantaneous views are going to be
> taken, views this time pictorial, of which the most vivid colors
> condense an infinity of repetitions and elementary changes. In just
> the same way the thousands of successive positions of a runner are
> contracted into one sole symbolic attitude, which our eye perceives,
> which art reproduces, and which becomes for everyone the image of a
> man who runs (*Matter and Memory*, pp.208-209).
> 



Like the descriptions of intuition, this passage describes how we can
resolve the images of matter into mobile vibrations. In this way, we
overcome the inadequacy of all images of duration. We would have to
call the experience described here not a perception of matter, but a
memory of matter because of its richness. As we have already
suggested, Bergsonian intuition is memory. So, we turn now to
memory.



As we saw in the discussion of method above, Bergson always makes a
differentiation within a mixture. Therefore, he sees that our word
"memory" mixes together two different kinds of memories.
On the one hand, there is habit-memory, which consists in obtaining
certain automatic behavior by means of repetition; in other words, it
coincides with the acquisition of sensori-motor mechanisms. On the
other hand, there is true or "pure" memory; it is the
survival of personal memories, a survival that, for Bergson, is
unconscious. In other words, we have habit-memory actually aligned
with bodily perception. Pure memory is something else, and here we
encounter Bergson's famous (or infamous) image of the memory
cone.



The image of the inverted cone occurs twice in the third chapter of
*Matter and Memory* (pp. 152 and 162). The image of the cone is
constructed with a plane and an inverted cone whose summit is inserted
into the plane. The plane, "plane P," as Bergson calls it,
is the "plane of my actual representation of the
universe."  The cone "SAB," of course, is
supposed to symbolize memory, specifically, the true memory or
regressive memory. At the cone's base, "AB," we have
unconscious memories, the oldest surviving memories, which come
forward spontaneously, for example, in dreams. As we descend, we have
an indefinite number of different regions of the past ordered by their
distance or nearness to the present. The second cone image represents
these different regions with horizontal lines trisecting the cone. At
the summit of the cone, "S," we have the image of my body
which is concentrated into a point, into the present perception. The
summit is inserted into the plane and thus the image of my body
"participates in the plane" of my actual representation of
the universe.



The inverted cone image is no exception to Bergson's belief that
all images are inadequate to duration. The inverted cone is really
supposed to symbolize a dynamic process, mobility. Memories are
descending down the cone from the past to the present perception and
action. The idea that memories are descending means that true memory
in Bergson is progressive. This progressive movement of memory as a
whole takes place, according to Bergson, between the extremes of the
base of "pure memory," which is immobile and which Bergson
calls "contemplation" (Matter and Memory, p. 163), and the
plane where action takes place. Whenever Bergson in any of his works
mentions contemplation, he is thinking of Plotinus, on whom he
lectured many times. But, in contrast to Plotinus, for Bergson,
thinking is not mere contemplation; it is the entire or integral
movement of memory between contemplation and action. Thinking, for
Bergson, occurs when pure memory moves forward into singular images.
This forward movement occurs by means of two movements which the
inverted cone symbolizes. On the one hand, the cone is supposed to
rotate. Bergson compares the experience of true memory to a telescope,
which allows us to understand the rotating movement. What we are
supposed to visualize with the cone is a telescope that we are
pointing up at the night sky. Thus, when I am trying to remember
something, I at first see nothing all. What will help us understand
this image is the idea of my character. When I try to remember how my
character came about, at first, I might not remember anything; no
image might at first come to mind. Pure memory for Bergson precedes
images; it is unconscious. But, I try to focus, as if I were rotating
the rings that control the lenses in the "telescope"; then
some singular images come into view. Rotation is really the key to
Bergson's concept of virtuality. Always, we start with something
like the Milky Way, a cloud of interpenetration; but then the cloud
starts to condense into singular drops, into singular stars. This
movement from interpenetration to fragmentation, from unity to
multiplicity, (and even from multiplicity to juxtaposition) is always
potential or virtual. But the reverse process is also virtual.
Therefore the cone has a second movement, "contraction"
(*Matter and Memory*, p. 168). If we remain with the telescope
image, we can see that the images of the constellation must be
narrowed, brought down the tube so that they will fit into my eye.
Here we have a movement from singular images to generalities, on which
action can be based. The movement of memory always results in action.
But also, for Bergson, this twofold movement of rotation and
contraction can be repeated in language. Even though Bergson never
devotes much reflection to language - we shall return to this
point below- he is well aware that literary creation resembles
natural creation. Here we should consult his early essay on laughter.
But, with this creative movement, which is memory, we can turn to
creative evolution.


## 5. Creative evolution



For Bergson, the notion of life mixes together two opposite senses,
which must be differentiated and then led into a genuine unity. On the
one hand, it is clear from Bergson's earlier works that life is
the absolute temporal movement informed by duration and retained in
memory. But, on the other hand, he has shown that life also consists
in the practical necessities imposed on our body and accounting for
our habitual mode of knowing in spatial terms. More specifically then,
Bergson's project in *Creative Evolution* is to offer a
philosophy capable of accounting both for the continuity of all living
beings--as creatures--and for the discontinuity implied in
the evolutionary quality of this creation. Bergson starts out by
showing that the only way in which the two senses of life may be
reconciled (without being collapsed) is to examine real life, the real
evolution of the species, that is, the phenomenon of change and its
profound causes. His argument consists of four main steps. First, he
shows that there must be an original common impulse which explains the
creation of all living species; this is his famous vital impulse
(elan vital). Second, the diversity resulting from evolution
must be accounted for as well. If the original impulse is common to
all life, then there must also be a principle of divergence and
differentiation that explains evolution; this is Bergson's
tendency theory. Third, the two main diverging tendencies that account
for evolution can ultimately be identified as instinct on the one hand
and intelligence on the other. Human knowledge results from the form
and the structure of intelligence. We learned from "The
Introduction to Metaphysics" that intelligence consists
precisely in an analytic, external, hence essentially practical and
spatialized approach to the world. Unlike instinct, human intelligence
is therefore unable to attain to the essence of life in its duration.
The paradoxical situation of humanity (the only species that wants to
know life is also the only one that cannot do so) must therefore be
overcome. So, fourth, the effort of intuition is what allows us to place
ourselves back within the original creative impulse so as to overcome
the numerous obstacles that stand in the way of true knowledge (which
are instantiated in the history of metaphysics). We are going to look
at each of these four steps.



First, we are going to look at the concept of vital impulse. In
*Creative Evolution*, Bergson starts out by criticizing
mechanism as it applies to the concepts of life and evolution. The
mechanistic approach would preclude the possibility of any real change
or creativity, as each development would be potentially contained in
the preceding ones. However, Bergson continues, the teleological
approach of traditional finalism equally makes genuine creation of the
new impossible, since it entails, just as mechanism, that the
"whole is given." Therefore, neither mechanism nor strict
finalism can give a satisfying account of the phenomenon of change
that characterizes life. Nevertheless, Bergson argues, there is a
certain form of finalism that would adequately account for the
creation of life while allowing for the diversity resulting from
creation. It is the idea of an original vital principle. If there is a
telos to life, then, it must be situated at the origin and not at the
end (contra traditional finalism), and it must embrace the whole of
life in one single indivisible embrace (contra mechanism). But, this
hypothesis does not yet account for evolution in the diversity of its
products, nor does it explain the principle of the nature of life.



Second, we turn to Bergson's account of the
"complexification" of life, that is, the phenomenon of its
evolution from the simple original vital impulse into different
species, individuals, and organs. The successive series of
bifurcations and differentiations that life undergoes organize itself
into two great opposite tendencies, namely, instinct and intelligence.
Bergson arrives at this fundamental distinction by considering the
different modes through which creatures act in and know the external
world. Animals are distinguished from plants on the basis of their
mobility, necessitated by their need to find food,whereas plants
survive and grow through photosynthesis, which does not require
locomotion. While the relationship between consciousness and matter
instantiated in the instinct of animals is sufficient and well adapted
to their survival (from the point of view of the species), humans are
not adequately equipped in this respect; hence the necessity of
something like intelligence, defined by the ability to make tools.
Humanity is essentially *homo faber*. Once again, from the
point of view of real, concrete life that Bergson is here embracing,
intelligence is essentially defined by its pragmatic orientation (and
not speculation, as a dogmatic intellectualist approach would assume).
From this, Bergson deduces not only the cognitive structure and the
scientific history of intelligence (which he examines in detail), but
also its limitations. This essentially pragmatic, hence analytic and
quantitative orientation of intelligence precludes its immediate
access to the essentially qualitative nature of life. Notice that the
distinction between the two tendencies relies on the original
distinction between the qualitative and the quantitative
multiplicities. In any case, in order that human intelligence may
attain true knowledge of the essence of the vital impulse, it will
have to proceed by means of a mode of knowing that lies at the
opposite end of intelligence, namely, instinct.



Throughout *Creative Evolution*, Bergson's crucial point
is that life must be equated with creation, as creativity alone can
adequately account for both the continuity of life and the
discontinuity of the products of evolution. But now the question is:
if humans only possess analytic intelligence, then how are we ever to
know the essence of life? Bergson's answer -- his third
step -- is that, because at the periphery of intelligence a
fringe of instinct survives, we are able fundamentally to rejoin the
essence of life. For, as the tendency and the multiplicity theories
made clear, instinct and intelligence are not simply self-contained
and mutually exclusive states. They must be called tendencies
precisely because they are both rooted in, hence inseparable from, the
duration that informs all life, all change, all becoming. There is,
therefore, a little bit of instinct surviving within each intelligent
being, making it immediately -- if only partially --
coincide with the original vital impulse. This partial coincidence, as
we described above, is what founds intuition.



Finally, we can return to the question of intuition. Thanks to
intuition, humanity can turn intelligence against itself so as to
seize life itself. By a very different route than the one we saw
before, Bergson shows, once again, that our habitual way of knowing,
based in needs, is the only obstacle to knowledge of the absolute.
Here he argues that this obstacle consists in the idea of disorder.
All theories of knowledge have in one way or another attempted to
explain meaning and consistency by assuming the contingency of order.
The traditional question, "why is there order rather than
disorder?" necessarily assumes that the human mind is able to
create order mysteriously out of chaos. But, for Bergson, the real
question is: "order is certainly contingent, but in relation to
what" (Creative Evolution, p. 232)? His answer consists in
showing that it is not a matter of order versus disorder, but rather
of one order in relation to another. According to Bergson, it is the
same reasoning that underlies the ideas of chance (as opposed to
necessity), and of nothingness (as opposed to existence). In a word,
the real is essentially positive. The real obeys a certain kind of
organization, namely, that of the qualitative multiplicity. Structured
around its needs and interests, our intelligence fails to recognize
this ultimate reality.



However, a fringe of intuition remains, dormant most of the time yet
capable of awakening when certain vital interests are at stake. The
role of the philosopher is to seize those rare and discontinuous
intuitions in order to support them, then dilate them and connect them
to one another. In this process, philosophy realizes that intuition
coincides with spirit, and eventually with life itself. Intuition and
intelligence thus each correspond to tendencies within the human
*psyche*, which, as whole, thereby coincides immediately
-- if only partially -- with the vital impulse. It is only
by leaping into intuition that the ultimate unity of mental life
appears, for, just as Bergson showed against Zeno, that mobility
cannot be reconstructed out of immobility. Here he explains that while
one can go from intuition to intelligence by way of diminution, the
analytic nature of intelligence precludes the opposite process. Thus
Bergson concludes, "philosophy introduces us into spiritual
life. And at the same time, it shows us the relation of the life of
spirit to the life of the body" (Creative Evolution, p. 268). In
a word, it is life in its creativity which unifies the simplicity of
spirit with the diversity of matter. And it is a certain kind of
philosophy, insofar as it is able to place itself back within the
creative impulse, which is capable of realizing the necessary
"complementarity" of the diverse, partial views
instantiated in the different branches of scientific knowledge and
metaphysical thought -- so as to reestablish the absoluteness of
knowledge, defined by its coincidence with absolute becoming.


## 6. The two sources of morality and religion



Bergson himself says that his final book, *The Two Sources of
Morality and Religion*, develops ideas from *Creative
Evolution*. It attempts to show that there are two sources from
which two kinds of morality and religion evolve. As always with
Bergson, Kant is at issue, in this case his moral philosophy. And as
usual, Bergson starts by differentiating within a mixture. Under the
word "morality" or under the phrase "moral
obligation," there is a mixture of two kinds of morality.



There is the closed morality, whose religion is static, and there is
the open morality, whose religion is dynamic. Closed morality and
static religion are concerned with social cohesion. Nature has made
certain species evolve in such a way that the individuals in these
species cannot exist on their own. They are fragile and require the
support of a community. One quickly thinks of bees, and Bergson, of
course, refers to them. We can see again that there are bodily needs
which must be satisfied. The force of these needs is the source of the
closed morality. Because of these needs, there is a rigidity to the
rules of closed moralities. Kant's moral philosophy has its
source in such needs. The survival of the community requires that
there be strict obedience: the categorical imperative. Yet, although
Kant's categorical imperative is supposed to be universal, it is
not, according to Bergson. It is limited and particular. Closed
morality really concerns the survival of a society, my society.
Therefore, it always excludes other societies. Indeed, for Bergson,
closed morality is always concerned with war. And static religion, the
religion of closed morality, is based on what Bergson calls the
"fabulation function." The fabulation function is a
particular function of the imagination that creates "voluntary
hallucinations." The fabulation function takes our sense that
there is a presence watching over us and invents images of gods. These
images then insure strict obedience to the closed morality. In short,
they insure social cohesion.



But, there is another kind of morality and religion, according to
Bergson. The open morality and dynamic religion are concerned with
creativity and progress. They are not concerned with social cohesion,
and thus Bergson calls this morality "open" because it
includes everyone. The open morality is genuinely universal and it
aims at peace. It aims at an "open society." The source of
the open morality is what Bergson calls "creative
emotions." The difference between creative emotions and normal
emotions consists in this: in normal emotions, we first have a
representation which causes the feeling (I see my friend and then I
feel happy); in creative emotion, we first have the emotion which then
creates representations. So, Bergson gives us the example of the joy
of a musician who, on the basis of emotion, creates a symphony, and
who then produces representations of the music in the score. We can
see here that Bergson has also finally explained how the leap of an
intuition happens. The creative emotion makes one unstable and throws
one out of the habitual mode of intelligence, which is directed at
needs. Indeed, in *The Two Sources*, Bergson compares creative
emotions to unstable mental states as those found in the mad. But what
he really has in mind is mystical experience. For Bergson, however,
mystical experience is not simply a disequilibrium. Genuine mystical
experience must result in action; it cannot remain simple
contemplation of God. This association of creative emotions with
mystical experience means that, for Bergson, dynamic religion is
mystical. Indeed, dynamic religion, because it is always creative,
cannot be associated with any particular organized set of doctrines. A
religion with organized - and rigid -- doctrines is always
static.



The phrase with which we began, "moral obligation," makes
one think of Kantian duty. We have alluded to Kant on several
occasions, but, let us conclude by examining Bergson's explicit
criticism of Kant's moral philosophy. This criticism will
demonstrate the strength of Bergson's moral philosophy and of
his thought as a whole. According to Bergson, Kant's theory has
made a "psychological error." In any given society, there
are many different, particular obligations. The individual in society
may at some time desire to deviate from one particular obligation.
When this illicit desire arises, there will be resistance from society
but also from his habits. If the individual resists these resistances,
a psychological state of tension or contraction occurs. The
individual, in other words, experiences the rigidity of the
obligation. Now, according to Bergson, when philosophers such as Kant
attribute a severe aspect to duty, they have externalized this
experience of obligation's inflexibility. In fact, for Bergson,
if we ignore the multiplicity of particular obligations in any given
society, and if instead we look at what he calls "the whole of
obligation" (*The Two Sources*, p. 25), then we see that
obedience to obligation is almost natural. According to Bergson,
obligations, that is, customs, arise because of the natural need an
individual has for the stability that a society can give. As a result
of this natural need, society inculcates habits of obedience in the
individual. Habituation means that obedience to the whole of
obligation is, in fact, for the individual, effortless.



The psychological error then consists in externalizing an exceptional
experience - which Bergson calls "resistance to the
resistances" - into a moral theory. Duty becomes severe
and inflexible. But there is more to this error. Kant believes that he
can resolve obligation into rational elements. In the experience of
resistance to the resistances, the individual has an illicit desire.
And, since the individual is intelligent, the individual uses
intelligence, a rational method, to act on itself. According to
Bergson, what is happening here is that the rational method is merely
restoring the force of the original tendency to obey the whole of
obligation that society has inculcated in the individual. But as
Bergson notes, the tendency is one thing; the rational method is
another. The success of the rational method, however, gives us the
illusion that the force with which an individual obeys any particular
obligation comes from reason, that is, from the idea or
representation, or better still, from the formula of the
obligation.



But, there is another force. The second force is what Bergson calls
"the impetus of love" (*The Two Sources*, p. 96).
The impetus of love, like joy but also like sympathy, is a creative
emotion. The emotion must be explicated into actions and
representations. But, this process of explication can be extended. The
representations that the mystic explicates can be further explicated
into formulas, for example, the formula of each person being deserving
of respect and dignity. These formulas, which are the expression of
creation and love, are now able to be mixed with the formulas that aim
solely to insure the stability of any given society. Since we are now
speaking only of formulas, creation and cohesion, the two forces, are
mixed together in reason. As before, whereas the rational method used
in the experience of resistance to the resistances comes to explain
the force of obedience, here in the mystical experience of the impetus
of love the formulas come to explain the force of creation. A reversal
has taken place. The very forces that have generated the formulas are
instead now being explained by those very formulas. Indeed, this is
the problem. How could some representation of intelligence have the
power to train the will?  How could an idea categorically demand
its own realization?  As Bergson says, "Re-establish the
duality [of forces], the difficulties vanish" (*The Two
Sources*, p. 96). The two forces are, however, but two
complementary manifestations of life.


## 7. The revitalization of Bergsonism



There are numerous reasons for Bergson's disappearance from the
philosophical scene after World War II. First, at least in France, a
new generation of philosophers was arising, in particular, Sartre and
Merleau-Ponty. Like any new generation, this one had to differentiate
itself from the tradition it was inheriting; in many respects,
Bergson's thought dominated this tradition. But more important
was the fact that Sartre and Merleau-Ponty became interested in
Husserlian phenomenology, and then in Heidegger's thought. The
influence of German philosophy on post-World War II French thought is
well known. It contributed to the eclipse of Bergson. But, there are
some aspects of Bergson's thought itself which contributed to
this eclipse. On the one hand, there is Bergson's constant
suspicion of language; for Bergson, as we noted in the discussion of
intuition, language is equivalent to symbols. And, symbols divide the
continuity of the duration, leading us into illusions. Bergson's
criticisms of language, moreover, must have struck the generation of
French philosophers who came of age in the 1960s as strange.
Philosophers such as Derrida had so thoroughly embraced Heidegger that
they believed that "language is the house of being." On
the other hand, there is the mysticism of *The Two Sources*.
The striking religious tone of this book did not harmonize well with
Husserl's phenomenology, which aimed to be a rigorous
science.



Yet, we can speak of a recent revitalization of Bergsonism.  This
revitalization is due almost entirely to Deleuze. As we have come to
understand Deleuze's own thought better, we can see the
overwhelming influence of Bergson. In particular, two aspects of
Bergson's thought attracted Deleuze. We have already mentioned
one of them: the concept of multiplicity. This concept is at the very
heart of Deleuze's thought, and duration is the model for all of
Deleuze's "becomings."  The other aspect that
attracted Deleuze, which is indeed connected to the first, is
Bergson's criticism of the concept of negation in *Creative
Evolution*. We must recall that the linguistic turn in France
during the 1960s was accompanied by an "anti-Hegelianism."
Thus Bergson became a resource in the criticism of the Hegelian
dialectic, the negative. Moreover, at the end of his life,
Merleau-Ponty was also coming to realize that Bergson's
criticism of negation is philosophically important; for Merleau-Ponty,
the criticism seemed to function like Husserl's
"phenomenological reduction," and perhaps re-opened what
Heidegger would call the question of being. But, overall, we must see
that a revitalization of Bergsonism became possible because of
Deleuze's insistence that Bergsonism is an alternative to the
domination of phenomenological thought, including that of Heidegger.
The revitalization of Bergsonism leads to a revitalization of the
question of life itself, and not to the retrieval of the question of
being.



If Deleuze indeed presents a penetrating criticism of Heidegger, it
lies in the claim that being (*Sein*) is a unity and not a
multiplicity (and in this regard Deleuze's criticism of
Heidegger resembles a great deal that of Derrida who always targets
Heidegger's idea of gathering [*Versammlung*]). For
Deleuze (and perhaps for Derrida as well), the lack of an idea of
multiplicity affects Heidegger's conception of a people. Even if
the people in Heidegger are still coming, they will have a proper name
that indicates their community will be unified and perhaps closed. In
contrast. the people to come in Deleuze (and the democracy to come in
Derrida) remain in need of a name which indicates that this people is
a genuine multiplicity. Perhaps in these ideas of an always still to
be named coming community, we find the enduring influence of
Bergson's "open society." The most recent moment of
the Bergson revitalization follows on the idea of a people. Andrea J.
Pitts and Mark William Westmoreland published a volume called:
*Beyond Bergson: Exploring Race, Gender, and Colonialism through
the Writings of Henri Bergson (SUNY 2019)*.



Apart from Deleuze, and more recently, Frederic Worms has led the way
toward Bergson's revitalization in France. Worms founded the
Societe des amis de Bergson in 2006. In 2019, several members of the
Societe des amis de Bergson founded the Global Bergson Research
Project whose purpose lies in rediscovering Bergson's influence
all over the globe.