RELIGION, THE SACRED, AND THE LIMITS OF UTILITARIAN REASON IN THE CONCEPTION OF GEORGES BATTAYE

Abstract

The article examines G. Bataille’s theory of religion in the context of the problem of the sacred, sacrifice, and the limits of utilitarian reason. The relevance of the topic is determined by the need to reconsider religion not only as a system of beliefs or a social institution, but also as a form of experience that reveals the limits of reducing human existence to utility, productivity, and accumulation. The aim of the article is to reconstruct the main elements of Bataille’s theory of religion and to clarify its critical potential in relation to the utilitarian model of rationality. The methodological basis of the study includes historicalphilosophical, hermeneutic, comparative, and conceptual-analytical approaches. The results show that Bataille’s opposition between the profane and the sacred is connected with the distinction between the world of things and the experience of intimacy; sacrifice appears as the removal of a thing from the sphere of utility; and the concept of general economy deepens the critique of productivism and accumulation. The article argues that religion in Bataille’s thought may be interpreted as a critique of the reduction of being to a utilitarian order.