The Comedy of Philosophy Bataille Hegel
Angelaki
ISSN: 0969-725X (Print) 1469-2899 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cang20
THE COMEDY OF PHILOSOPHY: Bataille, hegel and derrida
Lisa Trahair
To cite this article: Lisa Trahair (2001) THE COMEDY OF PHILOSOPHY: Bataille, hegel and derrida, Angelaki, 6:3, 155-169
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09697250120088003
Published online: 09 Jun 2010.
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volume 6 num ber 3 dece mbe r 20 01
H istorically, manifestations of the comic
have more often than not been greeted with condemnation, by philosophers, literary theo- rists, critics and ecclesiastics alike. The comic has been condemned as a form of low art, as a genre inferior to tragedy, as appropriate only to the trials and tribulations of the lower classes, as expressing taste base enough to warrant the recommendation of abstinence. The admittedly infrequent counter to this broad characterisation
lisa trahair
has championed comedy arguing that it is indeed worthy of serious scholarly attention. This has usually meant either defining the specificity of the operation of the comic by delineating its tech-
THE COMEDY OF
niques Ð whether they be slapstick, degradation,
PHILOSOPHY
jokes or particular kinds of narrative structure Ð or focusing upon the thematic content of indi-
bataille, hegel and
vidual works and uncovering the meaning buried
derrida
beneath any number of comic faades. 1 Indeed,
those advocates who aim to comprehend the comic in this manner relinquish addressing what
operation of the comic. Henri Bergson provides
I hesitate to call the Òessence of comedyÓ as an interesting point of comparison in this regard. much as those who seek to dismiss it. For to
While BergsonÕs Òessay on the meaning of the comprehend the comic is to risk overlooking the
comicÓ is entitled Laughter, he is never really structure of incomprehensibility that is crucial to
able to fully reconcile his isolation of the comic its operation. Whether for or against it, the theo-
as la mcanisation de la vie (the mechanisation retical and critical reception of comedy has
of life) with laughter itself, concluding at the end tended to subordinate it to the demands of philo-
that:
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possibility of avoiding this subordination by From time to time the receding wave leaves pursuing the idea that comedy emerges from a
behind a remnant of foam on the sandy beach. relationship between reason and unreason.
The child, who plays hard by, picks up a hand- My starting point here is an examination and
ful, and, the next moment, is astonished to evaluation of the relevant insights of Georges find that nothing remains in his grasp but a few drops of water, water that is far more
Bataille, most significantly his philosophy of brackish, far more bitter than that of the wave laughter as a philosophy of non-savoir (un-know-
which brought it. Laughter comes into being in ing). Indeed, it could be argued that it is because
the self-same fashion. It indicates a slight Bataille starts with laughter rather than the comic
revolt on the surface of social life. It instantly that he manages to retain the relation between
adopts the changing forms of the disturbance. knowledge and un-knowing that is crucial to the
It, also, is a froth with a saline base. Like froth,
ISSN 0969-725X print/ISSN 1469-2899 online/01/030155-15 © 2001 Taylor & Francis Ltd and the Editors of Angelaki DOI: 10.1080/09697250120088003
it sparkles. It is gaiety itself. But the philoso- pher who gathers a handful to taste may find that the substance is scanty, and the after-taste bitter. 2
BatailleÕs contemplation of laughter is frag- mented across the breadth of his work, being found in his anthropological and sociological essays (those published in The College of Sociology (1937Ð39), edited by Denis Hollier), his philosophical essays (those on non-savoir and Hegel) and in his works dealing with mystical experience (Inner Experience and Guilty). Each of these treatments of laughter is specific to its context, although there is also a consistency in the theorisation of it across these works. Thus the sociological essays are concerned with laughterÕs relation to the sacred and the role it plays in the transformation of repulsive forces into attractive ones, the philosophical essays consider the inter- section between laughter and epistemology, and the mystical works deal with laughter and sover- eignty and communication. In this essay I am concerned with the comedy that emerges from BatailleÕs conception of laughter, and the impli- cations that such comedy has for philosophy.
It is Georges Bataille who, more than any other theorist of laughter, provides the possibil- ity of displacing the lowly status of the comic. He does so not by raising the comic to the level of art but by bestowing upon the operation of the comic nothing less than the status of sovereignty. For Bataille, the ÒbeautyÓ of the poetic is still subordinate to the logic of reason and meaning, whereas laughter exceeds this logic to the extent that it occupies a position outside the system of philosophy, yet nevertheless produces effects
within that system. 3 BatailleÕs laughter exposes
the relationship between reason and unreason Ð the un-knowing that constitutes the essence of comedy Ð by reversing the conventional method of inquiry into comedy. Rather than attempt to philosophise comedy, Bataille treats philosophy as comedy.
Comedy, the comic, the ludic, the joke, play and laughter are terms which pervade the works of Jacques Derrida, Jean Baudrillard, Jean- Franois Lyotard and Samuel Weber Ð they are but the better-known examples of what might be considered a more general phenomenon of incor-
porating the tenets of the comic into contempo- rary philosophical thinking. At worst, this trend merely ÒinsertsÓ the comic into philosophy; at best, it attempts to theorise the specificity of the comicÕs formations. For it could be argued that, in the absence of a theoretical basis for under- standing the comic, the effects of the comicÕs operations both within comedy and on philoso- phy remain unacknowledged and unknown. This alone warrants and has to some degree effected an expansion of Bataille scholarship. Attention to his affinity with surrealism and his celebration of cultural forms expressing the irrational, the unthinkable and the impossible (death, ecstasy, ritual, sacrifice, the erotic, the comic, the sacred) has been extended to theorisations that interro- gate both the philosophical underpinnings of his work and, indeed, its consequences for philo-
sophical thinking. 4 I refer here to the work of Nick Land, Joseph Libertson, and Arkady Plotnitsky as well as to Jacques Derrida. I will show how this relatively recent scholarship has deemed BatailleÕs laughter capable of resuscitat- ing the Kantian noumenon, presenting a radical alterity to philosophy and reinscribing the Hegelian dialectic to the point where the quest for meaning is forsaken.
In his essay ÒFrom Restricted to General Economy: A Hegelianism Without Reserve,Ó Derrida questions the possibility of the comedy of philosophy that Bataille envisages. More specifically, he draws upon the breadth of BatailleÕs writings to consider their relation to the Hegelian project. The impetus for DerridaÕs analysis of BatailleÕs laughter can no doubt be located in what Michel Foucault has called Òthe epochÓ which Òstruggles to disengage itself from
HegelÓ 5 or what Vincent Descombes has identi- fied as a general preoccupation of post-1968 French thinking with the problems arising from the nature of the dialectic in the Hegelian
project 6 Ð problems such as the reduction of the other to the same, the all-encompassing nature of philosophical reason, and the end of philosophy. Doubtless Derrida also sees in BatailleÕs thought the possibility of undermining the concepts of presence and identity which dominate Western metaphysics and to which his work returns again and again. His essay is of interest to us here
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because of its theorisation of BatailleÕs dispersed tion that the cause of such laughter is both comments on comedy, laughter and un-knowing,
unknown and unknowable: ÒThat which is laugh- but also because it evaluates the success and fail-
able may simply be the ÔunknowableÕ.Ó 11 For ure of BatailleÕs endeavour from a poststruc-
Bataille it is this very unknowability which is turalist perspective. In this respect, DerridaÕs
essential: ÒThe unknown makes us laugh.Ó 12 In deconstruction of Bataille is relevant to under-
his efforts to produce a philosophy of laughter, a standing the operation of the comic in general.
philosophy therefore of the unknowable, Bataille Whether we call it BatailleÕs challenge to
questions the conventional understanding of the Hegel or, as Derrida prefers, the Òconstraint of
philosopher as the lover or friend of wisdom, of Hegel,Ó 7 my interest in BatailleÕs writing is with
knowledge, learning and erudition, and of sound- the manner in which he envisages laughter undo-
ness of judgement.
ing the tenets of metaphysical philosophy, relat- BatailleÕs philosophy of laughter, and the ing concepts to their own baselessness, subjecting
importance of his mobilisation of the notion of them to inner ruination, and inscribing a non-
non-savoir, has prompted commentators to relate
his work not only to Hegel but also to Kant. referring the known to the unknown. While the
teleological method of ÒbackwardationÓ 8 by
BatailleÕs laughter, and the impact it has on significance of laughter as an affective response
philosophy, has thus been described by Nick to philosophical reason is not to be underesti-
Land as a Òfanged noumenonÓ (116) and by mated, such laughter implies very specific opera-
Joseph Libertson as an Òaltering incumbence of tions of the comic which Bataille calls operations
exteriorityÓ (2). It is worth attending briefly to of sovereignty. By examining the moments when
both of these characterisations so as to better BatailleÕs laughter is invoked, I propose to
grasp the performative nature of BatailleÕs rein- demonstrate the comic operations that it engen-
vigoration of the Kantian noumenon against ders. After elaborating the significance of the
HegelÕs subsequent dismissal of it. comedy of philosophy, of BatailleÕs philosophy of
Un-knowing such as Bataille invokes has a laughter and
precedent in the Kantian Phenomenology, I will return to DerridaÕs evalu-
of his response to HegelÕs
philosophical
noumenon and a psychoanalytic one in the ation of the success of BatailleÕs endeavour.
Freudian unconscious. In the Kantian distinction between phenomena and noumena, phenomena
II are appearances in the world that we can know through
sensory experience. Noumena, by In his essay ÒUn-knowing: Laughter and Tears,Ó
contrast, are things-in-themselves: they are Bataille openly declares that in as much as he is
unknowable because ungraspable by sensory Downloaded by [UNSW Library] at 21:48 04 July 2016 9 a philosopher, his is a philosophy of laughter.
Coole notes that Kant To make laughter the very basis of philosophy
experience.
Diana
conceives noumena both positively and nega- might here be construed as an attempt to further
tively. In the negative sense the noumenon is Òa perturb the happy marriage of philosophy and
thing so far as it is not an object of our sensible reason that was, until Nietzsche, still in its honey-
intuition,Ó while in its positive sense it is Òan moon period. In the place of reason, Bataille
a non-sensible intuition.Ó 13 The inserts its very antithesis Ð neither an enterprise,
object of
noumenon for Kant in this positive sense is the nor a disposition constitutive of a subject, only
concept that makes sensible intuition possible, barely a mode of behaviour. (In his essays on
the concept of the object in general before its attraction and repulsion, for example, Bataille
determination as either Òsomething or noth- considers laughter under the rubric of the prin-
ing.Ó 14 Hence it is an empty concept without ciple of contagion which constitutes human soci-
(ens rationis). 15 Land argues that ety around a sacred nucleus, as a community
object
BatailleÕs Òfanged noumenonÓ is not the begin-
ning of knowledge but its end; laughter, as the BatailleÕs self-characterisation is further radi-
whose fusion entails a loss of individual self. 10 )
experience of non-savoir, has a destructive capac- calised when one takes into account his proposi-
ity not broached by Kant, constituting a Òslide ity not broached by Kant, constituting a Òslide
into oblivion,Ó a Òdissolvent immanenceÓ that itself as a radical passivity or heteronomy: not a can neither be defined nor comprehended. 16 dependence upon another power, but a pure
Joseph Libertson has discussed the unknow- passivity in a reality without power.Ó 22 They able similarly in terms of a philosophy of alterity.
heed Òthe approach of a powerless element over Libertson locates BatailleÕs work at the point of a
which consciousness nevertheless has no power Ð philosophical impasse where the inadequation
an element which changes and concerns thought between discursive representation and the alter-
on the basis of its very passivity and inactual- ity implicit in communication emerges. The very
ity.Ó 23
possibility of communication, Libertson argues, The means of this Òaltering incumbence of produces an opacity in its economy, which
exteriorityÓ will become clearer when I consider
the effects of BatailleÕs laughter as rupturing Òspontaneity of consciousnessÓ which discourse
escapes comprehension and manifestation. 17 The
moments for HegelÕs text. For BatailleÕs laughter engenders is limited thrice over by Òthe differ-
is just such an Òaltering incumbence of exterior- ence or discontinuity of the exterior thing, of the
ity.Ó It is that powerless element over which exterior subject or the intersubjective other, and
consciousness has no power, that element which of the generality of existence in its excess over
changes thought on the basis of its very passivity
closureÕs comprehension.Ó 18 The attempt by
and inactuality.
discourse to register these limits (this alterity) both domesticates them and is necessarily eluded
III
by them. The result, according to Libertson, is that inadequation becomes correlation, Òthe
For our purposes, BatailleÕs mobilisation of vicissitude of a larger adequation.Ó 19 laughter as un-knowing finds its most pro-
found relationship when compared with the Libertson, the only experience of the relation of
Importantly, however, this is
not,
for
apotheosis of metaphysical thinking Ð HegelÕs alterity to thought. The great Òanti-intellectual-
Phenomenology of Spirit. That BatailleÕs under- istÓ thinkers (Nietzsche, Proust, Freud, but also
standing of Hegelian philosophy is derived from the subjects of LibertsonÕs book Ð Blanchot,
Alexandre KojveÕs lectures in Paris in the 1930s Bataille, and Levinas) attest not simply to an
and 1940s Ð attended by so many of the French inability of formal discourse to represent alterity
intellectuals who would subsequently take issue but also to alterityÕs Òalteration of thought,Ó
with the Hegelian dialectic Ð is nothing new. 24 I which Òweighs upon subjectivity in a communi-
am not so much concerned with the plausibility cational moment which is not yet or no longer
of BatailleÕs interpretation as with the manner in
which he construes his relation to Hegel and its Downloaded by [UNSW Library] at 21:48 04 July 2016
comprehension.Ó 20 Libertson calls this experi-
ence an Òaltering incumbence of exteriorityÓ implications for understanding comedy. which, nevertheless, remains subordinate in
BatailleÕs relation to Hegel is both concrete
and elusive. To be sure, Bataille, at the outset, incumbence of exteriority alters the effect of
formal discourse. 21 That is to say, this altering
appears to make a significant break with Hegel Ð formal discourse, but when represented by
un-knowing and knowledge being the respective discourse is still subordinate to it. According to
motifs that inaugurate for each thinker the begin- Libertson, the anti-intellectualists turn the formal
ning of philosophy. And many of BatailleÕs (Kantian) and speculative (Hegelian) proposition
specifically to Hegelian of the noumenon or the thing-in-itself on its
notions
respond
concepts. HegelÕs articulation of the relationship head. They regard alterity neither as a power that
between philosophy and knowledge, as well as his nevertheless constitutes the basis of thinking
concepts of experience (Erfahrung) Ð as the phenomena (the Kantian noumenon), nor as
movement which consciousness exercises on negation working toward the achievement of
itself Ð and the dialectic Ð as the logical method absolute spirit (the Hegelian in-itself). The anti-
of such conscious investigation Ð are the motifs intellectualists refuse Òto characterize alterity as a
that will be transformed in BatailleÕs philosophy power or effectivityÓ and Òthematize subjectivity
of un-knowing.
trahair
Against the relationship between knowledge, from the less well known to the better known in truth, and consciousness in HegelÕs work,
that a presupposition is refined or shown to be BatailleÕs statements about his philosophy of un-
known in some way, Bataille claims that his is a knowing could easily be misconstrued as glib or
presuppositionless philosophy, that it begins with perfunctory. But to approach him superficially
the suppression of knowledge, with nothing. 28 would be to fail to heed his stance on the anti-
Bataille also at times considers this experience as intellectualism against which he has been outspo-
a regression from the known to the unknown, a ken. 25 BatailleÕs philosophy of un-knowing is in
movement of backwardation. no way a celebration of ignorance. It is, rather, a
BatailleÕs interest in Hegelian philosophy is response, a very precise interjection in relation to
also explicit to the extent that so many of his HegelÕs thought, in full knowledge, as Bataille
writings directly address issues that arise from professes, of its consequences.
the Phenomenology. Bataille engages with the BatailleÕs starting point is un-knowing as it is
work of the Hegelian dialectic and the logic of its manifested in the experience of laughter, the
economy, and speculates about the implications sacred, ecstasy, and so forth. What is significant
of the projectÕs success in giving an account of here is that while laughter is, like knowing,
the attainment of absolute knowledge. In so subjectively experienced, it is experienced as un-
doing he puts forward un-knowing or unknowa- knowing. One can be conscious of oneÕs experi-
bility as the inevitable blind spot of the comple- ence of un-knowing, but self-consciousness
tion of philosophy. On the one hand, he cannot supersede the experience of un-knowing.
un-knowing that the (Hence, LibertsonÕs characterisation of the radi-
emphasises
the
Phenomenology must necessarily turn its back cal passivity of subjectivity.) BatailleÕs philoso-
on Ð the poetry, ecstasy, and laughter which phy is concerned with Òthe effect of any
provide no satisfaction to self-consciousness Ð proposition the penetration of whose content we
and on the other, he points to the fact that the find disturbing.Ó 26 condition of absolute knowledge, the very
The concept of experience provides a point of completion of the project, coincides with reach- differentiation between the two philosophers. For
ing a point where there is nothing else to know, Hegel, experience is related to the dialectical
reaching, that is, the unknowable! 29 movement of self-revelation, the inner movement
Bataille thus identifies a conundrum in the of the knowing process coincidental with the
work of Hegel. While the aim to think through inner movement and transformation of the object
the Òtotality of what isÓ and to account for Òevery- known, which constitutes the ÒbecomingÓ of
thing which appears before our eyes, to give an absolute Spirit. Unlike HegelÕs dialectical experi-
integrated account of the thought and language Downloaded by [UNSW Library] at 21:48 04 July 2016 30 ence, BatailleÕs experience is sustained rather which express Ð and reveal Ð that appearance,Ó
than developmental or progressive. Bataille is without doubt the noble aim of philosophical proposes that a philosophy of laughter should not
thinking in general, for Bataille it is quite another confine itself to the object of laughter or its
thing to claim success, as Hegel does, to state that cause, but consider it in the context of other
the project is completed, to turn in oneÕs badge experiences of un-knowing which form a contin-
and shut up shop indefinitely. For the end of uum rather than a dialectic (tears, anguish, the
philosophy necessarily entails the redundancy of feeling of the poetic, ecstasy, etc.). He writes: ÒI
the philosopher himself. do believe in the possibility of beginning with the
In ÒHegel, Death and Sacrifice,Ó Bataille experience of laughter and not relinquishing it
argues for the general comicality of the task Hegel when one passes from this particular experience
set himself. He sketches a double caricature, to its neighbour, the sacred or the poetic.Ó 27 claiming that Hegel usurps the sovereignty of the
Hegel, on the other hand, sees experience as the divine and at the same time downgrades God to movement toward the absolute, toward Science
the status of regent. God as eternal and unchange- and toward Spirit. While in the Phenomenology
able becomes Òmerely a provisional end, which the trajectory of consciousnessÕs knowledge is
survives while waiting for something better.Ó 31 It survives while waiting for something better.Ó 31 It
is the sage, Hegel, who is rightly enthroned as another self-consciousness entails the infamous sovereign, since he is the one to whom Òhistory
fight to the death, the duel that institutionalises revealed, then revealed in full, the development of
the relationship between self-consciousnesses as
that between master and slave. In this duel, presuming to identify with Hegel, briefly imag-
being and the totality of its becoming.Ó 32 Bataille,
Hegel sidesteps the issue of mortality in exactly ines the despair he must have felt upon realising
the same manner as the Christian myth of the that the consequence of his insight was that there
death of Christ. That is to say, the outcome of the would be nothing else to know, but cannot help
drama is predetermined: the stakes are bogus; in but see the comic side of it: ÒIn order to express
each case there is no possibility of death. The appropriately the situation Hegel got himself into,
necessity of both risking death and staying alive no doubt involuntarily, one would need the tone,
are irreconcilable.
or at least, in a restrained form, the horror of the Derrida argues that in laughing at this point of tragedy. But things would quickly take on a
the Hegelian text Bataille focuses upon the comic appearance.Ó 33 duplicity of HegelÕs concept of death. In the
Bataille claims that the issue of death is deci- masterÐslave dialectic self-consciousness realises sive for Hegel and, in turn, subjects it to various
that it cannot negate everything Ð that it is theo- comical interpretations. The fact that Bataille
retically possible to be independent of everything invokes laughter at the moment of death is
but the life that is necessary in order to be. Hegel consistent with his more general conception of
writes: Òself-consciousness becomes aware that community as being bound by the interattractive
life is as essential to it as pure self-conscious- force of laughter which encloses the sacred
ness.Ó 37 The difference between real death and
theoretical death is conceptually represented in that while Hegel and Heidegger argue that aware-
nucleus of death. 34 Paul Hegarty notes, however,
the difference between abstract negativity and ness of death is constitutive of humanity as such
sublative negation. Hegel argues that the in that it Òdrives us to react against this initial
outcome of real death Òis an abstract negation, negativity, by creating society as protection,Ó
not the negation coming from consciousness, Bataille on the other hand sees this Òas a defence
which supersedes in such a way as to preserve mechanism that allows itself to fail at certain
and maintain what is superseded, and conse- points (in festival, eroticism, laughter, drunken-
quently survives its own supersession.Ó 38 The ness, sacrifice).Ó 35 risk of actual death would thus appear to be over- Bataille argues that the comic significance of
come, being superseded by the anticipation of the death in the Hegelian system directly parodies
idea of death. It is at exactly this moment that the equally comic death of Christ. Death and
Hegel, Bataille implies, overextends himself. He Downloaded by [UNSW Library] at 21:48 04 July 2016
eternal divinity, he points out, are irreconcilably fudges his logic by drawing a distinction between contradictory: Òto pass through death is so absent
the abstract negativity that lies beyond conscious- from the divine figure É The death of Jesus
ness and the negation which consciousness partakes of comedy to the extent that one cannot
utilises as a tool to further its quest for truth. unarbitrarily introduce the forgetting of his eter-
Just as the eternal divinity of God turns the nal divinity Ð which is his Ð into the conscious-
sacrifice of Jesus into a sham, so too does self- ness of an omnipotent and infinite God.Ó 36 consciousnessÕs putting at stake of life rely a
Bataille surmises that in HegelÕs conceptualisa- priori on the condition that it continues to live Ð tion of death, the attempt made by self-
hence BatailleÕs analogy between the comedy of consciousness to achieve independence duplicates
the death of Christ and the risk of death under- the implausibility of the merely rhetorical death
self-consciousness. While the of Christ. Death is dramatised by Hegel in
taken
by
masterÐslave dialectic would seem to dramatise a consciousnessÕs acquisition of a sense of self, a
shift from materiality to conceptuality, Hegel disposition only fully realised when conscious-
purports to have no interest in pure materiality, ness obtains the recognition of the other. The
as the unknowable in-itself. The opening claim demand for recognition of self-consciousness by
of the Phenomenology is that the truth of of the Phenomenology is that the truth of
consciousnessÕs knowledge of an object is not EconomyÓ is not so much a deconstruction of dependent on its relation to a world beyond
Hegel as a deconstruction of Bataille. The title of cognition. How, then, within a single diegesis can
the paper uses concepts first elaborated by Hegel make the distinction between real death
Bataille Ð restricted and general economy Ð and conceptual death, between abstract negativ-
rather than Hegel, and it is possible to suppose ity and sublative negation? This is what Bataille
from the subtitle that DerridaÕs concern is not laughs at.
BatailleÕs opposition to Hegel but his complicity Here we have it: a necessary stage in Hegelian
with him Ð a complicity Òwithout reserve.Ó self-consciousnessÕ s pursuit of the absolute and
Moreover, we will come to see that Òwithout BatailleÕs scorn. What does it tell us of laughter
reserveÓ suggests that the complicity between the and its epistemological status as un-knowing?
two thinkers is in accordance with the operation BatailleÕs laughter is not so much based on a
of general economy.
material figure exceeding a conceptual figure as BatailleÕs laughter at the masterÐslave dialectic on the simultaneous invocation and denial of the
focuses upon the two kinds of negativity that in-itself. If we follow BatailleÕs thought a bit
operate in the Hegelian system. The first is the further we find that his laughter at the
productive negation of sublation, the interiorisa- masterÐslave dialectic is not simply a response to
tion of material death into conceptual death and an isolated moment of the journey toward Spirit.
its transcendence. The second is abstract nega- He does not refuse to buy HegelÕs argument at
tivity, which Hegel, according to Derrida, freely this particular point, laughing it off and moving
admits is a Òmute and non-productive death, this on. For Bataille, the masterÐslave dialectic is not
death pure and simple.Ó 39 In making this distinc- merely one dialectic among others. He takes it to
tion between sublative negation and abstract
be the model for the dialectic in general. negativity, Hegel attempts to remove abstract Whether rightly or wrongly, for Bataille it
negativity from the endless interpretation of the defines the nature and role of negativity through-
system, even while including it as a concept. 40 out the Phenomenology. Hence the seriousness
Derrida also shows us that the difference of his laughter; its object is both specific and
between these two forms of negativity structures fundamental. Beyond the relation between domi-
BatailleÕs concepts of restricted and general nation and servitude, it goes to the very heart of
economy. In restricted economy, to all appear- Hegelian negativity, undermining the success of
ances coincident with HegelÕs economy in the the dialectical method and its ability to institute
Phenomenology, the negative works towards reason, truth, and meaning.
the production of meaning. Restricted economy It is interesting that DerridaÕs reading of
is geared towards production and expenditure Downloaded by [UNSW Library] at 21:48 04 July 2016
BatailleÕs relation to Hegel, and particularly with for the return of profit. It is an economy of regard
determinate meaning and established values masterÐslave dialectic, has come under fire by
to the emphasis
where the dialectic, through sublative negation Joseph Flay and Judith Butler in Hegel and His
(Aufhebung), provides its rule of exchange. Critics: Philosophy in the Aftermath of Hegel,
General economy is not an economy of exchange, edited by William Desmond. Both authors criti-
but of waste, of expenditure without return, of cise Derrida for limiting his focus to the
sacrifice, of the destruction, without reserve, of masterÐslave dialectic, and to mastery in particu-
meaning. It almost describes the mode of func- lar. Flay argues that this is to the exclusion of
tioning of abstract negativity. BatailleÕs laughter other instances of the Aufhebung and thus
the economy of the rejects the claim that the masterÐslave dialectic
therefore
repudiates
Phenomenology Ð that is to say, the structure of is the model for the operation of the dialectic
evaluation and exchange that occurs in the dialec- in general. FlayÕs argument assumes
tic; the free expenditure of intellectual currency DerridaÕs essay is a deconstruction of HegelÕs
that
on defunct concepts provided the returns are Phenomenology. Yet
worthwhile, on a real death, a mute and non- DerridaÕs project in ÒFrom Restricted to General
productive death, for example, returned as a productive death, for example, returned as a
conceptual death. Just as self-consciousness It is important to note that Bataille does not needs the other, the recognition of the other, to
presume a synonymy between the laughable and end the cycle of the meaningless negation of
the comic. Although he speculates that the laugh- nature, Hegel needs discourse to ensure the
able is the unknowable, he makes the qualifica- meaning of life. Bataille therefore contrasts
tion that we can nevertheless know the comic: we between the restricted economy that charac-
can Òdefine the various themes of the laughable,Ó terises the circulation of meaning in the
subject it to both methodological and epistemo- Phenomenology and the general economy that
logical investigation, devise ways to provoke exposes meaning to its comic underside, that
laughter and even make objects of laughter. 42 wastes meaning, destroys it without reserve.
Indeed, between BatailleÕs laughter and the Bataille treats the distinction between subla-
meaning of the Phenomenology we have been tive negation and abstract negativity Ð and
compelled to seek textual incidents that justify HegelÕs utilisation of the former to institute
his amusement, incidents that are comic no less. meaning and relegation of the latter to the
We have witnessed BatailleÕs caricature of Hegel beyond of reason and meaning Ð as simultane-
the philosopher, his attribution of a parodic ously comic and significant. In the first instance,
dimension to the completion of the philosophical it is possible to draw from BatailleÕs laughter a
project, and his attempt to turn the Hegelian technique that is well known in the world of
dialectic into a joke. And while BatailleÕs empha- comedy Ð the conceptual bifurcation between the
sis is on laughter rather than comedic technique, two forms of negation is a double entendre. (In
and while comedic technique is simply something another context it would be interesting to pursue
that we have retrospectively inferred from his the implications of the fact that the double enten-
laughter, we can glean a more explicit interpreta- dre exemplifies the operation of condensation in
tion of the comic from his linkage of the comic FreudÕs theory of the joke.) In the second
to sovereignty.
instance, abstract negativity, Òdeath pure and In his collection of BatailleÕs writings, Michael simple,Ó is not simply what Hegel discards; it is,
Richardson argues that sovereignty is an ongoing BatailleÕs writing seems to suggest, the condition
problem for Bataille inasmuch as he is concerned of possibility of sublative negation.
with how Òhuman beings exist integrally for themselves while living in society with others
upon whose existence their own depends.Ó IV 43
Certainly BatailleÕs writings are replete with In proposing the philosophy of laughter as a
references to sovereignty. The rulersÕ caricature philosophy of non-savoir, Bataille links an affec-
of sovereignty, the rebelÕs inevitable loss of sover- Downloaded by [UNSW Library] at 21:48 04 July 2016
tive response to an epistemological condition. eignty in the satisfaction of his aims, poetryÕs Indeed, he situates laughter at the limit of epis-
near attainment of sovereignty, and sovereigntyÕs temology. But BatailleÕs philosophy of un-know-
relation to beauty are all habitually revisited in ing is neither systematic nor systematisable. It is
BatailleÕs writings.
not found in a given book that can be picked up, But for Bataille the term sovereignty is much read, and understood. It rather amounts to a
more complicated than is conveyed in its every- process of backwardation, a writing of transgres-
day usage. It is not just an issue of the individ- sion, and a submission to the ecstasy, death, and
ualÕs freedom and rights in society. Nor does it sacrifice that can be glimpsed in isolated
simply define the status of the monarch. What we moments of texts by other thinkers. In this
conceptualisation of the regard, BatailleÕs response to the Phenomenology
see
in BatailleÕs
confrontation between two self-consciousnesses is is exemplary. While Bataille chastises Hegel for
an emptying out of sovereignty as it is exoteri- failing to thematise the significance of laughter,
cally conceived and the emergence (if only for an for refusing laughter a place in his reputedly all-
instant) of another notion of it. encompassing tome (laughter should have been
In Inner Experience, Bataille writes: Òsover- considered first 41 ), he also enjoys its exclusion.
eign operation is the most loathsome of all eign operation is the most loathsome of all
names: in a sense, comic operation would be less This Òlaughter that literally never appearsÓ does deceptive.Ó 44 In his essay on Bataille, Derrida
so on the basis/baselessness of abstract negativ- demonstrates how BatailleÕs conceptualisation of
ity and in so doing gives rise to the doubling of sovereignty as the operation of the comic both
the Hegelian text. While laughter would be a relies upon and undertakes the destruction of two
moment existing outside the Hegelian text, an of the central concepts of Western metaphysics Ð
alterity having no place in dialectics, the manner identity and presence. In other words, as the
in which it gives rise to sovereignty allows us to comic operation, sovereignty puts an end to
see precisely that Òaltering incumbence of exte- determinate meaning. BatailleÕs laughter at self-
riorityÓ that Libertson describes. This is evident consciousnessÕs feigned risk of death is the condi-
in DerridaÕs careful ascription of the burst of tion
laughter as that which Òmakes the difference sovereignty as a simulacral doubling of lordship
that instantiates
between lordship and sovereignty shine, without and mastery. I would suggest that Bataille thus
showing it however and, above all, without laughs at HegelÕs concept of lordship in the name
saying it.Ó 46
of an other to which it might be compared. In If the laughter that gives rise to sovereignty this instance, Bataille thus conceives sovereignty
and, indeed, if sovereignty itself is an Òaltering as a non-present other that provides the basis for
incumbence of exteriority,Ó laughter and sover- comic comparison and justifies his laughter at the
eignty would each constitute a ÒpassivityÓ which Hegelian dialectic.
nevertheless has effects. With regard to laughter, More generally, it is significant that BatailleÕs
this passivity is evident in the fact that it never method of backwardation means he reverses the
takes place, that it is outside of dialectics, while relation between cause and effect. In this case,
its effects are evident in sovereignty and the laughter does not emerge on the basis of comic
inflection of comicality it imposes on reason. As sovereignty; the comic is rather constituted in the
a non-present simulacrum of lordship, sover- instant when laughter bursts out, and in that
eignty puts the concept of identity into question. instant alone. The comic here is not something
Sovereignty does not itself have an identity but that precedes laughter; it is rather an effect of it.
exists in the relation between laughter and Thus in spite of BatailleÕs claims that the tech-
death. 47 Derrida writes, for instance, that Òdiffer- niques of the comic can be produced at whim Ð
ing from Hegelian lordship, [sovereignty] É does much as we can define the rules of comedy in its
not even want to maintain itself, collect itself, or opposition to tragedy or account for the joke in
collect the profits from its own riskÓ 48 and that terms of condensation and displacement Ð the
Òsovereignty has no identity, is not self, for temporal precedence which Bataille gives to
itself, toward itself, near itself É [I]t must Downloaded by [UNSW Library] at 21:48 04 July 2016
laughter emphasises the priority of the unknow- expend itself without reserve, lose itself, lose able, which conventional theories of the comic so
consciousness, lose all memory of itself and all often forget about but which Bataille argues is
the interiority of itself.Ó 49 Lordship and sover- nevertheless the single cause of laughter.
eignty can thus be related to BatailleÕs concepts It is fundamental that this laughter has no
of restricted and general economy. In the place in the Hegelian text. Derrida explains:
restricted economy of the Hegelian dialectic, lordship has a meaning, lordship seeks meaning
Laughter alone exceeds dialectics and the and makes meaning; whereas in the general econ- dialectician: it bursts out only on the basis of
omy sovereignty sacrifices meaning: Òit governs an absolute renunciation of meaning, an
neither others, nor things, nor discourses in absolute risking of death, what Hegel calls order to produce meaning.Ó abstract negativity. A negativity that never 50
takes place, that never presents itself, because in doing so it would start to work again. A
laughter that literally never appears because it exceeds phenomenality in general, the absolute
As a means of clarifying the subtlety of DerridaÕs possibility of meaning. 45 argument here we can examine the terms in As a means of clarifying the subtlety of DerridaÕs possibility of meaning. 45 argument here we can examine the terms in
which Flay and Butler also call Derrida to account for failing to see the comicality that oper- ates in the Phenomenology. Flay isolates a couple of moments of comic irony, while Butler goes much further, claiming not only that the struc- ture of the Phenomenology mimics the comic style of CervantesÕ Don Quixote but that it is possible to interpret the speculative concept of the Aufhebung as a comic device. ButlerÕs work is indebted to the Hegelian scholar Jacob Loewenberg who has argued that the successive conceptions of self that natural consciousness passes through in its journey toward spirit and the absolute are subsequently revealed to be outrageous caricatures. Flay criticises Derrida for assuming that Hegel remains Òwith the serious- ness of the negative, within the framework of a dialectic chained to the Aufhebung, rather than taking up the issue of sovereignty and its laugh-
ter with the rejected Ôabstract negativity.ÕÓ 51 Yet the very proposition that Derrida is suggesting, that the Hegel of the Phenomenology should have taken up abstract negativity, sovereignty, and laughter lacks feasibility because he goes to such pains to show that these ÒconceptsÓ can be thematised only in relation to the death and mastery of the Phenomenology. Were they inte- riorised by the discourse of the Phenomenology, they would become indistinguishable from their counterparts in restricted economy.
Against the criticisms of Derrida by Flay and Butler that he maintains a narrow conception of the Hegelian Aufhebung, in ÒFrom Restricted to General EconomyÓ Derrida interrogates the possibility of Ògetting beyondÓ the powerful mechanism of the dialectic, not by directly deconstructing the logic of the Hegelian enter- prise but by examining the success of what he considers to be one of the most strategic and inci- sive treatments of it. While Derrida begins and ends by demonstrating that Bataille does not so much oppose Hegel as manifest a complicity with him and that, if BatailleÕs work is to some extent ÒfreeÓ of Hegelianism, it is also paradoxically constrained by it, in the course of his essay he reinscribes their relationship within the thematic of HegelÕs two self-consciousnesses. In fact, he sets the scene for the two philosophers to engage in a duel. Yet he envisages not so much a strug-
gle to the death as a metamorphosis Ð of Bataille into Hegel and vice versa.
The turning point is DerridaÕs evaluation of the transgressive potential of BatailleÕs complic- ity with Hegel where he gestures towards the limits of BatailleÕs laughter.
For at the far reaches of this night something was contrived, blindly, I mean in discourse, by means of which philosophy, in completing itself, could both include within itself and anticipate all the figures of its beyond, all the forms and resources of its exterior; and could do so in order to keep these forms and resources close to itself by simply taking hold of their enunciation. Except perhaps for a certain laughter. And yet. 52