The Limit of the UsefulThe first English-language translation of an essential, early work key to understanding the French philosopher's later thought. In the decade prior to the publication of Inner Experience (L’expérience intérieure), the twentieth-century French philosopher Georges Bataille produced a nascent masterwork containing some of his most original and extensive reflections on a range of subjects. With thoughts on ritual sacrifice and military conquest, the nature of laughter, and the mechanisms of capitalism, The Limit of the Useful, as Bataille had planned to title the work, illuminates the philosopher’s later corpus, yet it remained unfinished and unpublished in his lifetime, and untranslated until now. This is the first English-language translation of what Cory Austin Knudson and Tomas Elliott argue is one of Bataille’s most structurally consistent works. Paired with draft essays and plans for The Accursed Share, along with over a hundred pages of appendixes and notes, the volume distinctively elaborates Bataille’s thought. The Limit of the Useful spans a decade of rich intellectual ferment in Bataille’s life as he first formulated his challenge to capitalism, engaging with concepts and ideas in ways not seen in his other published works. The volume bridges the gap between Bataille’s surrealist literary writings and later scientific pretensions, drawing attention to, and filling in, an overlooked lacuna in his oeuvre. |
Contents
Introduction | vii |
The Galaxy the Sun and Man | 3 |
Unproductive Expenditure | 25 |
The World of Private Expenditure | 51 |
Economy at the Scale of the Universe | 137 |
Preliminary Notes to the Writing | 149 |
Drafts | 159 |
Dossier of Batailles Notes and Outlines | 171 |
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Common terms and phrases
Accursed Share action activity acts amount anguish animals appear appropriated Bataille Bataille's become capital cause chapter comes communication consciousness death desire earth economy edition energy everything excess existence expend expenditure experience express fact fall feeling festival final force Gallimard eds gamble gift give given glorious glory greed growth hand human idea increase individual isolation kind knowledge labor laugh laughter least less light Limit linked living longer look loss matter meaning moral movement nature necessary never object offered once opposition person play possible present principle production reason remains result sacrifice seems sense separate society speculative spirit stake stop things thought tion translated true turn universe waste wealth writes