Experiences of the Self between Limit, Transgression, and the Explosion of the Dialectical System: Foucault as reader of Bataille and Blanchot

Research output: Journal contributionsJournal articlesTransferpeer-review

Authors

Bataille and Blanchot figure among the authors who influenced Foucault the most. In this article we show how close Foucault was to these authors and to what extent his proximity to them permitted him to deviate from the prevailing university culture, i.e from those great philosophical machines called Hegelianism and phenomenology. The questions we pose are the following: How important were these experiences for Foucault? How did he receive them? How did he transform their theoretical stakes? In the first part of this article we argue that the encounter with Bataille's work and Blanchot's was for Foucault a kind of experience of the self. In Bataille and Blanchot, experience has the function of wrenching the subject from itself: it is a project of desubjectivation and of destruction of the notion of the foundational subject and system in philosophy. The second part focuses on the contemporary experience of the death of God. According to Foucault, such an experience discloses the limitless reign of the Limit. We show how the work of Bataille, his discovery of the categories of irreversible expenditure, death, sacrifice, excess, limit, negativity pushes the (Hegelian) system beyond its limit. In the third part we take into account the literary experience of Blanchot. According to Foucault, Blanchot's work focuses on the disappearance of the subject: the being of language emerges in the exclusion of the subject. How is it possible to have a language stripped of dialectics?.

Original languageEnglish
JournalPhilosophy & Social Criticism
Volume31
Issue number5-6
Pages (from-to)649-664
Number of pages16
ISSN0191-4537
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 01.09.2005
Externally publishedYes

    Research areas

  • Philosophy
  • Bataille, Blanchot, conversion, death of God, dialectics, experience of the self, finitude, Foucault, Hegelianism, impossible, inner experience, Klossowski, language, limit, limit-experience, negativity, Nietzsche, phenomenology, sexuality, sovereignty, subject, subjectivation/desubjectivation, thought of outside, transgression

DOI

Recently viewed

Publications

  1. Modelling biodegradability based on OECD 301D data for the design of mineralising ionic liquids
  2. From pre-processing to advanced dynamic modeling of pupil data
  3. A Co-Creative Approach for AI-Enhanced Instructional Design: Combining Generative Artificial Intelligence and Learning Analytics
  4. A Gait Pattern Generator for Closed-Loop Position Control of a Soft Walking Robot
  5. A cascade controller structure using an internal PID controller for a hybrid piezo-hydraulic actuator in camless internal combustion engines
  6. Inconsistent short-term effects of enhanced structural complexity on soil microbial properties across German forests
  7. Adjustable automation and manoeuvre control in automated driving
  8. Treating dialogue quality evaluation as an anomaly detection problem
  9. Visualizing the Hidden Activity of Artificial Neural Networks
  10. Towards an open question answering architecture
  11. Reading Comprehension as Embodied Action: Exploratory Findings on Nonlinear Eye Movement Dynamics and Comprehension of Scientific Texts
  12. Q-Adaptive Control of the nonlinear dynamics of the cantilever-sample system of an Atomic Force Microscope
  13. How, when and why do negotiators use reference points?
  14. The impact of goal focus, task type and group size on synchronous net-based collaborative learning discourses
  15. An observer for sensorless variable valve control in camless internal combustion engines
  16. Highlight, Write, Elaborate: Note-Taking Strategies to Master Reality-Based Mathematical Tasks
  17. From system theory to practical implementation
  18. Evaluating structural and compositional canopy characteristics to predict the light-demand signature of the forest understorey in mixed, semi-natural temperate forests
  19. Watershed groundwater balance estimation using streamflow recession analysis and baseflow separation
  20. Interactive Media as Fields of Transduction
  21. Extraction of finite-time coherent sets in 3D Rayleigh-Benard Convection using the dynamic Laplacian
  22. A Hermeneutic Interpretation of Concepts in a Cooperative Multicultural Working Project
  23. Reductive dehalogenation of recalcitrant polyhalogenated pollutants using ball milling