1. This essay is part of a larger work calledThe Challenge of Bergsonism: Phenomenology, Ontology, Ethics(Continuum Press, 2003), and it is based on lectures I delivered at the Collegium Phaenomenologicum (Città 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,Totalité et l'infini(The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1961), p.122; English translation by Alphonso Lingis asTotality and Infinity(Pittsburgh: Duquesne University Press, 1969), p. 148.
4. Gilles Deleuze,Différence et répétition(Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1968), p. 182; English translation by Paul Patton asDifference and Repetition(New York: Columbia University Press, 1994), p. 140.
5. Deleuze,Différence et répétition, pp.64–65;Difference and Repetition, pp.44–45.