Le primitif et le mystique chez Lévy-Bruhl, Bergson et Bataille

Abstract

French human sciences at the beginning of the 20th century used to assimilate the figures of the mad person, the primitive and the child. The Author shows that this assimilation should not be interpreted in the sense of an opposition between the archaic and the developed, or the normal and the pathological, but, once the figure of the mystic is added to this list, in the sense of an opposition between rationality and its other. Three examples allows to analyse the link between the figures of the primitive and the mystic : the sociology of Lévy-Bruhl, the metaphysics of Bergson, the literature of Bataille. Through the reading of these three works, the Author shows that the link between the figures of the primitive and the mystic allows to think a larger experience by opening it to an alterity, and at the same time prepares the ground for an empty and formal experience that will be explored by structuralism.

Keywords

• experience
• mystic
• primitive
• Bergson
• Bataille Georges
• Lévy-Bruhl