“La chose maudite”. The concept of reification in George Bataille’s The Accursed Share

This paper deals with the concept of reification, which is analyzed taking into account two main lines of thought. The former is the Marxist theory of reification, which is similar to and converges with the concept of alienation. The latter focuses on the phenomenon of convention that allows us to deal with extra-linguistic objects, non-computable objects, aiming at producing a shared reality; in other words, to produce simulacra through mass media. This paper analyses in particular the transformation of the understanding of the concept of reification as enabled by Bataille’s work, The Accursed Share. In this work, George Bataille highlights the existence of the phenomenon of reification outside the relationships built by the capital.