Stamp, Richard (1999) The work of friendship : Blanchot, Bataille, Hegel. PhD thesis, University of Warwick.

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Abstract

In this thesis I argue that friendship holds a unique and unusual place in the work
of Maurice Blanchot (1907-). It traces the appearance of this relation in his essays
during the period from 1946 to 1962. Key to his work at this time, j argue, is the
work of his friend Georges Bataille (1897-1960), whom he met in 1940. The
influence of each writer upon the work of the other, I argue, is inseparable from
the thought of friendship which both pursue, albeit in different and apparently
conflicting ways: Bataille figures the relation to the friend as complicity, a term
which he presents in terms of a quasi-ontological determination 'the labyrinthine
constitution of beings'; and Blanchot locates friendship in terms of a movement of
discretion or discontinuity which interrupts being in order for there to be relation
as such. It is shown how both thinkers reinscribe friendship into their work in
general through these figures, which allow them to articulate questions of
memory, death and the 'work'. It is in this sense that friendship, for both writers,
is 'at work' within their work. Central to this determination of 'the work' is
G. W. F. Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit, which had been introduced into French
intellectual life principally by two commentators, Alexandre Kojeve and Jean
Hyppolite. The figural differences between complicity and discretion are traced to
their respective readings of Hegel. Bataille's debt to Kojeve's interpretation forms
the starting point of this linkage between the question of friendship and the status
of the work. The pivotal role which Kojeve ascribes to the relation of mastery and
slavery - the emergence of self-consciousness as the work of recognition
[Anerkennung] - is used to draw out Hegel's genetic account of intersubjectivity
(in recognition, love, and friendship). I show that Bataille's conception of
sovereignty not only seeks to oppose this dialectic of mastery ... Hegelianly ... ; it
also situates itself within this dialectic at the very moment which Kojeve defines
in terms of the limited aniniality of friendship and love. As a result, Bataille's
thought of friendship extends to characterise the impossibility into which this
dialectic is inevitably collapsed. Yet the question remains as to how far his
reliance upon Kojeve puts this strategy of collapse under an ever-present threat of
having to repeat those 'Hegelian' strategies which he claims to have 'undone'.
The final chapter in the thesis, therefore, sets out a characterisation. of Blanchot's
reading of Hegel. Against the grain of most Blanchot commentaries, I show that
Blanchot's reading cannot be derived solely from Kojeve. By linking the pivotal
function of terms such as 'disquiet' ['Unruhe'] and key passages from Hegel's
texts, it is argued that he draws extensively upon the commentaries and
translations of Hyppolite: this approach allows him to amplify the importance of
language in the Phenomenology of Spirit; and to identify in this text key questions
of ambiguity - such as the relation of language and negativity; the place of
memory in the work of art; and the fate of art in the modem world. It is Hegel's
ambiguous linkage of friendship with the latter which leads to his own effacement
of Bataille's relation between friendship and art, and to the definition of a 'work
of friendship' in the self-effacement of discretion.

Item Type:	Thesis or Dissertation (PhD)
Subjects:	B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > B Philosophy (General)
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH):	Blanchot, Maurice -- Criticism and interpretation, Bataille, Georges, 1897-1962 -- Criticism and interpretation, Friendship in literature, Friendship -- Philosophy, Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 1770-1831 -- Influence
Official Date:	September 1999
Dates:	Date Event September 1999 Submitted
Institution:	University of Warwick
Theses Department:	Department of Philosophy
Thesis Type:	PhD
Publication Status:	Unpublished
Extent:	226 leaves
Language:	eng
URI:	http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/id/eprint/34669

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