Philosophy of War in Georges Bataille’s Works

Abstract

The paper considers various conceptualisations of war in works by the French philosopher Georges Bataille as well as their relationship with the notion of the sacred. It is suggested that this philosopher was the first to propose such formulation of the problem that emerged at the intersection of two interrelated views, namely the one about the decline of the sacred in the modern world and about the essential difference between World War ΙΙ and all previous wars. The latter view had made possible speculations as to the “sacred” character of this war. Tracing the development of the philosopher’s views on this subject from the 1930s to 1960s, the paper suggests that he consistently condemns war as an armed political conflict and contrasted it with religious perception of life and with free movement of violence in the forms of revolution, tragedy, and sacrifi ce, thus denying the sacred character of the war. Nevertheless, arguing against the so-called “modern” war, which appears pragmatic, mechanised, profane and threatening humankind with complete devastation, he contrasts it with two other — sacred — types of war. The first is “archaic” war. Its significance is much closer to that of sacrifi ce. It transfigures the human being by putting the latter in the proximity to death. The second is “spiritual fight”, the battle against his or her own subjectivity. Bataille borrowed this conception from Catholic mysticism of the Middle Ages. These different views on war arise from the multifaceted personal experience of the philosopher himself.

Keywords

• Georges Bataille
• war
• the sacred
• sacrifice
• mysticism
• modern war
• archaic war
• “spiritual fight”