Deleuze and Bergson

Annaliese made a comment below on Piers entry which I thought would be worth taking up. Well Deleuze I suppose has been a bit of an ommission on the module. Even though we don't speak about him, he is never far away. A very complicated thinker, and you are right Annaliese, his thinking of time, difference and repetition is a good spot to think about how the question of the temporal and political might be broached for Bergson's thought. Peter Hallward is interesting here. Although, he is not embraced by many Deleuzians, since he is a bit critical of Deleuze, ultimately characterising him as a bit of a political escapist. Nonetheless, what he says in his text 'Out of this World' is instructive. Hallward situates his thesis within Deleuze's heritage of Bergsonian time. This I think is where the politcal debate resides: between habitualisation and what liberates it. There are for Deleuze, like Bergson, two times: the actual and virtual, which roughly correspond to Bergson's quantitative and qualitative time. Every given moment of actual time expresses variable degrees of 'compression' or 'compartmetalization' and are ultimately a diminishment of virtual time. For Deleuze, being is differing, ontology is differentiation. This all takes place on what he calls a plane of immanence. Immanence means there is no outside, whatever is generated is generated internally. Actualization provides limits and constraints. For Hallward's Deleuze, there is no mediation, no dialectic or intermediary affects. I suppose like Bergson's duree this is the activity which creates. It is an ontology, if there is a being it must be a facet of an indivisible, immaterial creative whole. Now Hallward's problem with this is pure creation must be immaterial and spiritual. (In some senses I think a lot Bergsonians at least would say well yes of course Bergson is a spirtualist. He is a vitalist after all.) For Hallward, differing or creation must necessarily be comprised of a 'spiritual force,' which transcends the constraints and limitations of the material and actual world. Deleuze is thus not a materialist despite his claims to the contrary. Deleuze's philosophy is unworldly rather than committed to the worldly. Again, Deleuzians think this is spurious. Any thoughts?