Georges Bataille: Phenomenology and Phantasmatology

by Rodolphe Gasché, Roland Végső (Translator)

This book investigates what Bataille, in "The Pineal Eye," calls mythological the mythological anthropology with which this unusual thinker wished to outflank and undo scientific (and philosophical) anthropology. Gasch� probes that anthropology by situating Bataille's thought with respect to the quatrumvirate of Schelling, Hegel, Nietzsche, and Freud. He begins by showing what Bataille's understanding of the mythological owes to Schelling. Drawing on Hegel, Nietzsche, and Freud, he then explores the notion of image that constitutes the sort of representation that Bataille's innovative approach entails. Gasch� concludes that Bataille's mythological anthropology takes on Hegel's phenomenology in a systematic fashion. By reading it backwards, he not only dismantles its architecture, he also ties each level to the preceding one, replacing the idealities of philosophy with the phantasmatic representations of what he dubs "low materialism." Phenomenology, Gasch� argues, thus paves the way for a new "science" of phantasms.

Genres: Philosophy

356 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 24, 2012

About the author

Rodolphe Gasché is Distinguished Professor and Eugenio Donato Professor of Comparative Literature at the State University of New York at Buffalo.