The secret garden: notes about Btaille and Foucault

Abstract

On several occasions, Michel Foucault expressed his affinity with the thinking of Georges Bataille, even going so far as to present himself as the latter´s disciple. Such filiation can indeed be perceived in the intensity with which both scholars engaged themselves in deconstructing the modern notion of reason, as anchored to the notions of knowledge and truth. A stricter approximation of the two thinkers, however, places us before significant differences, which indicate differing critical fundaments. Architecture suggests itself as a privileged locus for engaging on an analysis of such differences . Foucault observes buildings from within; Bataille sees them from the outside. This brings about distinct results: if, for the creator of The microphysics of power, a cul de sac is etched, for the author of The inner experience the possibility of conceiving 'secret gardens' offers itself, in contraposition to the threatening monuments. This, in turn, hints at different readers of Nietszche.