The Symbolic and the Impossible

Abstract

This chapter turns to examine Baudrillard’s early work up to the publication of Symbolic Exchange and Death in the mid-1970s. The development of his early critique of the object in consumer society is followed as it develops into a post-Marxist position. Particular attention is paid to For a Critique of the Political Economy of the Sign and his distinction between signification and the symbolic that is said to remain beyond it. Derrida, in Baudrillard’s only named criticism of him, is claimed to be of the party of the signification in a passage that is found to be mistaken in a number of respects. Derrida’s own position is brought out via a discussion of his criticism of Lévinas’ for positing an other that appears to be absolutely other in Totality and Infinity. The related question of the impossible is used to suggest the need to rethink the relation of the semiological and the symbolic via readings of Bataille and Mauss as well as a discussion of deconstructive criticisms of Situationist politics.