The Unfinished System of Nonknowledge

by Georges Bataille, Stuart Kendall (Editor & Translator), Michelle Kendall (Translator)

A deft reconstruction of what Georges Bataille envisioned as a continuation of his work La Somme Athéologique, this volume brings together the writings of one of the foremost French thinkers of the twentieth century on the central topic of his oeuvre. Gathering Bataille’s most intimate writings, these essays, aphorisms, notes, and lectures on nonknowledge, sovereignty, and sacrifice clarify and extend Bataille’s radical theology, his philosophy of history, and his ecstatic method of meditation. Following Bataille’s lead, as laid out in his notebooks, editor Stuart Kendall assembles the fragments that Bataille anticipated collecting for his summa. Kendall’s introduction offers a clear picture of the author’s overall project, its historical and biographical context, and the place of these works within it. The "system" that emerges from these articles, notes, and lectures is "atheology," understood as a study of the effects of nonknowledge. At the other side of realism, Bataille’s writing in La Somme pushes language to its silent end. And yet, writing toward the ruin of language, in search of words that slip from their meanings, Bataille uses language—and the discourses of theology, philosophy, and literature—against itself to return us to ourselves, endlessly. The system against systems is in fact systematic, using systems and depending on discourses to achieve its own ends—the end of systematic thought.A medievalist librarian by training, Georges Bataille (1897–1962) was active in the French intellectual scene from the 1920s through the 1950s. He founded the journal Critique and was a member of the Acéphale group and the Collège de Sociologie. Among his works available in English are Visions of Excess (Minnesota, 1985), Tears of Eros (1989), and Erotism (1990).

Genres: Philosophy, France, Nonfiction

305 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2001

About the author

French essayist, philosophical theorist, and novelist, often called the "metaphysician of evil." Bataille was interested in sex, death, degradation, and the power and potential of the obscene. He rejected traditional literature and considered that the ultimate aim of all intellectual, artistic, or religious activity should be the annihilation of the rational individual in a violent, transcendental act of communion. Roland Barthes, Julia Kristeva, and Philippe Sollers have all written enthusiastically about his work.

Reviews

[Brian · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don’t even know how to review this book: it’s displaced somewhere between nonsense and profundity. I’ve been reading Bataille’s oeuvre for over a year now, which has been leading me down a theoretical (literary, political, post-modern, philosophical) path that only becomes more complex as I continue to read more Bataille and other theorists that develop different systems of thought and propose radical questions. What is difficult about The Unfinished System of Nonknowledge is that it challenges systemic thought by revealing a system that is never completed: in other words, a system that fails to be grounded (always open, formless, indefinable: sovereign). With that being said, the more Bataille I read I feel more ambivalent. His theory is impossible to make solid, and yet this ambivalence is what I enjoy most. The Unfinished System of Nonknowledge made me (re)approach Bataille’s essential question-sovereignty-from a new perspective. Honestly, after Inner Experience, and a few early pre-WWII essays from Visions of Excess, this book will give more insight into nonknowledge. This is why I cannot put this book down; it escapes me and refuses to be pigeonholed. We know that Bataille communicates through people like de Sade, Freud, Mauss, and Nietzsche in order to develop a total (human) experience. What we have here is a collection of essays, aphorisms, and discussions on the notion of sovereign operations, which opens up this experience, always affirming life. Undoubtedly, this collection is essential, but useless; we get close to what Bataille is attempting to define (NONKNOWLEDGE, SOVERGENITY, and ANGUISH) at the “limits of the possible,” but he never defines these concepts. Leaving us in the dark, always contesting and refusing any form of subordination, Bastille's writings are a meditation on sovereignty. Nonknowledge is sovereign, a pure loss of self, identity, with no means to an end (it is sacrifice) and cannot be reduced to utility. I guess you’ll have to read it, I tried to explain it, but then again…how can one explain something that has no basis other than revolt.

[Michael A. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing compilation, amazing incompletion. This is not a book people new to Bataille's thought should read, I don't think. What was most fascinating about this book to me were the sections on atheology and it's relation to the destruction of objectivity/the discursive sphere (which, among other things, seem to be nonknowledge), and how Bataille was perfectly aware (all-too-aware) that by writing he was violating his own desire of accomplishing nonknowledge (also a consciousness of an absence of consciousness). Bataille's Nietzschean-Hegelian-Vestigial Catholicism is at full force here, and the heterogeneity and unassimilated scraps of thinking are extremely powerful if only because they are weak and barely suggest anything more than silence.

[Kyle Crawley · Rating 2 out of 5]

After reading 'Inner Experience', this book was a bit of a let-down. Bataille is critical of his earlier book, and spends much time defending himself against accusations of mysticism. However, these 'mystical' moments were what I liked best about 'Inner Experience', moments that were almost non-existent in 'The Unfinished System'.

The book had many incomplete, trivial, and unedited sections from Bataille's unpublished notebooks, which did little to enhance my intrigue in Bataille's thought. It also touched on some central themes to Bataille's thought (i.e. communication, expenditure, sovereignty) but brought up some new ones (for me at least) that looked promising, such as 'the death of thought', the symmetry of ecstasy and anguish, and desire for anguish. Unfortunately, in most cases I found that the book did little more than mention an idea, rather than engage or instantiate it. For someone writing about ecstasy, Bataille struggled to create moments of it with his writing in this book, which was somewhat disappointing given the 'Inner Experience'.

I'd say, read a different Bataille. 'Inner Experience' was great, and I'm even thinking about re-reading it. This book 'Unfinished System' didn't make me give up on Bataille, however, and I'm curious what other of his books might live up to the expectations that this book didn't.

[Don Socha · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read this for the Bird Papers. I've lots to say about it and will... soon.

[Dan's · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'll have to get me, the full edition, stm later..
Not just this googlish, fast paced.. try out

[✿⁠ · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think that knowledge enslaves us, that at the base of all knowledge there is a servility, the acceptation of a way of life wherein each moment has meaning only in relation to another or others that will follow it.

[Haden · Rating 4 out of 5]

finally getting somewhere with bataille, but the project of enacting the limits of language, experience, and knowledge make for both scintillating but disordered & disorienting reading

[C. Quabela · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a testimony to the vast influence that Bataille had within French thought. There are many things about this particular volume that one could take fault with, but from my perspective this book has three levels of relevance:

First of all, it shows to what extent Bataille was able to captivate. You find within these pages significant men of letters of widely varying aesthetics from a late surrealist Bréton, an early existential Sartre, to even early Oulipo with Queneau. A simple charlatan does not draw the attention of such luminaries. Much like Artaud, Bataille is the unfinished man of French letters. Unlike Artaud, he does not receive much attention (though Artaud’s output and later documented breakdown are to a large extent the cause of this). This book also sheds light upon all of the movements at the time by having testimony that much of French avant-garde (of all flavors) was driven by the resurgence of: Hegel, Sade, and Heidegger.

The second level of this book would of course be the unfinished system that directed Bataille’s writings. This would be its greatest shortcoming as well as its most interesting aspect. Bataille, as a learned man who denounces much philosophy, toes the line of many areas of complex metaphysics, morality, and psychology. Within the first two pages his thought struck me hard of Heidegger and within the next three explicitly denounced him. He adheres, as Sartre points out, to a negative Hegelianism (which Bataille has no problem advocating though not necessarily with the qualitative adjective). This becomes a hard line to follow though given his enthusiasm for Nietzschean materialism. It is a delightfully shocking exploration of his to watch unfold, and many of the incongruities of his writing come from this peculiar juxtaposition of philosophy. One would almost expect, given his ultimate aim towards incorporating a materialist ecstasy derived from a double bind epistemology that he would have gone straight for Schopenhauer. Surprisingly though no reference is ever made. Given Bataille’s staunch rejection of many of both Hegel and Nietzsche’s thought, it is no wonder that he was not able to find a completion to his system. This is not a debunking though of his project. He does find within the boundaries of what he was working towards an as of yet unspoken void between thought and action, all while remaining in the domain of the material; a movement devoid of metaphysical/mystical transcendence, constrained by material limits – bound between finite experiences that break the epistemological dialectical gridlock that is the content of his work: accessing the impossible within the possible, acting (which for Bataille is always a process of thought) in the realm of the unknown through breaching (not surpassing) the limits of the knowable.

Last but not least, this unfinished system works as a codex for a very enigmatic writer. Be it his fictions, poetry, criticisms, or essays, it is easy to find oneself in a funhouse of mirrors reading any of Bataille’s books. This here is the answer, or at least a dim flashlight, to bring with you when exploring each of Bataille’s works. That in and of itself makes this an invaluable piece to any of his fans. Even when he writes of things seemingly of unrelated significance, this book allows one to approach it from an angle that illuminates the topic and allows for a new way to approach the work that changes everything about it.

[Dhandayutha · Rating 4 out of 5]

Was this writing an exploration of sovereignty vs servitude?. I will update the review soon.