(lecture)
Content
I. Introduction
II. What I will talk about
III. Theory of knowledge and ontology
IV. The basics of theory of knowledge
V. The limits of theory of knowledge
VI. Hegelian knowledge and Bataillan experience
VII. Batailles understanding of experience
VIII. The limits of philosophy
IX. Discursiveness and aphorims
In a conference lecture from 1951 with the title "The consequences of non-knowledge" Bataille refers to a conversation, he had the night before with Ayer and Merleau-Ponty, a conversation which lasted until three o'clock in the morning.
According to Bataille though, the conversation was centered around a 'rather bizarre' question, namely a simple proposition presented by Ayer, that the sun was there before man existed. On the one hand, Ayer could not be brought to doubt the truth of this proposition; on the other hand Bataille could not see, how at all one could say such a thing. Merleau-Ponty, one can assume, took an intermediary position.
To Bataille this conversation was a 'scandal', and after the conversation, he was left with a feeling of regret. In his lecture Bataille does not go much into detail about the specific arguments of the conversation, but he does leave enough clues to indicate, why that experience made him conclude that 'there is a sort of an abyss between french and english philosophers, which is not there between french and german philosophers'.
I will not go further into the details of Bataille's reflections in the lecture refered to. My focus today is more general, namely Bataille's conception of inner experience, non-knowledge and communication; but the way, I will present these concepts, presupposes the ackknowledgement and understanding of this abyss seperating anglophone and continental philosophy.
The concepts of inner experience, non-knowledge and communication have caused a great deal of mystification to readers of Bataille - hostiles as well as friendly - and for that reason I have thought it appropiate in this lecture to introduce Bataille's conception of experience with the help of a concept, which is more familiar to philosophers, namely the philosophical concept of knowledge.
In relation to the thinking of Bataille this is in itself problematic. What I will do is however even more problematic. What I will do first, is to step over to the other side of the abyss, and introduce the concept of knowledge taken for granted by Ayer and most modern theory of knowledge. Introducing this concept of knowledge will - I hope - cast light on the abyss seperating Bataille from Ayer. Being very simple this concept of knowledge should also make it easier to introduce the basic meaning of Bataille's concepts in a philosophical context. And, as an extra benefit, the contrast between two ways of thinking should contribute to the understanding of the limitations of theory of knowledge, as it is normally practised.
This way of exposing the relevancy of Batailles concepts does not, however, do justice to the complexity of his thoughts about human experience; to get a more thorough understanding of Bataille's concepts, I will - as the second step - introduce the concept of knowledge, which in reality provoked Bataille to coin these terms, that is, the concept of knowledge presented by Hegel, which is much more sophisticated and complex than the concept assumed by modern theory of knowledge.
Still, Hegel's concept of knowledge shares some of the same basic difficulties as the concept of knowledge in modern theory of knowledge, and that is the reason why, Bataille not only was opposed to Ayer, but also to most of his fellow continental philosophers. As Bataille somtimes put it, his way of thinking is simply opposed to that of philosophy as such, and the indication of his reasons for thinking so will be the third and final step in this exposition of Bataille's general conception of experience.
What I will talk about today is therefore concepts of knowledge and experience from both sides of the abyss. Keeping this in mind, I hope that my way of exposing Batailles understanding of human experience avoids more misunderstanding than it creates; or, in other words, I hope to land well on at least on of the sides of the abyss and not fall down between them.
III. Theory of knowledge and ontology
In the days of Plato the theory of knowledge was closely connected to ontology, and for most philosophers this is also the case today. Still, very often professional philosophers accept the division of labour within the academic institutions, and find themselves preoccupied by only one of these traditional parts of theoretical philosophy without spending too much time on the other.
The theory of knowledge as developed in the anglo-american tradition in this century can be seen as an example of this academic division of labour, having - untill recently - developed rather independently of ontological questions. But, first, the choice of epistemology in stead of ontology is not a coincedence, and, second, an ontology is still asummed in theory of knowledge though not explicitly.
Choosing epistemology can be seen as a consequence of the fact, that many of the trendsetting philosophers in the anglo-american tradition had no formal philosophical education, but were trained in physics or mathematics. Ontology is often seen as one of the more speculative disciplines of philosophy, and bypassing ontology to concentrate on theory of knowledge expresses very well both the natural scientist's natural liking for anti-methaphysic no-nonsense reflections, and the kind of empiricism, which was allready an established tradition in the english speaking world.
Whatever their liking, though, these philosophers cannot free themselves from making ontological assumptions. The development of theory of knowledge in anglo-phone philosophy goes hand in hand with the tacid ontological assumptions, that reality - whatever else be its nature - is subjugated to eternal regularities, which can be discovered by a systematic intellectual effort, that is, the laws which are discovered by the work of natural science.
This tacid assumption makes it legitimate to assume some kind of positivist attitude; and it is only with this attitude, a philosopher legitimately can leave ontological questions to be considered later, after the questions about how to obtain truthfull scientific knowledge about this reality has been solved.
Developing theory of knowledge as a rather independent philosophical discipline simply presupposes such a fundamental positivist attitude.
Basicly, however, theory of knowledge in this tradition is still modelled on the way Plato thinks in The Republic. Plato states that knowledge is about what is, whereas oppinions can be formed about both what is, whis is not, and what both is and is not, that is, what is becoming. Where knowledge for Plato is allways true, opinion can be erroneus, and the question is therefore which conditions opinions must fullfill to be considered true knowledge.
As mentioned, for Plato this epistemological question is closely connected to the ontology, he presupposes; what in reality is real cannot be the object of change, whereas what most of us consider as real is only some appearances passing by. For Plato epistemologi is what helps us to obtain knowledge about the stable and eternal reality behind the fluctuating appearances, knowledge, which therefore is also stable and eternally valid.
The modern theory of knowledge refrains from considering speculative ontological questions of this kind. Still it assumes that there is something eternal and regular underneath the fluctuating surface - namely the natural laws - and that they can be brought to light by a serious, planned and well-disciplined intellectual effort. This is not the case for Plato however; his similes are much more indicative of an epistemologi, where one can obtain true knowledge by some kind of sudden, un-willed illumination.
So theory of knowledge continues to employ Plato's distinction between mere opinion and true knowledge, but does not accept neither his ontology nor his epistemology. But if one accepts a certain inter-dependency of form and content, it should be clear that theory of knowledge by employing Plato's distinction newertheless accepts certain preconditions, which determines the basic structure of theory of knowledge.
IV. The basics of theory of knowledge
Being based on this distinction, epistemology has become reflections about which conditions, opinions must fulfill in order to be considered knowledge. One way to structure modern theory of knowledge can therefore be - (as is done in the basic course on the Copenhagen Peoples University) - to consider the kinds of conditions, opinions must live up to to be accepted as knowledge. In other words, which are the basic conditions normally considered necessary, though not sufficient for knowledge? Taking a broad view, one can discern four conditions within theory of knowledge as it normally understands itself.
First of all, only opinions expressed in propositions - that is phrases, which states something about something - can be considered as candidates for knowledge; neither sense-data alone nor platonic ideas can convey the truth. A candidate for knowledge must have a form like the proposition presented by Ayer to Bataille and Merleau-Ponty, that is, that the sun was there before man.
This leads us to the second condition, namely that the proposition must be understandable or meaningfull for a normal language user. Because, exactly the proposition put forward by Ayer fails to live up to what is Ayer himself originally considered the condition for meaningfullness, that is, that the proposition can be verified by reference to direct experience. Nobody can verify a phrase like Ayer's without reference to ontological presuppositions - that is, a conceptual scheme of some kind - and it should therefore be quite understandable for somebody like Ayer, that Bataille could not see, how one could say such a thing.
Bataille though does not keep within the premises of a theory of knowledge as concieved by Ayer. Bataille's reason to deny the meaningfullness of the proposition is both commonsensial and traditional philosophical, meaning that it is partly epistmological and partly ontological: Bataille simply states, that before man was here, nobody on earth could experience the sun as the sun. Knowledge understood as conceptually structured experience presented in a true proposition presupposes a human subject confronted with an object, and refusing to doubt the truth of a proposition about an object, which cannot be confronted with a subject, does not make sense to Bataille.
Of course, what is meaningfull and makes sense is in itself a question, which can be discussed at length; what matters here, is that a theory of knowledge in this tradition only deals with understandable propositions. Having limited ourselves in that way, we can consider the third condition: to be considered knowledge, a proposition must also be true.
However, what this actually means is a matter of great controversy in theory of knowledge. Traditionally anglophone empericism takes for granted that a true proposition must express somthing which is real and that two true propositions cannot contradict each other. Focusing on the first assumption naturally leads to the so-called 'correspondence theory', which states that a true proposition somehow corresponds to reality; focusing on the second assumption makes it more natural to hold a so-called 'coherence theory', where a proposition is true, if it can be seen as part of a picture made up by other generally accepted propositions.
A proposition, then, is allways true by reference to something else, and this leads to the fourth and final condition: Modern teory of knowledge demands that it is possible to give a reason for, why a given proposition is true. What can be stated as a reason depends on many things, among them how one understands what it is for a proposition to be true. But it must always be possible in principle to discuss, affirm or deny, what is claimed to be knowledge; obtaining knowledge by sheer coincedence is not acceptable.
In short, what modern theory of knowledge takes for granted, is that knowledge necessarily is an opinion stated as a proposition, which is understandable, true and weel-founded.
These conditions imply that knowledge must be public and shared by a community of languageusers. They also imply that knowledge must be stable enough to be discussed over time; only if an experience can be communicated discursively, it can be a candidate for knowledge. A private, passing or not discursively expressable experience can never be considered knowledge according to the philosophical theory of knowledge.
This, however, is exactly the reason why Bataille choses to express his thoughts concerning human experience under the headings 'inner experience' and 'non-knowledge'. For Bataille the human experience is in it-self interresting; philosophy, on the other hand, is normally only interrested in a theory of knowledge as a mere mean to gain true knowledge. Theory of knowledge is not a theory of experience. A theory of human experience as Bataille understands it belongs to ontology, not epistemology.
The concept of knowledge in theory of knowledge is not discussed within theory of knowledge it self. It is taken for granted without to many reflections. And, what is worse, it is concieved of in such a restricted way, that it cannot accept other kinds of human experiences as valid knowledge, even though they are normal and sometimes even essential to the human way of being.
Bataille has maked human experience a matter to be discussed, and from the way he thinks, the concept of knwoledge employed by modern philosophical theory of knowledge makes most of the actual knowledge and experience that human beings gain from living their life fall under the heading 'non-knowledge' and 'inner experience'.
Wisdom, practical skills, maturity, feeling loved, intuitions based on experience, religious insights, physical pain, sorrow, joy, all fall under the heading of 'non-knowledge' and 'inner experience' - if knowledge is concieved of as in this kind of philosophical theory of knowledge.
And, even though modern theory of knowledge is based on Platos distiction between opinoin and knowledge, also Platos conception of knowledge as the direct experience of the ideas of reality falls outside the concept of knowledge as concieved by theory of knowledge.
Still, in one way, Bataille can be said to accept the conditions for knowledge assumed by modern theory of knowledge, but only if they are stated in the most general way. Also to Bataille knowledge and experience must be understandable, true and able to be communicated. What makes the difference, is the way he understands experience, truth and communication.
V. The limits of theory of knowledge
Of course, a theory of knowledge is normaly not as simple as classic empiricism. But, together with the platonic distinction and natural science, classic empiricism forms the main background for the development of modern theory of knowledge. It is these preconditions, which sets the scope for the discussion. We are therefore still within theory of knowledge, when the thought arises, that knowledge is somehow prestructured and that knowledge is not obtainable independently of this structure.
This is the thought expressed by Kant in his critique of british empericism, where he focuses on the 'categories' and the 'trancendental forms' of knowledge. The same thought is also taken up by, for instance, Husserl, when his initial positivistic phenomenology becomes to narrow, and for him focussing on the trancendental conditions of knowledge leads to a more general concept for what prestructures knowledge, namely the 'lifeworld'. And, as expressions of the same line of thought, though with an infinity of variations, one can also mention terms like 'paradigm', 'language games', 'lifeforms', 'preconsciousness', 'prejudices', 'supertheories', 'hard cores' and many others.
This way of thinking in turn leads to question if a proposition at all can be considered true independently of such structures, the foremost being language itself. This marks the transition from what is called the 'foundationalism' of the corrspondence theory to various sorts of coherence theories of truth. It also marks what is called the 'linguistic turn' in anglophone philosophy.
In short, what happens is, that theory of knowledge shifts the focus from direct sensual experience or conceptually structured knowledge to the language, in which propositions - now concieved of as the only candidates for knowledge - is expressed.
This line of thinking, however, raises a fundamental question to theory of knowledge, namely: What can be known about such a structure, which makes both knowledge itself and the theory of knowledge in question meaningfull? Or, in other words: How can we get knowledge about the presupposed structure, which lives up the conditions of knowledge, when these conditions are only given by theory of knowledge, which itself is only meaningfull within the structure being the object of the investigation?
Posed in such a way, the question threatens to become non-sense, being almost circular in a very narrow way, and with the strong platonic concepts of truth and knowledge - based on the distinction between truth and opinion - this makes knowledge seem impossible.
To sum up: Theory of knowledge tries to find out, how one obtain knowledge. Doing this, however, leads to the situation, where theory of knowledge itself creates the conditions for what can be accepted as knowledge by philosophy. The concepts developed to reconstruct discursively our tacid understanding of, how we obtain knowledge, leads to an evaluation of human experience in general in order to determine, what kinds of experience can be accepted as knowledge. And in the end the evaluation based on these concepts means that knowledge on its own conditions seems impossible to obtain within the realm of human experience.
Using Batailles expressions, this line of thought means that knowledge as understood in theory of knowldege is closing itself around itself. Knowledge shuts out all other kinds of human experiences, even though they are understandable, true and able to be communicated. Only the kinds of human experience, which can contribute to knowledge, are found worthy of serious philosophical attention; the rest are being left outside, and can therefore aptly be described as 'non-knowledge' or 'inner experiences'. But, as the development of theory of knowledge shows, in the end only 'non-knowledge is possible, whereas knowledge becomes impossible.
No matter how fond one is of Bataille's terminology, this is clearly unacceptable. To get back to a situation where knowledge becomes possible, one must get a better understanding of the way human experience and knowledge is connected. And this leads to question the conditions taken for granted by theory of knowledge, both the most natural and uncontroversial condition, namely that knowledge must be stated in the form of a proposition, which can be discussed, and the way, the other condions are interpreted.
As an indication of what this is all about, one can for instance consider, how one can get to know, that he or she is being loved. That kind of knowledge cannot be the result of a communication performed only by linguistic means in a discursive manner; arguments are simply not enough. For the communication to be effective, there must be conveyed something more than just the meaning of propositions stating facts. Love is both communicated and experienced by non-discursive means, for instance, by facial expressions, by caressing and being carresed, by the time spend together, even by passionate and unreasonable arguments. Still, only a fool - or a teeanger - would deny, that it is possible to know, that one is being loved.
Or, to take one of the classic examples, explored over the years by Bataille himself: The experience, which makes one burst out in laughter, can be presented discursively; but the knowledge obtained from the discursive representation seldom provokes laughter itself. The communication, which makes you laugh, gives rise to an experience, but an experience, which even though it must be considered some kind of knowledge still escapes propositional knowledge.
It is to make this contrast clear, Bataille choses to call these kind of experiences, first 'lived experience' and later 'inner experience', both attempts to find a suitable way to handle the german distinqtion between 'Erlebnis' and 'Erkenntniss', a distinqtion, which - by the way - is also hard to express in english.
Following this line of thought, 'non-knowledge' can be interpreted as the kind of knowledge and experience, which stems from these 'lived' or 'inner experiences', that is, the kind of experience or knowledge one gets from living a human life, a non-propositional knowledge, which stems from the accumulated experiences of both extreme circumstances and more ordinary living conditions, some only possible alone, in silence or screaming, others only possible together with other human beings, chatting, laughing, dancing, fighting, or making love.
(chatting - which, however nowadays, on the internet, is also performed in solitude and in writing -)
Neither 'inner experience' nor 'non-knowledge' are in themselves expressions of mysticism or esoteric thought, as some interpreters has thought. But given the narrowness of the concept of knowledge employed by theory of knowledge, knowledge gained by mystic or religious experiences falls under the same headings as experiences gained from simply living a life, that is, love, enjoyment, or - to focus on those matters, which Bataille provocatively like to emphasize - anxiety, perverted eroticism, violence, and confrontations with death and in particular rotten corpses.
VI. Hegelian knowledge and Bataillan experience
Up til know, Batailles concepts about experience has been seen in contrast to modern theory of knowledge. This exposition has served to illustrate the inter-dependency of epistemology and ontology, the limitations of the concept of knowledge employed by many philosophers, and the relevancy of Bataille's concepts of 'inner experience' and 'non-knowledge'.
The picture developed so far does however not do justice to the philosophy, Bataille normally confronted his thinking with. Batailles concepts of experience was developed in opposition to ways of thinking, which had almost nothing to do with the ontology and the epistemology of british empiricism and the anglo-phone philosophy inspired by natural sciences such as physics. Nor did Bataille's way of thinking relate directly to Platos distiction between truth and opinion.
Bataille's conception of human experience was developed in dialogue with the leftwing Hegelianism introduced in France by Alexandre Kojčve. And Hegel's conception of reality was Aristotelian, not Platonian.
For Aristotle reality is not something eternally unchanging. Movement, change and development are not just appearances; they are real. Aristotle's basic ontological distiction is between that which is necessarily so and that which could be different. Both are aspects of reality; what Aristotle wants to stress is that some kind of change can be seen as regular development, which can be foreseen, whereas other kinds of change - typically in the human sphere - simply must be seen as something which could be different. This basic ontological distinction corresponds to the distinction between theoretical and pratical philosophy.
When change over time is considered real, then the knowledge to be obtained about reality must develop over time as the experiences are made. Knowledge is not the result of an sudden unwilled illumination as for Plato. Knowledge is the result a willed systematical intellectual effort, like the one found in the natural sciences. The transition from opinion to knowledge is a process, which takes time.
Hegel mixes these two conceptions with the idea of paradise on earth. Absolute knowledge is something, which is brought to human beings unwillingly after a process which takes time. Taking the platonic concept of knowledge to its extreme, Hegel states that the truth is the whole. But Hegel has also brought Aristotle's conception of knowledge as the result of a process to the extreme.
The whole can only been brought to knowledge at the end of the total historical process of mankind, meaning that every single step of the process only becomes reasonable, when you look back. Historical progress is governed by the devine reason, which works behind our backs. It is this reason, which finally brings human beings to absolutte knowledge - that is, paradise on earth.
For Hegel the basic drive for human beings is desire. Desire, however, consumes what it desires, and consumption is anihilation. In other words, human beings left to themselves destroy what they like. What human beings desire most is the desire of other human beings, that is, to be loved or to be ackknowledged. Still, desire annihilates what it desires, and the meeting of two human beings develops into a fight of life and death.
It is to get out of this tragic situation that Hegel invents - in the Phenomenology of Spirits - the dialectics of master and slave, which became the central Hegelian theme for both Kojčve and Bataille. In the dialectics of the master and slave, one of the fighters choses to live and therefore gives himself up to the other and becomes a slave. Through forced labour and the everpresent fear for death the desire of the slave becomes transformed to work, and work gives rise to the kind of human experience, which makes historical progress and in the end absolute knowledge possible.
So for Hegel knowledge is something, which can only be obtained after the historical process, in which human experiences are made, is completed. The meaning of the actual human experiences eludes those, who make them. Still, experiences are made while working, and through work man becomes aware of himself. Having transformed a piece of material according to his own idea, he becomes aware of his capacity to transform reality as such according to a rational plan. Work transforms reality, including the slave himself, and history is therefore the real, but unconscious product of the slaves, who in the end will get what they deserve, absolute knowledge, paradise on earth, or - as Marx would put it - communism.
In contrast to the concept of knowledge taken for granted by theory of knowledge, Hegel's concept of knowledge cannot be seperated from ontology; on the contrary, Hegel's concept of knowledge is developed within a general methaphysical system, including both ontology and epistemology. With Hegel's concept of reality, it is simply not possible to develop a theory of knowledge as the one presented before. Hegel's reality is not something eternal, which is different from the changing human reality; Hegel's reality includes the human reality.
Like theory of knowledge, however, Hegel also employs Plato's distinction between opinion and knowledge. But only when knowledge becomes absolute by the end of history, is it in reality possible to distinguish between opinion and knowledge. Untill then everything is only a matter of opnion.
In the most general sense, one can also apply the beforementioned conditions of knowledge to Hegel's concept of knowledge. Also to Hegel, knowledge must be understandable, true and well-founded. But when Hegel finds that the truth is the whole in the strongest metaphysycal sense of the word, to be well-founded knowledge must be absolute knowledge. And with Hegel's historical conception of reality, this makes knowledge seem if not in principle impossible, then at least something, which we will never experience as human beings. Even though Hegel has distanced himself from the positivist attitude inherrent theory of knowledge, also for Hegel knowledge seems to close it self around itself.
It is because Hegel makes knowledge impossible within human reality, Bataille find non-knowledge relevant. And when Hegel restrict human experiences actually made to only those made in connection with rational work and historical progress, Bataille must insist on those experiences, which do not contribute to - or sometimes even disturb - work and progress, that is, the innner experiences.
Hegel's conception of knowledge is much more comprehensive than the theory of knowledge mentioned before, and for Bataille Hegel is the only thinker worth opposing, the master of thought, which has brought discursive thinking to its absolute extreme. But exactly because of the aspiration to totality by the conception of absolute knowledge, Bataille can legitimately call attention to what is normally translated to The accursed share, that is, those annoying and 'damned parts' of human life, which can newer be totally accounted for by the kind of knowledge developed by Hegel.
The kind of knowledge accepted by Hegel is still the knowledge structured by reason, just like in theory of knowledge. Hegels concept of knowledge incorporates time and change, but only as a well structured and rationally ordered historical development, not as sudden changes, experiences of passing moments, or private experiences.
But because Hegel has monopolized the term knowledge, and because Bataille accepts Hegels conception of knowledge as philosophy's concept of knowledge, for the experiences of those damned parts of human life, which Bataille wants to focus on, he must invent terms like 'inner experience' and 'non-knowledge'.
VII. Batailles understanding of experience
In relation to Hegel Bataille explicitly accepted the dialectical way of thinking, though with two reservations: First, he stated - already in 1932 in an article named "The critique of the foundation of hegelian dialectics" - that dialectical thinking was only suitable for understanding human reality, not the non-human nature. Dialectics was in other words most suitable for understanding the aspect of reality, which could be diferent, that part of reality, which Aristotles confined to pratical philosophy.
Second, Bataille stated - much later, in an unfinished book called Sovereignty - that dialectical thinking could not be called of, neither by conscioness reaching what Hegel called 'absolute knowledge', neither by society reaching the stage, Marx called communism. The conflicts in reality will newer be solved finally; there will allways be some damned part left, which cannot be integrated.
For Bataille the conflicts of both conscioness and society are experienced as the reality itself, not as mere expressions of some reality underneath. Dialectical thinking is a way to understand the way the conflicting reality is changing. A conflict is allways started by an oposition to what is allready there; but this opposition is itself formed by, what it opposes. For Bataille a conflict in the human reality - be that individual or social - is allways to be understood in terms of the kind of opposition, which Hegel would call a 'determined negation'.
In a conflict the opposition can newer escape being the negation of something, which is allready there, and this something prestructures both the form and content of the opposition, and is preserved in whatever comes out of the conflict, even if it seems that the opposing negation has overcomed, what it opposed. There is no way, human reality can start all over again, no way, a conflict can consist of equal, but opposing sides.
For Bataille a theory of knowledge, which presupposes that the reality, which we try to obtain knowledge about, is hidden and eternaly unchangeable is simply not relevant for human reality. For Bataille reality is changing and in some way also developing, though he explicitly - also in Sovereignty - refrains form making claims about in which direction it develops.
Both the individual human being and the social reality are changing as they become older. This however is not only a biological process; it is also a matter of experience. Maturity is something which comes with age, but it cannot develop without the right experiences. Like Hegel and Aristotle Bataille sees knowledge as something, which develops over time, as the development of human consciuosness by the experiences made in real life.
What makes Bataille oppose Hegel is the idealism or moralism, which makes Hegel ignore the experiences of some central aspects of human life, which cannot be integrated in a history governed by the divine reason. Hegel does acknowledge desire a basic drive for the development of consciousnes, but he seems to forget his own concept of 'determined negation', when he lets the desire expressed by the master be overcomed and transformed by the work of the slave.
After being conquered by the master, the slave does not show any desire for being master again. The desire to annihilate is also a desire to be confirmed as the only one, and the slave simply drops this desire for subjectivity. The forming of rational human identity becomes the involuntary process, which develops the rationality of the slave and in the end makes the rational slave superior to the master; but with the fall of the irrational, solitary master, the desire to express human subjectivity in spite of al rationality disappears from human reality. In short, for Hegel there are no revolts, only historical revolutions governed by divine reason.
What Bataille wants to state is, that Hegel seems to overlook the importance of the experiences of those aspects of the human life, which are in constant opposition to history, work and rationality, that is, 'inner experiences'. In relation to the Hegelian concept of human reality, inner experiences are - so to say - a waste of time. Still, Bataille argues that they are what makes most human activities meaningfull at all.
Work is meaningfull because of the experience of fullfillment, either by the process it self, by the result of the efforts or by both. But enjoying the experience of fullfillment is a waste of time, if you are a serious worker; focussing on the enjoyment simply takes your mind away from the work itself and is therefore contraproductive in relation to the work.
What Bataille wants to stress, is that we have this contradictory relation to inner experiences, that is, we are both attracted to them and repulsed by them. And this structure of human experience is not just an exeption. From the social science of Durheim and Marcel Mauss Bataille knows that this is also characteristic of religious and moral experiences. The tabooed things are both attractive and repulsive, just as morality, which is experienced as social repression and at the same time as something worthy of human aspiration. It is the understanding of this dual structure of some of the most basic human experiences, which makes Bataille critical towards the narrow philosophical concept of knowledge.
VIII. The limits of philosophy
The starting point of this reflection was the abyss percieved by Bataille between anglo-phone and continental philosophy. Now, nobody would take Bataille as the most typical and representative figure of continental philosophy. Still, what makes Bataille feel solidaric with continental philosophy confronted with Ayer, is the unreflected simplicity of the kind of philosophical thinking, Ayer represent. But for Bataille this is not at all about Ayer; it is about academical philosophers in general. Ayer is nothing but an extremely simple and thereby very clear example of the kind of institutional ignorance, which also Hegel's philosophy is haunted by.
For Bataille, what is at stake, is not just the question of finding another intellectual road to the realm of truth. Bataille simply consideres the project of philosophy as in principle impossible. And confronted with the self-conscioness and self-confidence exposed by philosophers like Ayer, Bataille cannot but compare them to children.
Philosophy in general asumes a concept of knowledge, which Bataille can only see as a misrepresentation human experience. For Bataille, who makes knowledge the object of his philosophical strive for knowledge, it becomes clear, how little philosophers actually can know about human knowledge, how little they can percieve of the human experience as such.
By focusing on truth and knowledge we philosophers have - as in Plato's simile of the cave - made ourselves blind to what human experience is in reality. The way we philosophers think about knowledge does not lead us to the truth; on the contrary, the way philosophy handles matters of experience tends to bar us out from the truth.
Still all philosophers seek the truth, including Bataille. And still philosophers has to express themselves discursively to have their thoughts recognised as philosophical thoughts. But constantly - as Bataille says in a lecture from 1952 named "Non-knowledge and the revolt" - his thought shows to be 'a revolt against itself'.
Constantly Bataille finds his thinking approaching the limits of discursiveness, constantly he finds it circulating around zones in the human life, where experiences are made, but which nevertheless escape knowledge as percieved by most philosophers; zones, where communication takes place, but which still are almost impossible to communicate further in a discursive manner afterwards.
By letting his thinking develop in this way, Bataille challenges the institution of philosophy as a whole. Philosophy in general is based on the assumption that it does make sense to order human experience according to the rules of common logic. For philosophy to be a meaningfull intellectual practice, it is nessecary to assume that the non-contradictory knowledge obtained by this operation in some way helps realizing, what Aristotle called the good life, if not for everybody, then at least for oneself.
What Bataille challenges, is the legitimacy and meaningfullness of the will to knowledge, the way it is expressed by most philosophers; at the same time he himself is driven by exactly the same aspiration, but being convinced about its futility, being convinced that the will to knowledge as expressed in philosophy can only lead to 'non-knowledge'.
This makes him - in his own eyes - at the same time ridiculous and superiour to the profesional philosophers; at one and the same time he feels like - or so he says - that he should refrain from talking, and that he does not have the right to refrain from talking.
Being an amateur in philosophy and taking this I-know-better attitude towards well trained professional philosophers is in itself provocative. But Bataille makes it even worse, when he challenges the assumptions, which most philosophers since antiquity has shared about, which zones of reality are worthwhile to reflect on in relation to truth and living a good life.
By directing his attention to that which normally is suppressed in and expelled from civilization - that is, areas surrounded by tboos - he apparently questions civilized institutions and ideals hailed by most civilized people, including philosophers, and this has provoked philosophers immensely.
Still, what Bataille is doing is nothing more than to take human experiences and the human way of being seriously, connecting ontological traits about the human reality with the experiences, we make of them. Bataille expresses the same will to knowledge as the professional philosopher, he just carries out his investigation of human reality further than most philosophers. Compared with academic philosophers Bataille shows an uncompromising will to take human reality seriously, in all aspects; it is only the narrowness and inherrent moralism of the institution of philosophy, which makes him fall a bit aside.
(Recall the visit at libraire Vrin)
IX. Discursiveness and aphorims
What is caracteristic of 'inner experiences' and 'non-knowledge' is precisely that, even though this kind of experience can be both communicated and understood by almost anybody, still it can be very difficult to express in the discursive manner fancied by philosophy. Acknowledging this inherrent difficulty for expressing his thoughts in an adequate way, Bataille choses to describe the realm of 'inner experience' and 'non-knowledge' in various ways, using both traditional discursive thinking, aphorims, paradoxes, rhetorics, poetical language, and many other litterary means.
Still, Bataille never gave up the ambition to give a comprehensive and rounded account of his thinking. Even though his published works appeared as independent articles in various journals and stand-alone books from several publishers with no apparent connection, for Bataille himself the last twenty years of his life was an ongoing reaserch process aiming to complete two major treatises, The accursed share, comprising of three volumes and The atheologique sum, planned as five volumes.
The accursed share was meant to be a traditional discursive explantion of his way of thinking. Of the three volumes planned, he published two and left the third unfinished. The third volume, called Sovereignty is however left in such a state that one can only wonder, why he did not complete it after all. If however one asumes that Bataille knew what he was doing - and this I have no reason to doubt - one can see that - while working on the project - his way of thinking developed in such a direction, that the first volume became utterly inconsistent with the last two volumes. That Bataille acknowledged this himself is also indicated by the fact that the second volume was published as a stand-alone book named Eroticism, not as the second volume of The accursed share.
For Bataille, representing his thought as he does in The accursed share, however, does not suffice to expose, what he wants to expose. Batailles aspires to represent his thoughts and experiences not only in a discursive manner, but in a non-discursive language, which reflects the way these experiences has been made. What he wants to do is to communcate his inner experiences and the non-knowledge obtained from them in a way which is more loyal to these experiences themselves than a normal academic traetise.
The atheologique sum with its strange collection of theoretical reflections, aphorisms, poetry, autobiographical accounts and litterary sketches, is meant as a complementary expression of what is said in a more traditional discursive manner in The accursed share. Of the five volumes planned, however, Bataille only managed to publish three, the most well-known volume being his first book, The inner experience. Of the last two volumes he left only titles and a few notes, which in this connection is a shame, beacuse the last volume was planned to have the promising title The unfinished system of non-knowledge.
What Bataille means by inner experience and non-knowledge is therefore to be gathered from various parts of his works. The exposition I have given today is only meant as an introduction, and some may find that this introduction has been simplyfying to such a degree that it has been misrepresenting his way of thinking. But to grasp the philosophical significance of Bataille, one has to get to the basics, even if the basics sometimes appear simple.
If one stays on the surface - that is, with his provocations and his litterary achievements - Bataille's work can still be facinating and enjoyable to read, but it becomes hard to see, why it should bother philosophy. My intention today has been to state, that Bataille's way of thinking should bother philosophy, on both sides of the abyss.
List of publications (Publikationsliste); English c.v. (Dansk c.v.)