An absolute Hegelianism for postmodern times: Hegel with Lacan after Bataille and Derrida

Abstract

This paper examines the Hegelian dialectical procedure of determinate negation in the Phenomenology of Spirit through the lens of “failure” in light of its critique by post-Hegelian thinkers, primarily Georges Bataille and Jacques Derrida. Further, this paper shows how the notion of failure remains important in the thinking of both Hegel and Bataille and discusses the Hegelian “labor of negative” as a Beckettian “failing better” in its resonance with Lacanian psychoanalytic praxis. In so doing, this paper highlights how the post-Hegelian praxis of psychoanalysis and even the “anti-Hegelian” thinking of Derrida and Bataille share certain conceptual operations with Hegel’s philosophy. The paper goes on to trace the limitations of Bataille’s and Derrida’s critiques of Hegel, especially through Bataille’s notion of “sovereignty” that he opposes to “lordship,” which he views as the central concept of Hegelianism. The paper argues that most critics of Hegel (including Bataille and Derrida) misread his notion of “absolute knowing” due to a misunderstanding of the radical difference between the transitions within the Phenomenology and the culmination of this series of transitions in absolute knowing. Through dispelling this misunderstanding, the paper argues that absolute knowing remains a crucial conceptual operator to cut through the impasses of postmodern thinking.

Keywords

• hegel
• absolute knowing
• failing better
• bataille
• sovereignty
• derrida
• lacan
• psychoanalysis
• capitalism