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

Activities

  1. Nonlinear dynamics and opinion formation in time varying networks
  2. Understanding Corruption by Means of Experiments
  3. The Linguistic Complexity of Test Items: Differential Effects for Students With Low and High Language Proficiency
  4. Travelling Codes
  5. Research Workshop “Innovation and Value Creation” - 2009
  6. Inter- and Transdisciplinary Learning
  7. How does tree sapling diversity influence browsing intensity by deer across spatial scales?
  8. Where To Start? Exploring 1-Year-Students’ Preconceptions of Sustainable Development
  9. Foresters understanding of forest nature and its gender
  10. Harvard Universität
  11. 131st MLA Annual Convention 2016
  12. ECPR Joint Sessions of Workshops 2009
  13. 19th Annual SemFest
  14. The hands that steer us: Notes from an ethnography of software developers
  15. Bacillus pseudofirmus AL-89: A source for industrial relevant proteases
  16. Modelling Ecosystem Services - 2009
  17. 23rd (EC)2 Conference - Hypothesis Testing - EC2 2012
  18. UV photodegradation of trimipramine under different environmental variables and chemical nature of aqueous solution - biodegradation and LC-MSn characterization of the formed transformation products
  19. Eigenzeiten of Creativity – Temporal Work as a Coordination Challenge in Artistic and Scientific Project Ecologies
  20. Transdisciplinary Evaluation of Different Coastal Adaptation Strategies: Integrating Regional Perceptions of Scientists, Practitioners and the Public
  21. Student Gender and Teachers' Grading and Written Feedback on Math or Language Assignments
  22. Prototyping in der transdisziplinären Teamarbeit
  23. Video or Text Cases in Problem-Oriented or Direct Instructional Settings for Preservice Teachers?
  24. Group Decision and Negotiation (Fachzeitschrift)
  25. The Rhetoric of Disillusionment. Discursive Shifts in the Rhetoric of "There is no alternative"
  26. Building Collective Institutional Infrastructures for Decent Platform Work: The Development of a Crowdwork Agreement in Germany
  27. It’s hard to part with gains, but what about losses. Contribution and Distribution of Benefits and Burdens in Integrative Negotiations
  28. 18th International Conference on Pragmatics and Language Learning - 2010 (Veranstaltung)
  29. Containing and Accomodating Salafism in the Sahel: Insights and Lessons from Niger
  30. Designmethoden in transdisziplinären Teams
  31. Social Entrepreneurship - an introduction: ERASMUS guest lecture