Victimhood in Bataille’s Reading of Sade and in Popular Sovereignty

Date

2021-07-01

Author

Grıffıth, James Edmond Carr

Metadata

Show full item record

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Item Usage Stats

158
views

0
downloads

This article reveals three aspects of victimhood in Bataille’s reading of Sade (of the other, of the self, and Sade’s language) and relates them to some of Bataille’s metaphysical and political notions: the impossible, the general and the restricted economy, sovereignty, and transgression. Doing so shows a progressive simplification of possibilities for transgression from the pre-Christian world to that of popular sovereignty, i.e., the sovereignty of the crowd, the latter leaving open one avenue for transgression: Sadean victimhood. The article then applies these aspects to the pamphlet in Sade’sPhilosophy in the Boudoir, “Frenchmen, Some More Effort If You Wish to Become Republicans,” in relation to a contemporaneous document of popular sovereignty, the preamble to the Constitution of the Year III, titled “Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man and Citizen.” Attending to the aspects of Sadean victimhood in “Effort” shows that its system’s very impossibility makes it the Declaration’s logical completion. Finally, that impossibility is revealed as the sovereignty of the masses, distinct from that of the crowd.

Subject Keywords

General economy

URI

https://pdcnet.org/philtoday/content/philtoday_2021_0999_7_26_420
https://hdl.handle.net/11511/93315

Journal

Philosophy Today

DOI

https://doi.org/10.5840/philtoday2021726420

Collections

Department of Philosophy, Article

Suggestions

OpenMETU
Core

State tradition and business in Turkey: The Case of TUSIAD Doğangün, Gökten; Yalman, Osman Galip; Department of Political Science and Public Administration (2005) This thesis attempts to make an analysis of the state tradition perspective by particularly focusing on the relations between the state and big bourgeoisie represented by TÜSİAD in the post-1980 period. As this perspective has been hegemonic in discourse in examining state-society relations in Turkey in recent decades, thereby dominating the political, academic, and business circles, it becomes very important for Turkish politics students to understand what is implied by this phrase in order to conceive the...
Historical origins of academic orientalism in Russia Özbaş, Mustafa; Boztemur, Recep; Department of Eurasian Studies (2006) The objective of this thesis is to examine the history of Oriental studies in Russia from the beginning of the first Russian interaction with Oriental societies to the end of the 19th century. In particular, the thesis attempts to explain under what conditions Russia had started conducting research on the language, history, geography and culture of the East and how Russian Oriental studies evolved from the practical aims to the academic goals. The central hypothesis of this thesis is that there is a close r...
Emerging regional security complex in Central Asia: Shanghai cooperation organization (SCO) and challenges of the post 9/11 world Yandaş, Osman Gökhan; Tanrısever, Oktay Fırat; Department of Eurasian Studies (2005) The aim of this thesis is to examine the changing characteristics of the regional security complex in Central Asia. The thesis focuses on the changes in the roles that the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) plays in promoting regional security in Central Asia, especially since the formation of the international coalition against international terrorism in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on 11 September 2001. Contrary to the mainstream literature that focuses mainly on the security concerns of ei...
The role of religious identity in Turco-European relations Genç, Ezgi; Yurdusev, Ahmet Nuri; Department of International Relations (2004) This thesis analyzes the role of the religious identity in Turco-European relations in terms of historical and perceptional levels. Within this context, ways in which an enriched understanding of the concept of religion, as a principal element of culture and identity and as one of the main and oldest concepts in European identity which may contribute to a better comprehension of contemporary Turco- European relations, especially within the framework of Turkish candidacy to the European Union will be explore...
Discourses of Kemalism and Islamism on the political dimension of EU - Turkey Relations Çilingir, Sevgi; Dağı, İhsan Duran; Department of International Relations (2005) This thesis aims at defining and analyzing the positions of Kemalism and Islamism about the relationship between the European Union and Turkey, with respect to identity and political reform. The study is conducted by the usage of academic literature and examples of the writings of intellectuals from both positions; in order to analyze their discourses on the issue.With respect to the political dimension of EU - Turkey relations, the problems and EU demands on democracy, human rights, minority rights - with ...

Citation Formats

J. E. C. Grıffıth, “Victimhood in Bataille’s Reading of Sade and in Popular Sovereignty,” Philosophy Today, vol. 65, no. 4, pp. 789–805, 2021, Accessed: 00, 2021. [Online]. Available: https://pdcnet.org/philtoday/content/philtoday_2021_0999_7_26_420.