Abstract

Bataille's version of transgression and prohibition is based on two presuppositions: the first one is coupling of death and ecstasy on the level of energetic principle, which makes the combination of personally grounded experience of transcendence with the dispositions of the subject possible. The second one concerns making use of two existential forces: the will to survival and the will to transcendence. The counterbalance of life and its negation is the basis for understanding and identification of the social function of prohibitions and of individual desire to break them. Bataille is thus consequent in applying the idea of original energetic balance of acceptance and dismissal, which makes all further differences, especially those of transgression and prohibition, possible