continental philosophy Continental philosophy is a group of philosophies prominent in 20th-century continental Europe that derive from a broadly Kantianism, Kantian tradition.Continental philosophers usually identify such conditions with the transcendental subject or ...

, limit-experience () is a quality of experience that approaches the limits of possible experience. This can be in terms of its intensity, and it being seemingly impossible or paradoxical. In Lacanianism, a limit-experience dissociates the subject from the experience that it exists in and identifies with, leading to a confrontation with

the Real In continental philosophy, the Real refers to reality in its unmediated form. In Lacanian psychoanalysis, it is an "impossible" category because of its inconceivability and opposition to expression. In depth psychology The Real is the ...

. The concept first appears in the work of

Karl Jaspers Karl Theodor Jaspers (; ; 23 February 1883 – 26 February 1969) was a German-Swiss psychiatrist and philosopher who had a strong influence on modern theology, psychiatry, and philosophy. His 1913 work ''General Psychopathology'' influenced many ...

and later, in the work of the French philosopher

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, ...

; it subsequently became associated with French philosophers

Maurice Blanchot Maurice Blanchot ( ; ; 22 September 1907 – 20 February 2003) was a French writer, philosopher and literary theorist. His work, exploring a philosophy of death alongside poetic theories of meaning and sense, bore significant influence on pos ...

and

Michel Foucault Paul-Michel Foucault ( , ; ; 15 October 192625 June 1984) was a French History of ideas, historian of ideas and Philosophy, philosopher who was also an author, Literary criticism, literary critic, Activism, political activist, and teacher. Fo ...

through their use of the concept.

Interpretations

Georges Bataille

When originally speaking on limit-experiences, Bataille drew inspiration from

Charles Baudelaire Charles Pierre Baudelaire (, ; ; 9 April 1821 – 31 August 1867) was a French poet, essayist, translator and art critic. His poems are described as exhibiting mastery of rhythm and rhyme, containing an exoticism inherited from the Romantics ...

and his poetics of paradoxical experience, such as in the line "O filthy grandeur! O sublime disgrace!" in poem 25 of Baudelaire's ''

Les Fleurs du mal ''Les Fleurs du mal'' (; ) is a volume of French poetry by Charles Baudelaire. ''Les Fleurs du mal'' includes nearly all Baudelaire's poetry, written from 1840 until his death in August 1867. First published in 1857, it was important in the ...

''. He noted "the fact that these two complete contrasts were identical—divine ecstasy and extreme horror", and he went on to challenge the conventions laid down by the surrealists at the time with an anti-idealist philosophy conditioned on what he called "the impossible", defined by breaking "rules" until something ''beyond all rules'' was reached; Foucault would later summarize this as "the point of life which lies as close as possible to the impossibility of living, which lies at the limit or the extreme". Bataille sought to identify experiences of this kind, and to establish a philosophy that would convey how to live at the edge of limits where the ability to comprehend experience breaks down.

Michel Foucault

Foucault remarked that "the idea of a limit-experience that wrenches the subject from itself is what was important to me in my reading of

Nietzsche Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (15 October 1844 – 25 August 1900) was a German philosopher. He began his career as a classical philologist, turning to philosophy early in his academic career. In 1869, aged 24, Nietzsche became the youngest pro ...

, Bataille, and Blanchot". In his manner, the systems of philosophy and psychology and their conceptions of reality and the unified subject could be challenged and exposed in favor of what their systems and structures refused and excluded, viewing them from a standpoint informed by the potentials of limit-experience. How far Foucault's fascination with intense experiences goes in his entire body of work is the subject of debate, with the concept arguably being absent from his later and more well known work on sexuality and discipline, as well as strongly associated with the cult of the mad artist in ''

Madness and Civilization ''Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason'' (, 1961)The original title was changed for the second edition of 1972 by Éditions Gallimard, revised and expanded, and replaced with the previous subtitle: "History of madne ...

''.

Jacques Lacan

Influenced by Bataille, from whom he drew the idea of impossibility, Lacan explored the role of limit-experiences, such as "desire, boredom, confinement, revolt, prayer, sleeplessness ... and panic" in the formation of the Other. He also adopted some of Bataille's views on love, seeing it as predicated on man having previously "experienced the limit within which, like desire, he is bound". He saw masochism in particular as a limit-experience, an aspect which fed into his article "Kant avec Sade".Lacan, ''Concepts'' p. 276

References

External links

'The Negative Eschatology of Maurice Blanchot'
{{Michel Foucault Georges Bataille Michel Foucault Karl Jaspers