Notes on Georges Bataille, “Le labyrinth” (1935-36)

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES

1. “Le labyrinthe” was published originally in Recherches philosophiques, an important but shortlived journal (1933-39) dedicated to introducing French intellectuals to German philosophy. The journal was edited by Alexandre Koyré, who taught courses in Hegel and other German speculative thinkers at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes.

2. Denis Hollier, in Œuvres complètes, notes that “a considerably reworked version of these pages appeared in L’experience intérieure [Inner Experience] under the title Le labyrinthe (ou la composition des êtres) [The labyrinth (or the constitution of beings)].”

TEXT NOTES

1.

KEY TERMS

ipse

GB's use of this word is based on the emergence, in the 17th century, of a philosophical interest in the nature of personal identity, or self, for which ipseity was coined. (I believe, but am not certain, that the term ipseity emerged first to name the philosophical topic that John Locke introduces in his Essay concerning Human Understanding [1689], though Locke himself uses self.) The basic problem in the philosophical consideration of "self" is the difficulty of locating a reality giving rise to the sense of self; that is, one's sense of self persists in spite of known changes in one's material existence, for example, the body's replacement of its own cells: on the one hand you have a sense of self (i.e., a sense that you have an identity different from the identities of others), but on the other hand you know that your current physical existence is not identical with your past physical existence, in fact, you may even know that all the cells in your body have been replaced hundreds of times.

CRITICAL BIBLIOGRAPHY

WORKS CITED