Premium
Sartre and Foucault on Bataille and Blanchot
Author(s) -
Van Stralen Hans
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
orbis litterarum
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.109
H-Index - 8
eISSN - 1600-0730
pISSN - 0105-7510
DOI - 10.1111/j.1600-0730.2006.00863.x
Subject(s) - admiration , philosophy , marxist philosophy , viewpoints , epistemology , consciousness , humanism , michel foucault , psychoanalysis , literature , aesthetics , politics , sociology , law , psychology , art , political science , theology , visual arts
In 1966, Sartre and Foucault conduct a debate that initiates a shift of convention in the French intellectual scene. From a Marxist point of view, Sartre feels that Foucault ignores the historical laws and the subsequent social developments. Foucault on his part considers Sartre's theory to be a failed effort at fixating reality in a coordinating framework, seen from the point of humanistic morals. The controversy becomes more insightful when the literary views of both thinkers are subjected to closer study. Sartre sees the literary work as a vehicle for opinions and, especially after 1945, he thinks that the author should accomplish social change by means of literature. Foucault, on the other hand, sees the literary text as a place where genuine speech reveals itself and which is essentially unfinished. Both philosophers have written about Bataille and Blanchot and these writings also show their deviating viewpoints. Sartre sees them from an ethical angle and he is negative about their impossible transgression. After all, this status cannot be described without abandoning it. Foucault, on the contrary, has enormous admiration for this project, because it is about a search for new paths after the death of God. 1