Inner Experience
{{short description|1943 book by Georges Bataille}}
{{Use shortened footnotes|date=January 2021}}
{{Infobox book
| name = Inner Experience
| title_orig = L'expérience intérieure
| translator = Leslie Anne Boldt
| image = Inner Experience (French edition).jpg
| caption = Cover of the first edition
| author = Georges Bataille
| illustrator =
| cover_artist =
| country = France
| language = French
| series =
| subject =
| publisher = Éditions Gallimard
| publisher2 = State University of New York Press
| pub_date = 1943
| english_pub_date = 1988
| media_type = Print
| pages = 209 (English edition)
| isbn = 0-88706-635-6
| dewey=
| congress=
| oclc=
| preceded_by =
| followed_by =
}}
Inner Experience ({{langx|fr|L'expérience intérieure}}) is a 1943 book by the French intellectual Georges Bataille. His first lengthy philosophical treatise, it was followed by Guilty (1944) and On Nietzsche (1945). Together, the three works constitute Bataille's Summa Atheologica, in which he explores the experience of excess, expressed in forms such as laughter, tears, eroticism, death, sacrifice and poetry.{{sfn|Lee|2017|page=88}}
Summary
{{expand section|date=November 2019}}
Bataille discusses "inner experience", which he defines as states usually considered forms of mystical experience, including ecstasy and rapture.{{sfn|Bataille|1988|page=3}}
Reception
Inner Experience received a negative reception from several authors due to having been published during the Second World War. Bataille was criticized for this privately by Jules Monnerot, and publicly by Patrick Waldberg. Boris Souvarine regarded its publication as a sign of Bataille's acceptance of the occupation of France. Bataille was attacked by surrealists in a pamphlet entitled Nom de Dieu. The surrealists considered Bataille an idealist.{{sfn|Surya|2002|pages=329–330}} The philosopher Gabriel Marcel criticized the work from a Christian perspective.{{sfn|Marcel|2010|pages=178–204}}
References
{{reflist}}
=Bibliography=
{{refbegin}}
- {{cite book |last1=Bataille|first1=Georges |title=Inner Experience |publisher=State University of New York Press |location=New York |year=1988 |isbn=0-88706-635-6 }}
- {{cite book |last1=Lee|first1=Joo Heung |chapter=Bataille, Georges |editor-last1=Audi|editor-first1=Robert |title=The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, Third Edition |publisher=Cambridge University Press |location=Cambridge |year=2017 |isbn=978-1-107-64379-6 }}
- {{cite book |last1=Marcel|first1=Gabriel |title=Homo Viator |publisher=St. Augustine's Press |location=South Bend, Indiana |year=2010 |isbn=978-1-58731-361-5 }}
- {{cite book |last1=Surya|first1=Michel |title=Georges Bataille: An Intellectual Biography |publisher=Verso Books |location=New York |year=2002 |isbn=1-85984-822-2 }}
{{refend}}
{{Georges Bataille}}
{{Authority control}}
Category:1943 non-fiction books
Category:Éditions Gallimard books
Category:French non-fiction books