''Inner Experience'' () is a 1943 book by the French

intellectual An intellectual is a person who engages in critical thinking, research, and Human self-reflection, reflection about the nature of reality, especially the nature of society and proposed solutions for its normative problems. Coming from the wor ...

Georges Bataille Georges Albert Maurice Victor Bataille (; ; 10 September 1897 – 8 July 1962) was a French philosopher and intellectual working in philosophy, literature, sociology, anthropology, and history of art. His writing, which included essays, novels, ...

. His first lengthy

philosophical Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...

treatise A treatise is a Formality, formal and systematic written discourse on some subject concerned with investigating or exposing the main principles of the subject and its conclusions."mwod:treatise, Treatise." Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. Acc ...

, it was followed by '' Guilty'' (1944) and '' On Nietzsche'' (1945). Together, the three works constitute Bataille's ''Summa Atheologica'', in which he explores the experience of excess, expressed in forms such as laughter, tears, eroticism, death, sacrifice and poetry.

Summary

Bataille discusses "inner experience", which he defines as states usually considered forms of mystical experience, including ecstasy and rapture.

Reception

''Inner Experience'' received a negative reception from several authors due to having been published during the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

. Bataille was criticized for this privately by

Jules Monnerot Jules is the French form of the Latin "Julius" (e.g. Jules César, the French name for Julius Caesar). In the anglosphere, it is also used for females although it is still a predominantly masculine name.One of the few notable examples of a femal ...

, and publicly by Patrick Waldberg.

Boris Souvarine Boris Souvarine (1 November 1895 – 1 November 1984), also known as Varine, was a French Marxist, communist activist, essayist and journalist. A founding member of the French Communist Party, Souvarine is noted for being the only non-Bolshevik c ...

regarded its publication as a sign of Bataille's acceptance of the

occupation of France The Military Administration in France (; ) was an Military Administration (Nazi Germany), interim occupation authority established by Nazi Germany during World War II to administer the occupied zone in areas of northern and western French Third ...

. Bataille was attacked by

surrealists Surrealism is an art and cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists aimed to allow the unconscious mind to express itself, often resulting in the depiction of illogical or dreamlike scenes and id ...

in a pamphlet entitled ''Nom de Dieu''. The surrealists considered Bataille an

idealist Idealism in philosophy, also known as philosophical realism or metaphysical idealism, is the set of metaphysical perspectives asserting that, most fundamentally, reality is equivalent to mind, spirit, or consciousness; that reality is entir ...

. The philosopher

Gabriel Marcel Gabriel Honoré Marcel (7 December 1889 – 8 October 1973) was a French philosopher, playwright, music critic and leading Christian existentialist. The author of over a dozen books and at least thirty plays, Marcel's work focused on the moder ...

criticized the work from a Christian perspective.

References

Bibliography

* * * * {{Authority control 1943 non-fiction books Aesthetics books Éditions Gallimard books French non-fiction books Works by Georges Bataille fr:L'Expérience intérieure it:L'esperienza interiore