This article was downloaded by: [Northwestern University]

On: 17 December 2014, At: 22:29

Publisher: Routledge
Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered
Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41
Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK

Journal of the
British Society for
Phenomenology
Publication details, including
instructions for authors and
subscription information:
http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/
rbsp20

What Immanence?
What Transcendence?
The Prioritization
of Intuition Over
Language in Bergson
Leonard Lawlor

The University of Memphis

Published online: 21 Oct 2014.

To cite this article: Leonard Lawlor (2004) What Immanence? What

Transcendence? The Prioritization of Intuition Over Language in
Bergson, Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology, 35:1,
24-41, DOI: 10.1080/00071773.2004.11007420
To link to this article: http://
dx.doi.org/10.1080/00071773.2004.11007420

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Downloaded by [Northwestern University] at 22:29 17 December 2014

Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy

of all the information (the Content) contained in the
publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis,
our agents, and our licensors make no representations or
warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness,
or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions
and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and
views of the authors, and are not the views of or endorsed
by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not
be relied upon and should be independently verified with
primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be
liable for any losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands,
costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever or
howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection
with, in relation to or arising out of the use of the Content.
This article may be used for research, teaching, and private
study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction,
redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic
supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly
forbidden. Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found
at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions

Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology, Vol. 35, No. I, January 2004

WHAT IMMANENCE? WHAT TRANSCENDENCE?

THE PRIORITIZATION OF INTUITION OVER
LANGUAGE IN BERGSON'

Downloaded by [Northwestern University] at 22:29 17 December 2014

LEONARD LAWLOR
It is clear to everyone now that Bergson had widespread influence over
20th century Continental philosophy, particularly over Levinas and Deleuze. 2
Looking back from Levinas and Deleuze, we get a strange view of Bergson,
since we generally characterize Levinas as the primary philosopher of
transcendence and Deleuze as the primary philosopher of immanence. How
could Bergson have generated such an opposition? While this is the obvious
question, I think that it is, nevertheless, badly stated. It looks as though
Levinas and Deleuze do not form an opposition. Levinas seems to have a
starting point in immanence, if we take into account the concept of
separation as it is presented in Totality and lnfinity; 3 and Deleuze seems to
contain some sort of transcendence, if we take into account the 'transcendent
use of the faculties' as it is presented in Difference and Repetition. 4
Therefore, we must conceive the relation between immanence and
transcendence neither as a 'contradiction,' as Deleuze would say, 5 nor as a
'bi-polar play,' as Levinas would say. 6 To conceive the relationship, indeed,
any relationship, as an opposition is even un-Bergsonian, since Bergson says
in 'Introduction to Metaphysics' that the genuine philosophical question
concerns 'what unity, what multiplicity, what reality' (PM 1409/176;
Bergson's emphasis). So, if we want to understand how Bergson could have
generated such apparently different philosophies, then, it seems, we must
ask: what transcendence, what immanence?
It is this question precisely that I am going to try to answer here. Given
the formulation of the question - What immanence? What transcendence? that is, given that the question does not ask for an opposition between
immanence and transcendence, we shall see that Bergson's thought consists
in an ambiguity centred on his concept of sense (ES 943-45/168-170). It is
this ambiguity, I think, that allowed Bergson's thought to flow into that of
Levinas and Deleuze. Yet, while I believe that Bergson's thought contains a
genuine ambiguity which accounts for the different ways his thought gets
appropriated- it is undoubtedly what has made Bergson's thought once
again interesting - I think that the fact that Bergson prioritizes intuition over
language resolves the ambiguity. It seems to me that the prioritization of
language over intuition leads to one specific conception of immanence and
transcendence; this prioritization is what, I think, we find in Levinas as early
as The Theory of Intuition in Husser/'s Phenomenology. The prioritization of
24

Downloaded by [Northwestern University] at 22:29 17 December 2014

intuition over language leads to a different conception of immanence and

transcendence; the prioritization of intuition over language is what, I think,
we find for example in Deleuze's The Logic of Sense. Obviously, these terms
'immanence' and 'transcendence' do not really belong to the Bergsonian
lexicon. Indeed, their history in this century - which no one, as far as I know,
has laid out - seems to come from Husserl, from Ideas I in particular. Most
generally, the term 'immanence' refers to the inside, while 'transcendence'
refers to the outside. More precisely, the inside refers to the inside of
consciousness, while the outside refers to the exteriority of things. It seems
to me that what we are going to see in Bergson is a dissociation of
immanence from consciousness in order to identify immanence with the
outside. Indeed, my thinking about Bergson here springs from an insight
from Brunschvicg: in an essay from 1943, Brunschvicg characterized
duration, and more particularly, the past in Bergson as 'the outside'
(dehors). 7 But to get to this outside, we must start with Bergson's
conception of intuition.
I. The Concept of Intuition
When we examine Bergson's various comments on intuition, we find that
he defines intuition by four characteristics. First, intuition is knowledge;
indeed, Bergson calls it 'absolute' knowledge. It is absolute knowledge
because, instead of being perspectival and thus relative to a viewpoint,
intuition coincides with and enters into what it intuits. The second
characteristic is that, because it enters into what it intuits, it is a simple act
(PM 1395-96/161-62). Both of these characteristics, simplicity of act and
non-perspectival knowledge, mean for Bergson, of course, that intuition is
not analysis. But they also mean that intuition is not synthesis, which is
nothing more than the reunification of analyzed or spatialised fragments.
That intuition is neither analysis nor synthesis means, as the famous quote
goes, that 'metaphysics is the science [made possible by intuition] that
claims to do without [se passer de] symbols' (PM 1396/162). In other words,
since it does without symbols, intuition is non- or pre-linguistic. Language,
for Bergson, is extensive or spatial, that is, it is analytic, and made up of
generalities or commonalities, that is, it is synthetic. Language is both
division and re-unification because its origin lies in society's utilitarian
needs (PM 1273/32, 1321/80), in what Bergson calls 'inferior needs' or
'material needs' (MM 317/180, 321/184). Already, we can see that Bergson
is prioritizing intuition over language and that intuition looks to be a kind of
inside, an 'entering into.' Intuition is auto-intuition, intuition of 'the spirit,'
Bergson says, 'by the spirit' (PM 1273/32): immanence.
While well known, these two characteristics, simplicity of act and nonperspectival knowledge, leave the Bergsonian concept of intuition in

25

obscurity. We must turn to two other characteristics. The third characteristic

of intuition occurs in the following quote from the second Introduction to La
pensee et le mouvant:

Downloaded by [Northwestern University] at 22:29 17 December 2014

Thus we repudiate easiness. We recommend a certain difficult way of thinking. We value

above everything effort. How could certain people be mistaken? We will say nothing of
those who would think that our 'intuition' is instinct or feeling. Not one line of what I have
written could lend itself to such an interpretation. And in all of what we have written there is
the opposite assertion: our intuition is reflection. (PM 1328/87-88; my emphasis.)

Bergsonian intuition is effort. But, when Bergson says here that intuition
is an effort and not a feeling, this comment seems to contradict his
'Introduction to Metaphysics' definition of intuition as sympathy (PM
13951161 ). To unravel this apparent contradiction, we must refer to
Bergson's precise distinction between two kinds of emotions in The Two
Sources (MR 1011143). It is important to realize that before he distinguishes
these two kinds, he says that they have one feature in common: 'they are
affective states distinct from sensation, and cannot be reduced like the latter
to the psychical transposition of a physical stimulus' (MR 1011/43). This
comment means that, if intuition is connected somehow to emotion, then we
cannot conceive it in terms of sensation insofar as a sensation such as pain
for Bergson is based on a physical stimulus. If there is a connection between
Bergsonian intuition and emotion, intuition is not sensation and thus not
based on physical stimuli. We cannot conceive, therefore, Bergsonian
intuition in terms of sensibility (cf. M 968). The distinction between the two
kinds of emotions is as follows. One kind of emotion, according to Bergson,
is based on, comes temporally after 'an idea or a represented image,' while
the other kind comes temporally before ideas or represented images and in
fact generates ideas or represented images. This 'pregnancy with ideas' is
why Bergson calls the second kind of emotion 'supra-intellectual,' while the
first is called 'infra-intellectual' because it is dependent on representations
(MR 1012/44). Does this distinction help us resolve the apparent
contradiction? Is there effort in the supra-intellectual emotions, one of which
according to Bergson in The Two Sources, is sympathy (MR 1009/40)? The
effort of the supra-intellectual emotion does not, in contrast to infraintellectual emotions, motivate actions which respond to needs; supraintellectual emotions necessitates creativity (MR 1009/41). The effort is
creation.
The fourth characteristic also occurs in the second introduction to La
pensee et le mouvant. Bergson says that intuition is 'consciousness enlarged'
(PM 1273/32). As consciousness enlarged, intuition must be understood as
the reversal of a 'narrowing down' of consciousness (cf. PM 14221190). The
'narrowing down' is what occurs normally. Normally, under the pressure of
needs, we direct our attention to life, that is, to the present with a view to
26

Downloaded by [Northwestern University] at 22:29 17 December 2014

future action, with a view to a future point, hence the narrowing down of
consciousness (MM 166/14). This attention to needs is what intuition
reverses (PM 1320/79). Here, we can introduce a well known Bergsonian
formula. Intuition consists in an effort of reflection in which one 'goes
seeking experience at its source ... above this decisive turn where, inflecting
itself in the direction of our utility, it becomes properly human experience'
(MM 321/184). The 'tum of experience' is consciousness enlarged. This
enlargement of consciousness is why we must not confuse intuition with
what, in Chapter 1 of Matter and Memory, Bergson calls 'pure perception,'
which is purified down to a point. Pure perception has no memory and
therefore no duration (MM 184-85/34). In contrast, intuition, of course,
concerns internal duration and nothing else (PM 1273/32). And, if intuition
and duration and consciousness are identical as Bergson claims in
'Introduction to Metaphysics,' then we must say that duration is memory and
in tum that intuition is memory, since Bergson says there that 'consciousness
means memory' (PM 1397/164). Let me be clear about this: when Bergson
defines intuition as consciousness enlarged, he is defining intuition as
memory. Thus, I find myself hesitating before John Mullarkey's formulation,
in his recent excellent book, of Bergsonian intuition in terms of MerleauPonty' s famous phrase, 'the primacy of perception.' 8 While we must
conceive intuition as an experience, I think we can conceive it as perception
only if we identify it with the very specific perception presented in Chapter 4
of Matter and Memory: here Bergson describes the steps necessary to
perceive the vibrations of matter (MM 343/208-209). 9 It seems to me that, if
we took the time to look at this description (which we do not have here), we
would see that this perception is identical to a consciousness enlarged
beyond the present and thus it is not really a perception of matter but a
memory of matter. In Bergson, we must transform the famous MerleauPontean phrase into 'the primacy of memory.' Also, when H.W. Carr in
1919 dissociates Bergsonian intuition from any individual mental faculty
such as intelligence and instead associates it with consciousness, 'which is
wider than the intellect because consciousness is identical with life,' 10 he is
correct to do this only because intuition is first of all memory and memory
for Bergson is life. Caused by a supra-intellectual emotion, intuition is a
memorial act which makes the effort to create images.
But this is not all we can say about intuition. The enlargement of
consciousness goes in another direction. Insofar as intuition makes the effort
to create images, we must also say that intuition is an imaginative act. This
creation of images is why Bergson says in 'Introduction to Metaphysics' that
When I speak of an absolute movement, I mean that I attribute to what is moving an interior
and, as it were, psychic states; it also means that I sympathize with the states and I insert
myself in them by an effort of imagination. (PM 1393/159; my emphasis).

27

Downloaded by [Northwestern University] at 22:29 17 December 2014

Here we must keep in mind that Bergson uses 'imagination' and 'phantasy'
interchangeably. For example, he frequently uses the word 'phantasy' with
'imagination' in Matter and Memory (for example, MM 315-317/179-180).
Unlike 'imagination' which suggests of course images, 'phantasy' suggests
light since it comes from the Greek 'phos.' This association of intuition with
phantasy implies that, turning back from the bright sunlight of daytime
actions based in needs to the dark darkness of yesterday's memories, in other
words, expanding consciousness from the present to include the past,
intuition then makes the effort to bring this darkness into the light of images.
Intuition is the movement from memory to phantasy. We can refer again to
'the turn of experience' formula. Caused by a supra-intellectual emotion,
intuition 'takes advantage of the growing light, clarifying the passage from
the immediate to the useful, that initiates the dawn of human experience'
(MM 3211185; Bergson's emphasis).
Because of this identification of intuition with memory and with phantasy
(understood as the creation of images on the basis of memory), I am going to
examine memory in Bergson. But before I do that, I am going to summarize
the development we have seen so far. We now have a definition of
Bergsonian intuition: intuition is an effort of reflection (that is, memory and
phantasy) caused by a supra-intellectual emotion (therefore it is neither
intelligence understood as representations nor instinct understood as
stimulus-response sequences based in material needs) - it is an effort of
reflection which reverses the normal work of thought in the present and turns
it towards the past, an effort which enlarges consciousness beyond the
present in order to make the past progress towards the present into an image.
Bergson calls intuition knowledge because it generates images or
representations. But, if we recall The Two Sources' discussion of supraintellectual emotion, intuition results in more than knowledge; it results in a
creative work (MR 1013/45). Intuition is knowledge and a work, for
Bergson. I can put the definition of intuition in another way: intuition is a
simple, that is, continuous act consisting in three components. First, intuition
is emotional; second, it is an act of memory; and third, intuition is an act of
imagination. 11 These three components explain why Bergson varies his
descriptions of intuition throughout his writings. On the one hand, in the
second introduction to La pensee et le mouvant, Bergson calls intuition
'vision' (PM 1273/32); this comparison of intuition to vision, it seems to me,
is due to the act of imagination, to the created images, visible images. On the
other hand, again in the second introduction, Bergson calls intuition
'contact'; this comparison of intuition to touch is due to its cause in supraintellectual emotions which are affective states. But there is a third
comparison with a sense. In 'Introduction to Metaphysics,' he calls intuition
'auscultation' (PM 14081175); this comparison of intuition to hearing is due
28

Downloaded by [Northwestern University] at 22:29 17 December 2014

to the act of memory, to the imageless past, pure memories, which, it seems,
can only at first be heard. Intuition, we can say finally, is a spiritual touching
which then spiritually hears and sees. It is spiritual because of memory.

2. The Concept of Memory

Before we tum to Bergson's famous theory of memory, which is focused
in the image of the inverted cone in Chapter 3 of Matter and Memory, we
must briefly summarize four discussions which occur in Chapter 2 and early
in Chapter 3. First, Bergson spends most of Chapter 2 trying to show us that
with the word 'memory' we confuse two very different phenomena. On the
one hand, we use the word 'memory' to refer to the bodily or motor habits
we acquire throughout our lives, which are repeated into the future; on the
other hand, we use the word 'memory' to refer to images which progress
from the past to the present. This is the distinction between 'habit or body
memory' and 'true or progressive' memory. The conclusion of this
differentiation between body memory and true memory for Bergson is that
true memory is entirely spiritual. Second, bodily habits are general; habits,
for Bergson, are motor behaviours which can be repeated indefinitely; in
contrast, true memories are singular, each being differentiated by its own
date and context; in fact, true memories are so spiritual that they exist prior
to being recalled in an image; they are pure memories. So, third, for Bergson,
because all memories are spiritual, that is, insofar as they are not bodily and
thus cannot be affected by things such as brain lesions, all memories survive.
In fact, Bergson says that their existence is unconscious. Thus, fourth,
existence for Bergson is not limited to consciousness or to the present.
Although Bergson discusses 'the all important problem of existence' only
within the context of the 'psychological realm,' we must note that the word
'existence' for Bergson has a large extension, including not just the present
but also the past. In fact, we must say that the past for Bergson defines
'existence'; the present is a part of the past, while the past is the whole.
Before we tum to the cone image, let us summarize these four points: (1)
there is a true memory which is spiritual, the memory which progresses from
the past to the present; (2) true memories are not general but singular; (3)
insofar as being spiritual, all memories survive. (4) the meaning of being is
the past. Now, I am going to tum to the cone image.
Of course, the cone image is found in Chapter 3. It is constructed with a
plane and an inverted cone, whose summit is inserted into the plane. 12 The
plane, 'plane P,' as Bergson calls it, is the 'plane of my actual representation
of the universe' (MM 293/152). The cone 'SAB' symbolizes memory. At the
cone's base, 'AB,' we have unconscious memories, the oldest surviving
memories - pure memories - which come forward spontaneously, for
example, in dreams (MM 294/153). As we descend, we have an 'indefinite
29

Downloaded by [Northwestern University] at 22:29 17 December 2014

number' (MM 309/170) of different regions of the past ordered by their

distance or nearness to the present. 13 At the summit of the cone, 'S,' we have
the image of my body which is concentrated into a point, into the present.
The summit is inserted into the plane and thus my body 'participates in the
plane' of my actual representation of the universe (MM 293/152). So at the
base of the cone, which is at the top of the image, we have memories and at
the summit, which is at the bottom, we have action. Now, what is most
difficult to visualize with the cone image is that it symbolizes a dynamic
process: memories are 'descending' down from the regions of memory
towards the present; they are making progress towards present action (MM
293/152-53). This progressive movement of memory takes place, according
to Bergson, between the 'extremes' of the base which is immobile and which
Bergson calls 'contemplation' (MM 3021163), and the plane where action
takes place. 14 This movement of memory between immobile contemplation
and moving action is really what defines intuition in Bergson, even though in
Matter and Memory he calls it intelligence (MM 3711242; cf. MM 2691125).
I do not think that Bergson's calling this movement intelligence eliminates
the possibility that here we have the movement of intuition since, as Husson
has shown, Bergson's use of the word 'intelligence' in the earlier writings
has a much broader scope than in the later. 15 So, I think we can say that what
defines intuition, for Bergson, is the movement between the two extremes,
the movement from the base to the summit, which is a movement from
singularities to generalities (MM 296/155). The generalities which are
involved in this movement are different than static symbolized generalities;
they are, for Bergson, sense, as we shall see in a moment. But, before turning
to the Bergsonian concept of sense, I am going to show how this movement
of intuition, from the singular to the general, works for Bergson. I am going
to lay this movement out in three distinct steps.
So, let us say that I am confronting an obstacle in the present, in contact
with a problem which can be solved only if I impose an order on a situation.
First, according to Bergson, I must make a 'leap' (MM 288/146). This 'leap'
means that, when I am remembering I do not make a 'one-by-one' regress
into the past; rather, by means of the leap, I am immediately in the past (cf.
MM 278/149-50, 2611116; also, ES 944/170), in, as Bergson says, 'the past
in general and then in a region of the past' (MM 276/134). Let us say that,
with the leap, I have landed in a region of my childhood, in the region before
my parents moved to the suburbs. Even though the leap places me in this
region, no image appears at first because I have forgotten the events that
formed my character; all I have is the idea of my character. The idea of my
character, according to Bergson, is like a 'cloud,' composed of thousands of
drops of water (MM 277/134); Bergson call this state the 'nebulosity of the
idea' (MM 266/122; cf. 3101171). Before these 'drops' condense, each
30

Downloaded by [Northwestern University] at 22:29 17 December 2014

memory is a pure memory, having the characteristics of being unextended,

without sensation, without potency in the present, without image, without
consciousness. Nevertheless, although these pure memories are without
consciousness, they have existence, unconscious existence. Perhaps, when I
remember my early childhood home, all that comes to mind is a song; in this
house it seemed as though the radio was always on, even throughout the
night. There's a song playing; it's 'Under the Boardwalk.' I immediately
have a date for my memories; I know it's 1964. Then, we come to the second
step: the cone 'rotates,' as Bergson says (MM 308/169). The movement of
rotation expands and relates memories contiguously. The cone is like- this
is Bergson's own comparison- a 'telescope' pointed upward to the nightsky,
whose lens-holders I am rotating to bring a region of the sky into focus (MM
305/166; 310/171; cf. also 262/122). Thanks to the rotation of the 'lensholders,' now I have the image of my parents' old house in the heart of the
city; I can now walk through the different rooms of the house; I can see the
pieces of furniture and people in each of the rooms, and then I can see the
events which took place in the rooms. The rotation of the lens-holders
continues. I am in the bedroom I shared with my brother; he is huddled over
the little desk we also shared; he is pasting stamps into an album, carefully,
according to the country of origin, according to the size and colour,
according to value of each. Now, I have singular and personal memories,
'memory-images,' as Bergson would say. The pure memories in which my
character consists have become fixed in living colour. This fixing of
memories in images, the movement from auscultation to vision, is the effort
of pure memory moving into phantasy. And the effort of phantasy continues.
Thus, we come to the third step, which is going on at the same time as the
rotation. Once the pure memories are fixed in images, the cone 'contracts'
(MM 308/168). Instead of 'expanding' into contiguous, singular, personal
images, the movement of contraction 'narrows' or 'diminishes' the images.
The narrowing movement of contraction pulls the singular and personal
images down the tube of the 'telescope' into general and impersonal images
which resemble one another. In other words, I forget again about the summer
of 1964; my memory of my brother carefully ordering what he used to call
his 'stamp-book' contracts into an image of his general orderliness. Here
with contraction, the differentiations again become obscured in order to
correspond to the present perceptual image. The image of my brother's
general orderliness becomes an idea or even a general 'method' or idea (cf.
PM 1326/85) for solving problems of order, which I can then contract into a
present perception and even extend into present action.
So, in Matter and Memory, memory or thought consists in a three step
process progressing from the past towards the present: the leap, the rotation,
and the contraction. Through these three steps, we can see that memory, in
31

Downloaded by [Northwestern University] at 22:29 17 December 2014

Bergson, is always progressive. And this progressiveness of memory means

that memory, for Bergson, does not come from perception but to perception;
the past does not come from the present but to the present. Now, in a well
known essay on Bergson, Jean Hyppolite has argued that we must conceive
pure memories in Bergson as essences. Hyppolite says, 'The German
language allows us to bring the past and essence together (gewesen and
Wesen). This is really how,' he says, 'it seems, we must understand pure
memory in Bergson.' 16 To say that the past is gewesen, that it was, means
not only that the actual object of perception has passed away, but also that
nothing can change the past; the past cannot be repeated in the sense of being
done over. In fact, Bergson defines memories in this way, as 'perfect,' that
is, as non-perfectible through repetition; that memories are non-perfectible that I cannot do the summer of 1964 over - is why Bergson says, in his
descriptions of the cone, that the base of the cone is immobile. The memories
at the base are in a sense eternal, since they have passed out of the present
where change occurs, where one can perfect actions. But, although the
memories have passed out of the present, they have not, as we have seen
Bergson also claim, passed out of time; insofar as they constitute our
character, they continue to affect the present. Since the memories have not
and cannot pass out of time - they can pass only out of the present - we
really cannot call them 'eternal'; at best we can say that they are 'quasieternal.' In any case, what we must recognize here is that for Bergson
memories cannot pass away. This is crucial: although we must say that
present perceptions cause memories, that memories are copies of objects
actually perceived, the present object of perception always passes away: my
skinny brother of 1964 has passed away; he's not dead, of course, but he is
no longer skinny. Insofar as the present object passes away, it liberates the
memory from the present, and the memory, unlike the perception, does not
pass away. It is no longer tied to the factual object which caused it; it has
become an essence, at once Wesen and gewesen. This detachment from the
object allows the memory to be repeated, not in the sense of doing it over but
in the sense of unifying it with others on the basis of resemblance; the
memories can be evoked and, so to speak, can be generalized. The cone's
contractions bring the memories together into a unity which, so to speak,
forgets the differences, so that the present action I am considering can base
itself on them.
This idea from Hyppolite, that we must conceive Bergsonian memories as
essences, allows us to say that the movement of memory - which is intuition,
as I am arguing - bases itself on, or, is even identical to, sense. 17 As is well
known, in the twentieth century the concept of sense has come to replace the
traditional metaphysical concept of essence. In fact, Hyppolite himself
presented this replacement in his Logic and Existence. 18 In order, however,
32

Downloaded by [Northwestern University] at 22:29 17 December 2014

to understand the Bergsonian concept of sense, we must now turn to

Bergson's 1902 essay 'Intellectual Effort.' As Frt!deric Worms has stressed
in his extremely helpful introduction to Matter and Memory, it is impossible
to underestimate the importance of this essay. 19 In 'Intellectual Effort,'
Bergson calls sense a 'dynamic schema' (ES 936/160), which he explains by
means of an example: the memory of a skillful chess player (ES 937-38116162). Bergson notes that a skillful chess player can play several games at once
without looking at the chess boards. According to Bergson, this chess player
does not have the image of each chess-board in memory 'just as it is, "as if it
were in a mirror",' nor does he have 'a mental vision of each piece' (ES
9381161). Instead, the chess player, according to Bergson, 'retains and
represents to himself ... the power, the bearing, and the value, in a word, the
function of each piece' (ES 938/162). And, for each game, the player retains
and represents to himself 'a composition of forces or better a relation
between allied or hostile powers' (ES 938/162). Then, at every move, the
player makes an effort of 'reconstruction'; in other words, he or she
'remakes' the history of the game from the beginning, or 'reconstitutes' the
successive events which have led to the present situation. Therefore, as
Bergson says, 'He thus obtains a representation of the whole which enables
him at any moment to visualize the elements' (ES 938/162). What the
example of the chess player implies is that the chess player has something
like what Bergson would call an intuition; he or she has an intuition of the
whole and the differences which can be developed from it. We cannot think,
however, that the chess-player has the whole as such; this would imply that
the whole is given in the intuition. Instead, the chess-player has the whole as
a schema, in which there are unforeseeable developments. So, Bergson
defines a dynamic schema in this way: a dynamic schema is - these are
Bergson's words - a 'simple' 'outline of temporal relations' (ES 950/177),
which is 'developable' into 'multiple images' (ES 9361160). In other words,
it is a 'representation' of the whole which can be developed into multiple
parts or elements. Even though the dynamic schema is an 'outline,' it is not,
according to Bergson, an 'impoverished extract or summary' of this
particular series of images (ES 937/160); if it were, the schema would be
limited just to that series of images, and then the chess player would be
unable to play new and different games. Similarly, a dynamic schema is not
what the images taken together 'signify'; in other words, it is not a 'logical
meaning,' because a logical meaning 'may belong to quite different series of
images'; so, a logical meaning would not allow us to retain and reconstruct
one definite series of images to the exclusion of others (ES 937/160). So,
while an impoverished extract is too limited to be a dynamic schema, a
logical meaning is too unlimited to be a dynamic schema. In other words, the
extract has too small an extension, while the logical meaning has too large an
33

Downloaded by [Northwestern University] at 22:29 17 December 2014

extension. A dynamic schema, as Bergson says, is as complete as the images

which develop from it; it has 'reciprocal implication' and consequently
'internal complication,' which the elements or images develop. The dynamic
schema or sense in Bergson is, to repeat an image from the cone, 'the
nebulosity of the idea' (MM 266/122). A cloud is a whole composed of
thousands of drops of water, but I do not see the different drops until the
cloud condenses. Similarly, the idea I have of my character is composed of
thousands of singular events, but I do not see those singular events until I
rotate the cone. The idea anyone has of his or her character would be an
example of a dynamic schema in Bergson. The idea I have of my character is
a simple outline of forces which are developable into singular images or
actions. The dynamic schema is not a mere form, the outline, but a tendency.
This dynamic schema is sense in Bergson: sens, both sense and direction.
3. The Priority of Intuition over Language
This examination of the concept of sense allows us to see the potential of
Bergson's thought. It contains an ambiguity which allows it to flow into both
the thought of Levinas and that of Deleuze. If, following Hyppolite, we must
conceive memories as essences - and that means as sense or as dynamic
schemas - then it seems we can characterize memories in at least two
different ways. If Bergsonian memories are essences, then, on the one hand,
it seems we could call them 'singularities,' meaning, according to Deleuze,
'ideal events' or even 'idealities' which generate signification, 20 and, on the
other hand, it seems we could call them 'traces,' meaning, according to
Levinas, an 'irreversible disturbance' or even an 'abstraction' which
generates significance. 21 If Bergsonian memories are generative, or, more
precisely, creative of new images, ideas, or works, if, as Bergson says in
'The Possible and the Real,' 'the whole is not given' (PM 1333/93), then, on
the one hand, it seems we could speak of the memories as being based in an
'irrectitude,' meaning, according to Levinas, a non-correlation between the
trace and what it refers to - the signified of the trace withdraws22 - and, on
the other, it seems we could speak of the memories as being based in a
virtuality, meaning, according to Deleuze, a non-resemblance between the
actualization and the singularity it incarnates - the virtual is not the
possible. 23 Finally, if Bergsonian memories only pass out of the present and
do not ever pass away, if they are, as we said, 'quasi-eternal,' then, on the
one hand, I think that we can call them 'impassible,' meaning, according to
Deleuze, that they do not pass away, 24 or, on the other hand, we can call
them 'immemorial,' meaning, according to Levinas, that these memories are
not bound to a perceived present.25 All of these ways of characterizing
Bergsonian memories or sense or dynamic schemas lead us, I think, to an
expression that is common in twentieth-century French thought. The phrase

34

Downloaded by [Northwestern University] at 22:29 17 December 2014

is 'a past that was never present.' To characterize Bergsonian memories with
this phrase raises the question of priority, since, whenever this phrase occurs
- whether it is in Deleuze, 26 Levinas, 27 Derrida, 28 or Merleau-Ponty 29 - it
always refers to what we used to call an a priori condition. As is well
known, in the twentieth century, a priori conditions must be conceived as at
once experiencable and yet not reducible to experience. But, if Bergsonian
memories are a priori conditions in this sense of conditioning the present
without being reducible to the present, then we must recognize that in
Bergson himself- without consideration for the Levinasian-Deleuzian
ambiguity of his thinking - this prioritization of memory prioritizes intuition
over language. It seems to me that this prioritization is decisive in
determining the ambiguity.
We can see the Bergsonian priority of intuition over language in Chapter
2 of Matter and Memory. Here, in order to explain memory, Bergson
describes the process of understanding the speech of someone who is
speaking in a language I do not know well. Bergson says, 'To understand the
speech of another is ... to reconstruct intelligently - that is, starting from the
ideas- the continuity of sound which the ear perceives' (MM 2611116-17;
my emphasis). In other words, if I am to understand, I must place myself
'immediately' - d'embtee- 'in the midst of the corresponding ideas' (MM
261/116). This 'd'embh!e' is the leap we saw in the cone, which implies we
are not engaged in a step-by-step regress. In fact, in the case of hearing or
understanding, it is really impossible to regress from the words that I am
hearing to the ideas, because words, as Bergson says, have no 'absolute
sense'; their sense is always relative to what follows them and what precedes
them. Bergson makes the following comparison; he says,
... a word has individuality for us only from the moment we have been taught to abstract it.
We do not first learn how to pronounce words but sentences. A word is always anastomosed
to the other words which accompany it and takes different aspects according to the cadence
and movement of the sentences of which it makes an integral part: just as each note of a
theme vaguely reflects the whole theme. (MM 262/118; my emphasis; cf. also 269/124; and
ES 945/170).

The word 'anastomose' suggests that a sentence is a complicated but

unified pattern of flows or rhythms. So, if I tried to regress from each distinct
word to an idea, I would be 'at a loss,' 'wandering' from word to word (ES
9451170). I would never find the pattern. In Chapter 2 of Matter and
Memory, Bergson says that sense or the idea is the 'solder' of the words
(MM 267/122). Therefore, in order to find this 'soldering' sense, I must not
regress; instead, I must leap right into the sense, and that means into the past
in general and then into a region of the past. But, this leap into the past also
means that we have escaped the particular language and escaped language as
a whole: we are intuiting. Thus, the direction consists in going from the ideas
to the images, from the sense to the distinct words.
35

Downloaded by [Northwestern University] at 22:29 17 December 2014

So, if we are to understand another person who is speaking a language

that I do know well, we see that it requires an intuition of sense like that of
the chess player. It may seem that I start from the sounds I am hearing, but,
according to Bergson, this starting point is an illusion: the articulate words I
can discern act as nothing more than 'suggestions' or 'benchmarks' for me to
follow (ES 943/168). From them, 1 make the leap into sense, that is, into the
past in general and then into a region of the past. When I have the sense
suggested or the 'corresponding idea,' I then have what Bergson calls the
'directing idea' (ES 956/184). This idea directs my progression towards
distinct elements or auditory images such as words. In other words, on the
basis of the sense, I repeat what the other person has said. Both in Matter
and Memory and in 'Intellectual Effort,' Bergson compares this process to
the operation of solving a mathematical problem (MM 2611116; ES
943/168). Even if the solution to a mathematical problem is written on the
blackboard, printed in books, or verbally explained to me, I do not
understand the solution to the problem unless I do it myself. Again, the chalk
marks on the blackboard or the symbols in the book or the sounds I hear do
not lead me to the idea; they are nothing but suggestions. I understand the
solution to the problem when I can do it myself. Similarly, in the case of
hearing a language I know imperfectly, I understand the other person when I
reconstruct, or re-say his or her sentence. In fact, I must say the sentence
over again just as rapidly as the person speaking in order to keep up. But,
only if I can repeat the sentence completely, can I say I really understand it,
and this understanding is not that of 'static generalities.' Because of the
starting point in sense from which I develop the singular images of words, I
understand exactly what has been said in its singularity. But, while this
understanding has had its suggestions and benchmarks in the speech I hear,
and while Bergson calls it is a 're-construction' or a 're-constitution,' we
must realize that the understanding of these specific words, in their very
difference, is dependent on my sense. I must make the leap to understand the
sentence, but, insofar as I leap into sense, the understanding of the sentence
develops from me, not you. Indeed, we must even see the rhythm of the
other's speech as a function of my own rhythm. For Bergson, therefore, the
plurality of rhythms develops - and we must say develops immediately from my intuition of my own sense. So, the direction is not from the other to
me, but from me to the other. The direction in Bergson is not from language
to intuition, but from intuition to language.
Since we now recognize the Bergsonian priority of intuition over
language, we are in a position to answer the questions with which we began.
So, what kind of transcendence? Since I contain virtually, in my sense, the
rhythms of all others' speeches, in other words, since the other's rhythms
creatively evolve from me, we can indeed speak of a transcendence in
36

Downloaded by [Northwestern University] at 22:29 17 December 2014

Bergson. This creativity is a direction to something other than me, to

something novel. But, since we are speaking here of a creation from me, I
think we cannot use the phrase 'absolute other' to describe this
transcendence, to describe the new. Instead, we must describe Bergsonian
creation as an auto-divergence or an auto-dissociation or an auto-alteration
(cf. CE 571-578/88-96). So, first, in Bergson, we have a transcendence
relative to myself or, more precisely, a transcendence relative to the self, and
not a transcendence of absolute alterity. In fact, I think we have to speak, in
contrast, of an absolute immanence in Bergson. But, does this absolute
immanence imply an absolute inside? While the transcendence of autoalteration implies an immanence, this immanence is not the immanence of
subjectivity; in other words, it is not an immanence of present consciousness.
Bergsonian intuition enlarges consciousness to include the unconscious and
that inclusion of the unconscious means the past (cf. PM 1273/32). So, if we
have here an unconscious past that is different from the present - it is a past
that was never present - and that is different from consciousness, we could
call it an outside of consciousness. But, since this outside is in existence,
according to Bergson, we cannot say that this outside is 'otherwise than
being' or that it is 'beyond essence.' We have an outside which is the same
as being and which is within essence. Again we find ourselves in Bergson
before an absolute immanence but one which is not equivalent to
consciousness: absolute immanence is absolutely outside. So, in his
prioritization of intuition over language Bergson, I think, has separated
immanence from consciousness and identified it with the non-conscious. In
other words, he has made immanence and the outside synonymous, in order
to make consciousness be the inside of the outside: consciousness is an
inside relative to the outside. In order to understand this unity of the outside
and immanence, I think one has to recall the ambiguity of the Greek word
'autos,' between ipse and idem, between self and identity; it seems as though
Bergson retains only the ipse and eliminates the identity. In short, we have a
same which is not identical.
I think this Bergsonian prioritization of intuition over language - which
therefore prioritizes a kind of absolute immanence - is why Levinas wonders
in 'The Old and the New' whether the Bergsonian intuition of duration really
lets the 'alterity of the new ... explode, immaculate and untouchable as
alterity or absolute newness, the absolute itself in the etymological sense of
the term.'30 Now it seems possible to me that the 'failure' in relation to
alterity that Levinas points to, here in Bergson, may not amount to
something we should repair in Bergson's philosophy. In fact, I am not sure
that Bergson's not letting the alterity of the new explode as absolute newness
is really a failure at all. Everything, it seems to me, depends on how we
interpret Bergson's idea of a supra-intellectual emotion. Minimally, I think
37

Downloaded by [Northwestern University] at 22:29 17 December 2014

this idea of supra-intellectual emotions must be interpreted as being a

question. While I am taking this interpretation, obviously, from Heidegger's
Introduction to Being and Time, it is not entirely alien to Bergson. In Matter
and Memory, for example, Bergson calls external stimuli questions
addressed to my motor activity (MM 194/45). While we carefully followed
Bergson and separated supra-intellectual emotions from sensation, we noted
that they are still affections, and thus we could say that they are like
questions put to my memory and imagination. In my example in the
discussion of the cone, I could have said that I felt something first which
caused the leap; I could say that I experienced a question: can I impose order
on my life? It seems to me that we can interpret this idea of a supraintellectual emotion as a question in two ways. On the one hand, we could
interpret the question put to me in terms of language, as an experience of
language. If we do this, then it is impossible to conceive this experience as
anything other than common or general. There can be no utterance which is
not based on a prior agreement or convention. In this interpretation of the
question, we are led in the direction of a promise that is prior to the question
itself, a promise to obey the laws of language by means of which I can
understand the question. In this interpretation, we are led into ethics. This
first way of interpreting the question is indebted to Levinas (and ultimately
to Derrida). But there is another way to interpret the question. We can
interpret the question put to me in terms of intuition, as an experience of
force. If we do this, then it is impossible to conceive this experience as
anything other than singular and extraordinary. There can be no intuition
which is not based on a prior singularity or extraordinary point. In this
second interpretation, which is obviously indebted to Deleuze (and
somewhat to Foucault), we are led not in the direction of a prior promise but
in the direction of a prior problem through which one understands the
question. In this interpretation, we are led into epistemology. To conclude,
let me suggest - and this is really only a suggestion - that there is perhaps a
reason for preferring the second interpretation. In the first interpretation, as
the experience of language and therefore as the experience of the general, we
cannot conceive the experience of the question as singular. And if we cannot
have an experience of singularity, then we have to say, perhaps, that we have
lost all difference. Maybe we have to say that we have lost all alterity in the
broadest sense of the term. If it is indeed the case that only intuition gives us
singularity, then we must bring all of our ethical reflections, reflections
which transform themselves quickly into religion, we must bring all of them
back to what we might call noetics, back to what is called thinking.
The University of Memphis

38

Downloaded by [Northwestern University] at 22:29 17 December 2014

References
I. This essay is part of a larger work called The Challenge of Bergsonism: Phenomenology,
Ontology, Ethics (Continuum Press, 2003), and it is based on lectures I delivered at the
Collegium Phaenomenologicum (Citta di Castello, Italy) in 1999.
2. All references to Bergson's works will use the abbreviations listed below in the
Bibliography. The French Centennial Edition is referred to first, then the English
translation.
3. Emmanuel Levinas, Totalite et l'infini (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1961), p.122;
English translation by Alphonso Lingis as Totality and Infinity (Pittsburgh: Duquesne
University Press, 1969), p.148.
4. Gilles Deleuze, Difference et repetition (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1968),
p.182; English translation by Paul Patton as Difference and Repetition (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1994), p.140.
5. Deleuze, Difference et repetition, pp.64-65; Difference and Repetition, pp.44-45.
6. Emmanuel Levinas, 'La signification et le sens,' in Humanisme et /'autre homme (Paris:
Fata Morgana, 1972), p.59; English translation by Alphonso Lingis as 'Meaning and
Sense,' in Collected Philosophical Papers (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1987), p.104.
7. Leon Brunschvicg, 'La vie interieure de !'intuition,' in Henri Bergson, essais et temoignes
recueillis, par Albert Beguin et Pierre Thevenaz (Neuchatel: Baconniere, 1943), p.182.
8. John Mullarkey, Bergson and Philosophy (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1999),
p.159.
9. Here is the quote: '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 which underlies
them in order to consider only their mobility - this undivided act that your consciousness
grasps in the movement which you yourself execute. You will obtain a vision of matter
which 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' (MM 343/208-209).
10. H.W. Carr, Henri Bergson: the Philosophy of Change (London and Edinburgh: T.C. and
E.C. Jack, 1919), p.32; my emphasis.
II. And this role of phantasy is why, as we shall see in a moment, we must not conceive
memory here in terms of 'memory-images'; memory here is what Bergson in Matter and
Memory calls 'pure memory.'
12. The cone image occurs first on page 152 of the English translation, which is page 293 of
the Centennial Edition, and then again on page 162 of the English translation, which is
page 302 of the Centennial Edition.
13. The second cone image represents these different regions with horizontal lines trisecting
the cone; see page 162 of the English, page 302 of the French.
14. Cf. Hyppolite, Figures de la pensee philosophique (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France,
1971), tome I, p.480.
15. See Leon Husson, L'lntellectualisme de Bergson (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France,
1947), p.21, where he says that ' ... in the early text, the word 'intelligence designated the
set of superior functions of knowledge, taken as a whole, regardless of the distinction one

39

Downloaded by [Northwestern University] at 22:29 17 December 2014

can make between them, or, at least, it designated the set of functions of intellection, that
is, comprehension.' See, for example, PM 1275/35.
16. Hyppolite, Figures de la pensee philosophique, tome 1, p.482, my translation.
17. What we are describing here as sense (without any qualifying adjective) is what Bergson
calls 'good sense.' In Chapter 3 of Matter and Memory, Bergson calls good sense practical
sense, which means that its direction is towards action. In fact, in a speech Bergson made
in 1895, one year before the publication of Matter and Memory, Bergson says that good
sense 'loves actions' (M 363). Nevertheless, its direction towards action must be
understood through its primary characteristic; good sense is primarily defined as being
'well-balanced' between the extremes of the cone; it is balanced between the 'docility' of
the dreamer and the 'energy' of the person who acts (MM 294/153). Insofar as good sense
is well-balanced, it never regresses, but always makes the leap and then progresses from
the sense or dynamic schema to action and language. The leap and the progress towards
action and language is why we have to define good sense as doubly directed or bidirectional; it is dynamism itself. This dynamism is why, in the 1895 speech, Bergson calls
good sense 'intellectual work itself (M 362). It is docile enough to use memory-images to
recognize the singularity of the present situation and energetic enough not to fall asleep
and dream. Again in the 1895 speech Bergson says that good sense neither sleeps nor
dreams. Indeed, this is why good sense is so fatiguing (ES 892/102). In the 1895 speech,
Bergson also calls good sense 'an intuition of a superior order which is necessarily rare'
(M 361). In fact, this entire speech implies that what Bergson, throughout his writings calls
intuition is good sense, which means that intuition in Bergson is never simply knowledge,
never simply speculative, but always also active, directed towards action. Finally, in the
1895 speech, Bergson tells us that good sense's love of action comes 'profoundly moved
for the good,' from 'an intense warmth which has become light' (M 371, 372). In contrast,
common sense in Bergson is the common direction, the direction towards utility; and,
unlike good sense which for Bergson is practical, common sense is theoretical. It is our
common theories about how to make things useful, what Bergson, in the second
Introduction to La pensee et le mouvant, calls 'the socialization of the truth' (PM 1327/87).
This theoretical outlook based in social needs is why common sense is primarily concerned
with decomposing. The tendency of common sense to decompose is why Bergson
throughout Matter and Memory finds himself 'correcting' common sense (MM 219/73; cf.
also 327/191; 3291193; 332/196). The most important comment Bergson makes in Matter
and Memory concerning common sense is found in the Fourth Chapter; he says, 'against
[materialism and idealism] we invoke the same testimony, that of consciousness, which
shows us our body as one image among others and our understanding as a certain faculty
of dissociating, of distinguishing, of opposing logically, but not of creating or of
constructing. Thus, willing captives of psychological analysis and, consequently, of
common sense, it would seem that, after having exacerbated the conflicts raised by
ordinary dualism, we have closed all the avenues of escape which metaphysics might set
open to us. But, just because we have pushed dualism to an extreme, our analysis has
perhaps dissociated its contradictory elements' (MM 318/181). This comment implies that
Matter and Memory's opening hypothesis is really supposed to 'push' common sense up
above to an extreme which in turn will open common sense up and allow us to escape from
it.
18. Jean Hyppolite, Logique et existence (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1952);
English translation by Leonard Lawlor and Amit Sen as Logic and Existence (Albany: The
SUNY Press, 1998).
19. Frederic Worms, Introduction a Matiere et memoire (Paris: Presses Universitaires de
France, 1997), p.l83.
20. Gilles Deleuze, Logique du sens (Paris: Minuit, 1969), pp.67-68; English translation by
Mark Lester with Charles Stivale, edited by Constantin V. Boundas as The Logic of Sense
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1990), pp.52-53.

40

21.
22.
23.
24.

25.
26.
27.

Downloaded by [Northwestern University] at 22:29 17 December 2014

28.

29.

30.

Levinas, 'Le signification et le sens,' pp.58-59; 'Meaning and Sense,' pp.l02-103.

Levinas, 'Le signification et le sens,' p.59; 'Meaning and Sense,' p.l03.
Deleuze, Difference et repetition, pp.273-274; Difference and Repetition, p.212.
Deleuze, Bergsonisme (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1967), p.50; English
translation by Hugh Tomlinson and Barbara Habberjam as Bergsonism (New York: Zone
Books, 1991), p.55.
Levinas, 'Le signification et le sens,' p.59; 'Meaning and Sense,' p.I03.
Deleuze, Difference et repetition, p.111; Difference and Repetition, p.82.
Emmanuel Levinas, Autrement qu 'etre ou au-dela de l 'essence (The Hague: Nijhoff,
1974), pp.\23-124; English translation by Alphonso Levinas as Otherwise than Being or
Beyond Essence (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1981), p.97.
Jacques Derrida, 'Differance,' in Marges de Ia philosophie (Paris: Minuit, 1972), p.22;
English translation by Alan Bass as Margins of Philosophy (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1982), p.21.
Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Phenomenologie de Ia perception (Paris: Gallimard, 1945), p.280;
English translation by Colin Smith as Phenomenology of Perception (New Jersey: The
Humanities Press, 1981), p.242.
Emmanuel Levinas, 'The Old and the New,' in Time and the Other, and Other Essays,
translated by Richard A. Cohen (Pittsburgh, Duquesne University Press, 1983), p.\33.

Bibliography
Oeuvres, Edition du Centenaire (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1959).
Melanges (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1972). Abbreviation: M.
English Translations Utilized (all texts cited by page numbers first to the relevant French
edition, then to tbe English translation, witb the abbreviations listed below):
Creative Evolution, tr., Arthur Mitchell (New York: Dover, 1998 [1911]). Abbreviation: EC.
The Creative Mind, tr., Mabelle L. Andison (New York: The Citadel Press, 1992 [1946]);
translation of La Pensee et le mouvant. Abbreviation: PM.
Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic, trs., Cloudsley Brereton and Fred Rothwell
(Los Angeles: Green Integer, 1999 [1911]). Abbreviation: R.
Matter and Memory, tr., N.M. Paul and W.S. Palmer (New York: Zone Books, 1994).
Abbreviation: MM.
Mind-Energy, tr., H. Wildon Carr (London: Macmillan and Company, 1920); translation of
L'energie spirituelle. Abbreviation: ES.
Time and Free Will: An Essay on the Immediate Data of Consciousness, tr., F.L. Pogson
(Montana: Kessinger Publishing Company, original date, 1910). Abbreviation: Dl.
The Two Sources of Morality and Religion, trs., R. Ashley Audra and Cloudsley Brereton, with
the assistance of W. Horsfall Carter (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press,
1977[1935]). Abbreviation: MR.

41