https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/bergson/
7. The revitalization of Bergsonism
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).
