Date: Wed, 24 May 2000 08:50:22 -0500
Subject: Re: Inner experience vs. Descartes


On 5/20/00 10:21 AM, EINAR WAHLSTRØM at mosquito-AT-c2i.net posted the
following:

> J. Comas wrote:
> 
>> Let's not overlook the fact that Bataille has his own "thoughts about the
>> 'inner' experience . . . and the "inner" mind to Descartes" in Part IV of _
>> L'experience interieur_ (though you may not find this pertinent to the
>> "strange dilemma" that interests you).>
> 
> Im not exactly sure what youre getting at but I re-read Descartes
> Meditations the other day.

Let me try to make my point more clearly. I was suggesting that you may want
to give some attention to Bataille's own discussions of Descartes, in
particular, his discussion in Part Four of _Inner Experience_. Here is the
opening paragraph of that discussion (in Boldt's English translation):

> In a letter of May 1637, Descartes writes on the subject of the fourth part of
> the _Discourse_ where he affirms, beginning with the _Cogito_, the certainty
> of God: "In lingering for a long enough time over this meditation, one
> gradually acquires a very clear and, if I may speak in such a way, intuitive
> knowledge of intellectual nature in general--the idea of which, when
> considered without limitation, is what represents God to us and, when limited,
> is that of an angel or of a human soul." Now this movement of thought is
> simpler and much more necessary to man than that from which Descartes has
> drawn, in the _Discourse_, divine certitude (which is reduced to the argument
> of Saint Anselme: perfect being cannot fail to have existence as an
> attribute). And this vital movement is essentially what dies within me. (105)


Jim
-- 
J. Comas
Department of English
University of Missouri-Columbia
<http://web.missouri.edu/~engjnc/>
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