basis relation See BASING RELATION. Bataille, Georges (1897–1962), French philosopher and novelist with enormous influence on post-structuralist thought. By locating value in expenditure as opposed to accumulation, Bataille inaugurates the era of the death of the subject. He insists that individuals must transgress the limits imposed by subjectivity to escape isolation and communicate. Bataille’s prewar philosophical contributions consist mainly of short essays, the most significant of which have been collected in Visions of Excess. These essays introduce the central idea that base matter disrupts rational subjectivity by attesting to the continuity in which individuals lose themselves. Inner Experience (1943), Bataille’s first lengthy philosophical treatise, was followed by Guilty (1944) and On Nietzsche (1945). Together, these three works constitute Bataille’s Summa Atheologica, which explores the play of the isolation and the dissolution of beings in terms of the experience of excess (laughter, tears, eroticism, death, sacrifice, poetry). The Accursed Share (1949), which he considered his most important work, is his most systematic account of the social and economic implications of expenditure. In Erotism (1957) and The Tears of Eros (1961), he focuses on the excesses of sex and death. Throughout his life, Bataille was concerned with the question of value. He located it in the excess that lacerates individuals and opens channels of communication. See also POSTMODERN, STRUCTURALISM. J.H.L.