The Eccentric Subject: Bataille and Kierkegaard

Abstract

This paper sets out to explore the affinity between Kierkegaard and Bataille in relation to a particular aspect of their respective works, namely the question of the subject. We will first look at Bataille’s conception, using the notion of sovereignty. We will argue that, in his critique of a metaphysical or idealist conception of subjectivity, Bataille leads the question of the subject to a recognition of difference. Secondly, we will see how in Kierkegaard, too, the question of the subject is resolved in an analogous recognition of difference, in his case through the claim of the singularity of the individual. Then we will synthesise this coinciding conception of the subject by means of the image of the eccentric. Finally, we will confront this conception with some examples of the so-called philosophies of difference, in order to argue that in Bataille and in Kierkegaard, when faced with the question of the subject, there is no attempt to think difference but rather the recognition of a limit in and for discourse that takes place by virtue of the subject’s encounter with itself.