Inner experIence Is not psychosIs: BataIlle’s ethIcs and lacanIan suBjectIvIty

despite his personal proximity to Georges Bataille, jacques lacan makes very few direct references to his work. Indeed, the only mention of Bataille’s name in the 878 pages of the Écrits is in a footnote to “on a Question prior to any possible treatment of psychosis.”1 this article declares that daniel schreber, the prototypical psychotic, was exposed to inner experience by his insight that “God is a whore.”2 lacan affirms that his mention of inner experience is an allusion to Bataille, and refers the reader to Inner Experience, which he calls Bataille’s central work; and to Madame Edwarda, in which “he describes the odd extremity of this experience.”3 lacan here identifies the experience of Madame Edwarda with Bataille’s “inner experience,” and stipulates that both are identical to schreber’s psychotic break.