Alain Badiou is a French philosopher, professor at
European Graduate SchoolThe European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland is a privately funded graduate school founded by the non-profit European Foundation of Interdisciplinary Studies. Its German name is Europäische Universität für Interdisziplinäre Studien...
, formerly chair of
PhilosophyPhilosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
at the
École Normale SupérieureThe École normale supérieure is one of the most prestigious French grandes écoles...
(ENS). Along with
Giorgio AgambenGiorgio Agamben is an Italian political philosopher best known for his work investigating the concepts of the state of exception and homo sacer....
and
Slavoj ŽižekSlavoj Žižek is a Slovenian philosopher, critical theorist working in the traditions of Hegelianism, Marxism and Lacanian psychoanalysis. He has made contributions to political theory, film theory, and theoretical psychoanalysis....
, Badiou is a prominent figure in an anti-
postmodernPostmodernity is generally used to describe the economic or cultural state or condition of society which is said to exist after modernity...
strand of
continental philosophyContinental philosophy, in contemporary usage, refers to a set of traditions of 19th and 20th century philosophy from mainland Europe. This sense of the term originated among English-speaking philosophers in the second half of the 20th century, who used it to refer to a range of thinkers and...
. Badiou seeks to recover the concepts of
beingOntology is the philosophical study of the nature of being, existence or reality as such, as well as the basic categories of being and their relations...
,
truthTruth has a variety of meanings, such as the state of being in accord with fact or reality. It can also mean having fidelity to an original or to a standard or ideal. In a common usage, it also means constancy or sincerity in action or character...
and the
subjectIn philosophy, a subject is a being that has subjective experiences, subjective consciousness or a relationship with another entity . A subject is an observer and an object is a thing observed...
in a way that, he claims, is neither postmodern nor simply a repetition of
modernityThe Age of Enlightenment was an elite cultural movement of intellectuals in 18th century Europe that sought to mobilize the power of reason in order to reform society and advance knowledge. It promoted intellectual interchange and opposed intolerance and abuses in church and state...
. Politically, Badiou is committed to the far left, and to the communist tradition.
Biography
Badiou was a student at the
Lycée Louis-Le-GrandThe Lycée Louis-le-Grand is a public secondary school located in Paris, widely regarded as one of the most rigorous in France. Formerly known as the Collège de Clermont, it was named in king Louis XIV of France's honor after he visited the school and offered his patronage.It offers both a...
and then the
Ecole Normale SupérieureThe École normale supérieure is one of the most prestigious French grandes écoles...
(1957–1961). He taught at the lycée in
ReimsReims , a city in the Champagne-Ardenne region of France, lies east-northeast of Paris. Founded by the Gauls, it became a major city during the period of the Roman Empire....
from 1963 where he became a close friend of fellow playwright (and philosopher)
François RegnaultFrançois Regnault is a French philosopher, playwright and dramaturg. Also a university instructor and teacher, Regnault was maître de conférences at Paris VIII before his retirement...
, and published a couple of novels before moving to the University of Paris VIII (Vincennes-Saint Denis) in 1969. Badiou was politically active very early on, and was one of the founding members of the
Unified Socialist PartyThe Unified Socialist Party was a socialist political party in France, founded on April 3, 1960. It was originally led by Édouard Depreux , and by Michel Rocard .- History :...
(PSU). The PSU was particularly active in the struggle for the
decolonizationDecolonization refers to the undoing of colonialism, the unequal relation of polities whereby one people or nation establishes and maintains dependent Territory over another...
of Algeria. He wrote his first novel, Almagestes, in 1964. In 1967 he joined a study group organized by
Louis AlthusserLouis Pierre Althusser was a French Marxist philosopher. He was born in Algeria and studied at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris, where he eventually became Professor of Philosophy....
, became increasingly influenced by
Jacques LacanJacques Marie Émile Lacan was a French psychoanalyst and psychiatrist who made prominent contributions to psychoanalysis and philosophy, and has been called "the most controversial psycho-analyst since Freud". Giving yearly seminars in Paris from 1953 to 1981, Lacan influenced France's...
and became a member of the editorial board of Cahiers pour l’Analyse. By then he "already had a solid grounding in mathematics and logic (along with Lacanian theory)", and his own two contributions to the pages of Cahiers "anticipate many of the distinctive concerns of his later philosophy".
The student uprisings of May 1968 reinforced Badiou's commitment to the far Left, and he participated in increasingly militant groups, such as the Union des communistes de France marxiste-léniniste (UCFml). To quote Badiou himself, the UCFml is "the Maoist organization established in late 1969 by
Natacha MichelNatacha Michel is a French political activist, militant and writer, born in 1941. She has published a dozen novels and a growing body of literary criticism.Michel was program director at the College International de Philosophie...
,
Sylvain LazarusSylvain Lazarus is a French sociologist, anthropologist and political theorist. He has also written under the pseudonym Paul Sandevince. Lazarus is a Professor at the Paris 8 University.-Life and work:...
, myself and a fair number of young people". During this time, Badiou joined the faculty of the newly founded University of Paris VIII/Vincennes-Saint Denis which was a bastion of counter-cultural thought. There he engaged in fierce intellectual debates with fellow professors
Gilles DeleuzeGilles Deleuze , was a French philosopher who, from the early 1960s until his death, wrote influentially on philosophy, literature, film, and fine art. His most popular works were the two volumes of Capitalism and Schizophrenia: Anti-Oedipus and A Thousand Plateaus , both co-written with Félix...
and
Jean-François LyotardJean-François Lyotard was a French philosopher and literary theorist. He is well known for his articulation of postmodernism after the late 1970s and the analysis of the impact of postmodernity on the human condition...
, whose philosophical works he considered unhealthy deviations from the Althusserian program of a scientific
MarxismMarxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...
.
In the 1980s, as both Althusserian Marxism and Lacanian psychoanalysis went into decline (with Lacan dead and Althusser in an asylum), Badiou published more technical and
abstractAbstraction is a process by which higher concepts are derived from the usage and classification of literal concepts, first principles, or other methods....
philosophical works, such as Théorie du sujet (1982), and his magnum opus, Being and Event (1988). Nonetheless, Badiou has never renounced Althusser or Lacan, and sympathetic references to Marxism and psychoanalysis are not uncommon in his more recent works (most notably Petit panthéon portatif/Pocket Pantheon).
He took up his current position at the ENS in 1999. He is also associated with a number of other institutions, such as the
Collège International de PhilosophieThe Collège international de philosophie , located in Paris' 5th arrondissement, is a tertiary education institute placed under the trusteeship of the French government department of research and chartered under the French 1901 Law on associations...
. He was a member of "L'Organisation Politique" which, as mentioned above, he founded in 1985 with some comrades from the Maoist UCFml. This organization disbanded in 2007, according to the French Wikipedia article (linked to in the previous sentence). Badiou has also enjoyed success as a dramatist with plays such as Ahmed le Subtil.
In the last decade, an increasing number of Badiou's works have been translated into English, such as Ethics, Deleuze, Manifesto for Philosophy, Metapolitics, and Being and Event. Short pieces by Badiou have likewise appeared in American and English periodicals, such as
Lacanian InkLacanian Ink is a cultural journal based in New York City and founded in the Autumn of 1990 by Josefina Ayerza to provide the American intellectual scene with the theoretical perspective of European post-structuralism. It features major analyses of psychoanalytic theory, poetry, philosophy and...
,
New Left ReviewNew Left Review is a 160-page journal, published every two months from London, devoted to world politics, economy and culture. Often compared to the French-language Les Temps modernes, it is associated with Verso Books , and regularly features the essays of authorities on contemporary social...
,
Radical PhilosophyRadical Philosophy is a British academic journal of critical theory and continental philosophy, appearing six times a year. It was established in 1972 with the purpose of providing a forum for the theoretical work which was emerging in the wake of the radical movements of the 1960s, in philosophy...
, Cosmos and History
http://www.cosmosandhistory.org/ and Parrhesia. Unusually for a contemporary European philosopher his work is increasingly being taken up by militants in movements of the poor in countries like India, the Democratic Republic of Congo and South Africa where he is often read together with
Frantz FanonFrantz Fanon was a Martiniquo-Algerian psychiatrist, philosopher, revolutionary and writer whose work is influential in the fields of post-colonial studies, critical theory and Marxism...
.
Lately Badiou got into a fierce controversy within the confines of Parisian intellectual life. It started in 2005 with the publication of his "Circonstances 3: Portées du mot 'juif'" – The Uses of the Word "Jew". This book generated a strong response with calls of Badiou being labelled Anti-Semitic. The wrangling became a cause célèbre with articles going back and forth in the French newspaper
Le MondeLe Monde is a French daily evening newspaper owned by La Vie-Le Monde Group and edited in Paris. It is one of two French newspapers of record, and has generally been well respected since its first edition under founder Hubert Beuve-Méry on 19 December 1944...
and in the cultural journal "Les temps modernes." Another philosopher,
Jean-Claude MilnerJean-Claude Milner is a linguist, philosopher and a French essayist. In particular, he is a specialist in the field of both linguistics and psychoanalysis...
, has accused Badiou of
Anti-SemitismAntisemitism is suspicion of, hatred toward, or discrimination against Jews for reasons connected to their Jewish heritage. According to a 2005 U.S...
.
Key concepts
Badiou makes repeated use of several concepts throughout his philosophy. One of the aims of his thought is to show that his categories of truth are useful for any type of philosophical critique. Therefore, he uses them to interrogate art and history as well as ontology and scientific discovery. Johannes Thumfart argues that Badiou's philosophy can be regarded as a contemporary reinterpretation of
PlatonismPlatonism is the philosophy of Plato or the name of other philosophical systems considered closely derived from it. In a narrower sense the term might indicate the doctrine of Platonic realism...
.
Conditions
According to Badiou, philosophy is suspended from four conditions (art, love, politics, and science), each of them fully independent "truth procedures." (For Badiou's notion of truth procedures, see below.) Badiou consistently maintains throughout his work (but most systematically in Manifesto for Philosophy) that philosophy must avoid the temptation to suture itself (that is, to hand over its entire intellectual effort) to any of these independent truth procedures. When philosophy does suture itself to one of its conditions (and Badiou argues that the history of philosophy during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries is primarily a history of sutures), what results is a philosophical "disaster." Consequently, philosophy is, according to Badiou, a thinking of the compossibility of the several truth procedures, whether this is undertaken through the investigation of the intersections between distinct truth procedures (the intersection of art and love in the novel, for instance), or whether this is undertaken through the more traditionally philosophical work of addressing categories like truth or the subject (concepts that are, as concepts, external to the individual truth procedures, though they are functionally operative in the truth procedures themselves). For Badiou, when philosophy addresses the four truth procedures in a genuinely philosophical manner, rather than through a suturing abandonment of philosophy as such, it speaks of them with a theoretical terminology that marks its philosophical character: inaesthetics rather than art; metapolitics rather than politics; ontology rather than science; etc.
TruthTruth has a variety of meanings, such as the state of being in accord with fact or reality. It can also mean having fidelity to an original or to a standard or ideal. In a common usage, it also means constancy or sincerity in action or character...
, for Badiou, is a specifically philosophical category. While philosophy's several conditions are, on their own terms, "truth procedures" (i.e., they produce truths as they are pursued), it is only philosophy that can speak of the several truth procedures as truth procedures. (The lover, for instance, does not think of her love as a question of truth, but simply and rightly as a question of love. Only the philosopher sees in the true lover's love the unfolding of a truth.) Badiou has a very rigorous notion of truth, one that is strongly against the grain of much of contemporary European thought. Badiou at once embraces the traditional modernist notion that truths are genuinely invariant (always and everywhere the case, eternal and unchanging) and the incisively postmodernist notion that truths are constructed through processes. Badiou's theory of truth, exposited throughout his work, accomplishes this strange mixture by uncoupling invariance and self-evidence (such that invariance does not imply self-evidence), as well as by uncoupling constructedness from relativity (such that constructedness does not lead to relativism).
The idea, here, is that a truth's invariance makes it genuinely indiscernible: because a truth is everywhere and always the case, it passes unnoticed unless there is a rupture in the laws of being and appearance, during which the truth in question becomes, but only for a passing moment, discernible. Such a rupture is what Badiou calls an event, according to a theory originally worked out in Being and Event and fleshed out in important ways in Logics of Worlds. The subject who chances to witness such an event, if he is faithful to what he has glimpsed, can then introduce the truth by naming it into worldly situations. According to a process or procedure that subsequently unfolds only if those who subject themselves to the glimpsed truth continue faithful in the work of announcing the truth in question, genuine knowledge is produced (knowledge often appears in Badiou's work under the title of the "veridical"). While such knowledge is produced in the process of being faithful to a truth event, it should be noted that, for Badiou, knowledge, in the figure of the encyclopedia, always remains fragile, subject to what may yet be produced as faithful subjects of the event produce further knowledge. According to Badiou, truth procedures proceed to infinity, such that faith (fidelity) outstrips knowledge. (Badiou, following both
LacanLacan is surname of:* Jacques Lacan , French psychoanalyst and psychiatrist** The Seminars of Jacques Lacan** From Bakunin to Lacan: Anti-Authoritarianism and the Dislocation of Power, a book on political philosophy by Saul Newman** Lacan at the Scene* Judith Miller, née Lacan...
and Heidegger, distances truth from knowledge.)
Inaesthetic
In Handbook of Inaesthetics Badiou coins the phrase "inaesthetic" to refer to a concept of artistic creation that denies "the reflection/object relation". Reacting against the idea of
mimesisMimesis , from μιμεῖσθαι , "to imitate," from μῖμος , "imitator, actor") is a critical and philosophical term that carries a wide range of meanings, which include imitation, representation, mimicry, imitatio, receptivity, nonsensuous similarity, the act of resembling, the act of expression, and the...
, or poetic reflection of "nature", Badiou claims that art is "immanent" and "singular". It is immanent in the sense that its truth is given in its immediacy in a given work of art, and singular in that its truth is found in art and art alone. His view of the link between philosophy and art is tied into the motif of pedagogy, which he claims functions so as to "arrange the forms of knowledge in a way that some truth may come to pierce a hole in them". He develops these ideas with examples from the prose of
Samuel BeckettSamuel Barclay Beckett was an Irish avant-garde novelist, playwright, theatre director, and poet. He wrote both in English and French. His work offers a bleak, tragicomic outlook on human nature, often coupled with black comedy and gallows humour.Beckett is widely regarded as among the most...
and the poetry of
Stéphane MallarméStéphane Mallarmé , whose real name was Étienne Mallarmé, was a French poet and critic. He was a major French symbolist poet, and his work anticipated and inspired several revolutionary artistic schools of the early 20th century, such as Dadaism, Surrealism, and Futurism.-Biography:Stéphane...
and
Fernando PessoaFernando Pessoa, born Fernando António Nogueira de Seabra Pessoa , was a Portuguese poet, writer, literary critic and translator described as one of the most significant literary figures of the 20th century and one of the greatest poets in the Portuguese language.-Early years in Durban:On 13 July...
(who he argues has developed a body of work that philosophy is currently incapable of incorporating), among others.
Introduction to Being and Event
The major propositions of Badiou's philosophy all find their basis in Being and Event, in which he continues his attempt (which he began in Théorie du sujet) to reconcile a notion of the subject with ontology, and in particular
post-structuralistPost-structuralism is a label formulated by American academics to denote the heterogeneous works of a series of French intellectuals who came to international prominence in the 1960s and '70s...
and
constructivistConstructivist epistemology is an epistemological perspective in philosophy about the nature of scientific knowledge. Constructivists maintain that scientific knowledge is constructed by scientists and not discovered from the world. Constructivists claim that the concepts of science are mental...
ontologies. A frequent criticism of post-structuralist work is that it prohibits, through its fixation on
semioticsSemiotics, also called semiotic studies or semiology, is the study of signs and sign processes , indication, designation, likeness, analogy, metaphor, symbolism, signification, and communication...
and language, any notion of a subject. Badiou's work is, by his own admission, an attempt to break out of contemporary philosophy's fixation upon language, which he sees almost as a straitjacket. This effort leads him, in Being and Event, to combine rigorous mathematical formulae with his readings of poets such as
MallarméMallarmé can refer to:* Stéphane Mallarmé , French poet and critic.* François-René-Auguste Mallarmé , politician during the French Revolution....
and
HölderlinJohann Christian Friedrich Hölderlin was a major German lyric poet, commonly associated with the artistic movement known as Romanticism. Hölderlin was also an important thinker in the development of German Idealism, particularly his early association with and philosophical influence on his...
and religious thinkers such as
Pascal Blaise Pascal , was a French mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer and Catholic philosopher. He was a child prodigy who was educated by his father, a tax collector in Rouen...
. His philosophy draws upon both 'analytical' and 'continental' traditions. In Badiou's own opinion, this combination places him awkwardly relative to his contemporaries, meaning that his work had been only slowly taken up. Being and Event offers an example of this slow uptake, in fact: it was translated into English only in 2005, a full seventeen years after its French publication.
As is implied in the title of the book, two elements mark the thesis of Being and Event: the place of ontology, or 'the science of being qua being' (being in itself), and the place of the event – which is seen as a rupture in being – through which the subject finds realization and reconciliation with truth. This situation of being and the rupture which characterizes the event are thought in terms of
set theorySet theory is the branch of mathematics that studies sets, which are collections of objects. Although any type of object can be collected into a set, set theory is applied most often to objects that are relevant to mathematics...
, and specifically
Zermelo–Fraenkel set theoryIn mathematics, Zermelo–Fraenkel set theory with the axiom of choice, named after mathematicians Ernst Zermelo and Abraham Fraenkel and commonly abbreviated ZFC, is one of several axiomatic systems that were proposed in the early twentieth century to formulate a theory of sets without the paradoxes...
(with the axiom of choice), to which Badiou accords a fundamental role in a manner quite distinct from the majority of either mathematicians or philosophers.
Mathematics as ontology
For Badiou the problem which the
GreekAncient Greek philosophy arose in the 6th century BCE and continued through the Hellenistic period, at which point Ancient Greece was incorporated in the Roman Empire...
tradition of philosophy has faced and never satisfactorily dealt with is the problem that while beings themselves are plural, and thought in terms of multiplicity, being itself is thought to be singular; that is, it is thought in terms of the one. He proposes as the solution to this impasse the following declaration: that the one is not. This is why Badiou accords set theory (the axioms of which he refers to as the Ideas of the multiple) such stature, and refers to mathematics as the very place of ontology: Only set theory allows one to conceive a 'pure doctrine of the multiple'. Set theory does not operate in terms of definite individual elements in groupings but only functions insofar as what belongs to a set is of the same relation as that set (that is, another set too). What separates sets out therefore is not an existential positive proposition, but other multiples whose properties validate its presentation; which is to say their structural relation. The structure of being thus secures the regime of the count-as-one. So if one is to think of a set – for instance, the set of people, or humanity – as counting as one the elements which belong to that set, it can then secure the multiple (the multiplicities of humans) as one consistent concept (humanity), but only in terms of what does not belong to that set. What is, in following, crucial for Badiou is that the structural form of the count-as-one, which makes multiplicities thinkable, implies that the proper name of being does not belong to an element as such (an original 'one'), but rather the void set (written Ø), the set to which nothing (not even the void set itself) belongs. It may help to understand the concept 'count-as-one' if it is associated with the concept of 'terming': a multiple is not one, but it is referred to with 'multiple': one word. To count a set as one is to mention that set. How the being of terms such as 'multiple' does not contradict the non-being of the one can be understood by considering the multiple nature of terminology: for there to be a term without there also being a system of terminology, within which the difference between terms gives context and meaning to any one term, does not coincide with what is understood by 'terminology', which is precisely difference (thus multiplicity) conditioning meaning. Since the idea of conceiving of a term without meaning does not compute, the count-as-one is a structural effect or a situational operation and not an event of truth. Multiples which are 'composed' or 'consistent' are count-effects; inconsistent multiplicity is the presentation of presentation.
Badiou's use of set theory in this manner is not just illustrative or
heuristicHeuristic refers to experience-based techniques for problem solving, learning, and discovery. Heuristic methods are used to speed up the process of finding a satisfactory solution, where an exhaustive search is impractical...
. Badiou uses the
axiomIn traditional logic, an axiom or postulate is a proposition that is not proven or demonstrated but considered either to be self-evident or to define and delimit the realm of analysis. In other words, an axiom is a logical statement that is assumed to be true...
s of Zermelo–Fraenkel set theory to identify the relationship of being to history, Nature, the State, and God. Most significantly this use means that (as with set theory) there is a strict prohibition on self-belonging; a set cannot contain or belong to itself.
Russell's paradoxIn the foundations of mathematics, Russell's paradox , discovered by Bertrand Russell in 1901, showed that the naive set theory created by Georg Cantor leads to a contradiction...
famously ruled that possibility out of formal logic. (This paradox can be thought through in terms of a 'list of lists that do not contain themselves': if such a list does not write itself on the list the property is incomplete, as there will be one missing; if it does, it is no longer a list that does not contain itself.) So too does the axiom of foundation – or to give an alternative name the axiom of regularity – enact such a prohibition (cf. p. 190 in Being and Event). (This axiom states that all sets contain an element for which only the void [empty] set names what is common to both the set and its element.) Badiou's philosophy draws two major implications from this prohibition. Firstly, it secures the inexistence of the 'one': there cannot be a grand overarching set, and thus it is fallacious to conceive of a grand cosmos, a whole Nature, or a Being of God. Badiou is therefore – against
CantorGeorg Ferdinand Ludwig Philipp Cantor was a German mathematician, best known as the inventor of set theory, which has become a fundamental theory in mathematics. Cantor established the importance of one-to-one correspondence between the members of two sets, defined infinite and well-ordered sets,...
, from whom he draws heavily – staunchly
atheistAtheism is, in a broad sense, the rejection of belief in the existence of deities. In a narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities...
. However, secondly, this prohibition prompts him to introduce the event. Because, according to Badiou, the axiom of foundation 'founds' all sets in the void, it ties all being to the historico-social situation of the multiplicities of de-centred sets – thereby effacing the positivity of subjective action, or an entirely 'new' occurrence. And whilst this is acceptable ontologically, it is unacceptable, Badiou holds, philosophically. Set theory mathematics has consequently 'pragmatically abandoned' an area which philosophy cannot. And so, Badiou argues, there is therefore only one possibility remaining: that ontology can say nothing about the event.
The event and the subject
The principle of the event is where Badiou diverges from the majority of late twentieth century philosophy and social thought, and in particular the likes of
FoucaultMichel Foucault , born Paul-Michel Foucault , was a French philosopher, social theorist and historian of ideas...
,
ButlerJudith Butler is an American post-structuralist philosopher, who has contributed to the fields of feminism, queer theory, political philosophy, and ethics. She is a professor in the Rhetoric and Comparative Literature departments at the University of California, Berkeley.Butler received her Ph.D...
,
LacanLacan is surname of:* Jacques Lacan , French psychoanalyst and psychiatrist** The Seminars of Jacques Lacan** From Bakunin to Lacan: Anti-Authoritarianism and the Dislocation of Power, a book on political philosophy by Saul Newman** Lacan at the Scene* Judith Miller, née Lacan...
and Deleuze, among others. In short, it represents that which is outside of ontology. Badiou's problem here is, unsurprisingly, the question of how to 'make use' of that which cannot be discerned. But it is a problem he views as vital, because if one constructs the world only from that which can be discerned and therefore given a name, it results in either the destitution of subjectivity and the removal of the subject from ontology (the criticism continually leveled at Foucault's discursive universe), or the Panglossian solution of Leibniz: that God is language in its supposed completion.
Badiou again turns here to mathematics and set theory – Badiou's language of ontology – to study the possibility of an indiscernible element existing extrinsically to the situation of ontology. He employs the strategy of the mathematician
Paul J. CohenPaul Joseph Cohen was an American mathematician best known for his proof of the independence of the continuum hypothesis and the axiom of choice from Zermelo–Fraenkel set theory, the most widely accepted axiomatization of set theory.-Early years:Cohen was born in Long Branch, New Jersey, into a...
, using what are called the conditions of sets. These conditions are thought of in terms of domination, a domination being that which defines a set. (If one takes, in binary language, the set with the condition 'items marked only with ones', any item marked with zero negates the property of the set. The condition which has only ones is thus dominated by any condition which has zeros in it [cf. p. 367-71 in Being and Event].) Badiou reasons using these conditions that every discernible (nameable or constructible) set is dominated by the conditions which don't possess the property that makes it discernible as a set. (The property 'one' is always dominated by 'not one'.) These sets are, in line with constructible ontology, relative to one's being-in-the-world and one's being in language (where sets and concepts, such as the concept 'humanity', get their names). However, he continues, the dominations themselves are, whilst being relative concepts, not necessarily intrinsic to language and constructible thought; rather one can axiomatically define a domination – in the terms of mathematical ontology – as a set of conditions such that any condition outside the domination is dominated by at least one term inside the domination. One does not necessarily need to refer to constructible language to conceive of a 'set of dominations', which he refers to as the indiscernible set, or the generic set. It is therefore, he continues, possible to think beyond the strictures of the relativistic constructible universe of language, by a process Cohen calls
forcingIn the mathematical discipline of set theory, forcing is a technique invented by Paul Cohen for proving consistency and independence results. It was first used, in 1963, to prove the independence of the axiom of choice and the continuum hypothesis from Zermelo–Fraenkel set theory...
. And he concludes in following that while ontology can mark out a space for an inhabitant of the constructible situation to decide upon the indiscernible, it falls to the subject – about which the ontological situation cannot comment – to nominate this indiscernible, this generic point; and thus nominate, and give name to, the undecidable event. Badiou thereby marks out a philosophy by which to refute the apparent relativism or apoliticism in post-structuralist thought.
Badiou's ultimate ethical maxim is therefore one of: 'decide upon the undecidable'. It is to name the indiscernible, the generic set, and thus name the event that re-casts ontology in a new light. He identifies four domains in which a subject (who, it is important to note, becomes a subject through this process) can potentially witness an event: love, science, politics and art. By enacting fidelity to the event within these four domains one performs a 'generic procedure', which in its undecidability is necessarily experimental, and one potentially recasts the situation in which being takes place. Through this maintenance of fidelity, truth has the potentiality to emerge.
In line with his concept of the event, Badiou maintains, politics is not about politicians, but activism based on the present situation and the (his translators' neologism) rupture. So too does love have this characteristic of becoming anew. Even in science the guesswork that marks the event is prominent. He vigorously rejects the tag of 'decisionist' (the idea that once something is decided it 'becomes true'), but rather argues that the recasting of a truth comes prior to its veracity or verifiability. As he says of Galileo (p. 401):
- When Galileo announced the principle of inertia, he was still separated from the truth of the new physics by all the chance encounters that are named in subjects such as Descartes or Newton. How could he, with the names he fabricated and displaced (because they were at hand – ‘movement’, ‘equal proportion’, etc.), have supposed the veracity of his principle for the situation to-come that was the establishment of modern science; that is, the supplementation of his situation with the indiscernible and unfinishable part that one has to name ‘rational physics’?
Badiou, whilst keen to stress the non-equivalence between politics and philosophy, thus finds his political approach – one of activism, militancy, and scepticism of parliamentary-democratic process – backed up by his philosophy based around singular, situated truths, and potential revolutions.
L'Organisation Politique
Alain Badiou is a founding member (along with
Natacha MichelNatacha Michel is a French political activist, militant and writer, born in 1941. She has published a dozen novels and a growing body of literary criticism.Michel was program director at the College International de Philosophie...
and
Sylvain LazarusSylvain Lazarus is a French sociologist, anthropologist and political theorist. He has also written under the pseudonym Paul Sandevince. Lazarus is a Professor at the Paris 8 University.-Life and work:...
) of the militant French political organisation L'Organisation Politique which calls itself a post-party organization concerned with direct popular intervention in a wide range of issues (including immigration, labor, and housing). In addition to numerous writings and interventions since the 1980s, L'Organisation Politique has stressed the importance of developing political prescriptions concerning undocumented migrants (les sans papiers) and stresses that they must be conceived primarily as workers and not immigrants.
Philosophy
- Le concept de modèle (1969, 2007)
- Théorie du sujet (1982)
- Peut-on penser la politique? (1985)
- L'Être et l'Événement (1988)
- Manifeste pour la philosophie (1989)
- Le nombre et les nombres (1990)
- D'un désastre obscur (1991)
- Conditions (1992)
- L'Éthique (1993, 2005)
- Deleuze (1997)
- Saint Paul. La fondation de l'universalisme (1997, 2002)
- Abrégé de métapolitique (1998)
- Court traité d'ontologie transitoire (1998)
- Petit manuel d'inesthétique (1998)
- Le Siècle (2005)
- Logiques des mondes. L'être et l'événement, 2. (2006)
- Petit panthéon portatif (2008)
- Second manifeste pour la philosophie (2009)
- L'Antiphilosophie de Wittgenstein (2009)
- Éloge de l'Amour (2009)
- Il n'y a pas de rapport sexuel, co-authored with Barbara Cassin
Barbara Cassin is a French philologist and philosopher, born in 1947 in Boulogne-Billancourt. A past Director at Jacques Derrida's Collège international de philosophie and director of research at the CNRS,. In 2006 she succeeded Jonathan Barnes to the directorship of the leading centre of...
(2010)
Critical essays
- Rhapsodie pour le théâtre (1990)
- Beckett, l'increvable désir (1995)
Literature and drama
- Almagestes (1964)
- Portulans (1967)
- L'Écharpe rouge (1979)
- Ahmed le subtil (1994)
- Ahmed Philosophe, followed by Ahmed se fâche (1995)
- Les Citrouilles, a comedy (1996)
- Calme bloc ici-bas (1997)
Political essays
- Théorie de la contradiction (1975)
- De l'idéologie, with F. Balmès (1976)
- Le Noyau rationnel de la dialectique hégelienne, with L. Mossot and J. Bellassen (1977)
- Circonstances 1: Kosovo, 11 Septembre, Chirac/Le Pen (2003)
- Circonstances 2: Irak, foulard, Allemagne/France (2004)
- Circonstances 3: Portées du mot « juif » (2005)
- Circonstances 4: De quoi Sarkozy est-il le nom ? (2007)
- Circonstances 5: L’hypothèse communiste (2009)
Pamphlets and Serial Publications
- Contribution au problème de la construction d'un parti marxiste-léniniste de type nouveau, with Jancovici, Menetrey, and Terray (Maspero 1970)
- Jean Paul Sartre (Éditions Potemkine 1980)
- Le Perroquet. Quinzomadaire d'opinion (1981–1990)
- La Distance Politique (1990–?)
Books
- Manifesto for Philosophy, transl. by Norman Madarasz; (Albany: SUNY Press, 1999): ISBN 978-0-7914-4220-3 (paperback); ISBN 978-0-7914-4219-7 (hardcover)
- Deleuze: The Clamor of Being, transl. by Louise Burchill; (Minnesota University Press, 1999): ISBN 978-0-8166-3140-7 (paperback); ISBN 978-0-8166-3139-1 (library binding)
- Ethics: An Essay on the Understanding of Evil, transl. by Peter Hallward; (New York: Verso, 2000): ISBN 978-1-85984-435-9 (paperback); ISBN 978-1-85984-297-3
- On Beckett, transl. and ed. by Alberto Toscano
Alberto Toscano is a cultural critic, social theorist, philosopher and translator best known to the English-speaking world for his translations of the work of Alain Badiou, including Badiou’s The Century and Logics of Worlds...
and Nina PowerNina Power is a British philosopher, writer, journalist and academic. She is a Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at Roehampton University. She is the co-editor of Alain Badiou's On Samuel Beckett and his Political Writings....
; (London: Clinamen Press, 2003): ISBN 978-1-903083-30-7 (paperback); ISBN 978-1-903083-26-0 (hardcover)
- Infinite Thought: Truth and the Return to Philosophy, transl. and ed. by Oliver Feltham
Oliver Feltham is an Australian philosopher and translator working in Paris, France. He is known primarily for his English translations of Alain Badiou, most notably Badiou’s magnum opus Being and Event . Feltham's own writings are drawn from many of his research interests including Marxism,...
& Justin ClemensJustin Clemens is an Australian philosopher, translator, social critic, and poet. He is primarily known today for his work on Alain Badiou as an editor, translator, and scholar writing, speaking, and lecturing on the impact of Badiou's thought in this contemporary juncture.A former instructor in...
; (London: Continuum, 2003): ISBN 978-0-8264-7929-7 (paperback); ISBN 978-0-8264-6724-9 (hardcover)
- Metapolitics, transl. by Jason Barker
Jason Barker is a British theorist of contemporary French philosophy.Most notable for his translation and introductions to the philosophy of Alain Badiou, Barker draws on an eclectic range of influences, from Neoplatonism to Lacanian psychoanalysis....
; (New York: Verso, 2005): ISBN 978-1-84467-567-8 (paperback); ISBN 978-1-84467-035-2 (hardcover)
- Saint Paul: The Foundation of Universalism; transl. by Ray Brassier
Ray Brassier is a member of the Philosophy faculty at the American University of Beirut, Lebanon, known for his work in philosophical realism. He was formerly Research Fellow at the Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy at Middlesex University, London, England.He is the author of Nihil...
; (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003): ISBN 978-0-8047-4471-3 (paperback); ISBN 978-0-8047-4470-6 (hardcover)
- Handbook of Inaesthetics, transl. by Alberto Toscano; (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004): ISBN 978-0-8047-4409-6 (paperback); ISBN 978-0-8047-4408-9 (hardcover)
- Theoretical Writings, transl. by Ray Brassier; (New York: Continuum, 2004)
- Briefings on Existence: A Short Treatise on Transitory Ontology, transl. by Norman Madarasz; (Albany: SUNY Press, 2005)
- Being and Event, transl. by Oliver Feltham; (New York: Continuum, 2005)
- Polemics, transl. by Steve Corcoran; (New York: Verso, 2007)
- The Century, transl. by Alberto Toscano; (New York: Polity Press, 2007)
- The Concept of Model: An Introduction to the Materialist Epistemology of Mathematics, transl. by Zachery Luke Fraser & Tzuchien Tho; (Melbourne: re.press, 2007). Open Access
- Number and Numbers (New York: Polity Press, 2008): ISBN 978-0-7456-3879-9 (paperback); ISBN 978-0-7456-3878-2 (hardcover)
- The Meaning of Sarkozy (New York: Verso, 2008): ISBN 978-1-84467-309-4 (hardcover) ISBN 978-1-84467-629-3 (paperback)
- Conditions, transl. by Steve Corcoran; (New York: Continuum, 2009): ISBN 978-0-8264-9827-4 (hardcover)
- Logics of Worlds: Being and Event, Volume 2, transl. by Alberto Toscano; (New York: Continuum, 2009): ISBN 978-0-8264-9470-2 (hardcover)
- Pocket Pantheon: Figures of Postwar Philosophy, transl. by David Macey; (New York: Verso, 2009): ISBN 978-1-84467-357-5 (hardcover)
- Theory of the Subject, transl. by Bruno Bosteels
Bruno Bosteels is a philologist, a translator, Professor of Romance Studies at Cornell University. He currently serves as the General Editor of diacritics. Bosteels is best known to the English-speaking world for his translations of the work of Alain Badiou...
; (New York: Continuum, 2009): ISBN 978-0-8264-9673-7 (hardcover)
- Philosophy in the Present, (with Slavoj Žižek
Slavoj Žižek is a Slovenian philosopher, critical theorist working in the traditions of Hegelianism, Marxism and Lacanian psychoanalysis. He has made contributions to political theory, film theory, and theoretical psychoanalysis....
); (New York: Polity Press, 2010): ISBN 978-0-7456-4097-6 (paperback)
- The Communist Hypothesis, transl. by David Macey and Steve Corcoran; (New York: Verso, 2010): ISBN 978-1-84467-600-2 (hardcover)
- Five Lessons on Wagner, transl. by Susan Spitzer with an 'Afterword' by Slavoj Žižek; (New York: Verso, 2010): ISBN 978-1-84467-481-7 (paperback)
- Second Manifesto for Philosophy, transl. by Louise Burchill (New York: Polity Press, 2011)
- Wittgenstein's Anti-Philosophy, transl. by Bruno Bosteels; (New York: Verso, 2011)
Journals
- The International Journal of Badiou Studies
- "The Cultural Revolution: The Last Revolution?", transl. by Bruno Bosteels; positions: asia critique, Volume 13, Issue 3, Winter 2005; (Durham: Duke University Press, 2005): ISSN 1067-9847
- "Selections from Théorie du sujet on the Cultural Revolution", transl. by Alberto Toscano with the assistance of Lorenzo Chiesa and Nina Power; positions: asia critique, Volume 13, Issue 3, Winter 2005; (Durham: Duke University Press, 2005): ISSN 1067-9847
- "Further Selections from Théorie du sujet on the Cultural Revolution", transl. by Lorenzo Chiesa; positions: asia critique, Volume 13, Issue 3, Winter 2005; (Durham: Duke University Press, 2005): ISSN 1067-9847
- “The Triumphant Restoration", transl. by Alberto Toscano; positions: asia critique, Volume 13, Issue 3, Winter 2005; (Durham: Duke University Press, 2005): ISSN 1067-9847
- "An Essential Philosophical Thesis: 'It Is Right to Rebel against the Reactionaries'", transl. by Alberto Toscano; positions: asia critique, Volume 13, Issue 3, Winter 2005; (Durham: Duke University Press, 2005): ISSN 1067-9847
DVD
- Democracy and Disappointment: On the Politics of Resistance: Alain Badiou and Simon Critchley in Conversation, (Event Date: Thursday, 15 November 2007); Location: Slought Foundation, Conversations in Theory Series | Organized by Aaron Levy | Studio: Microcinema in collaboration with Slought Foundation | DVD Release Date: 26 August 2008
Lectures
- "The Event as Creative Novelty", European Graduate School
The European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland is a privately funded graduate school founded by the non-profit European Foundation of Interdisciplinary Studies. Its German name is Europäische Universität für Interdisziplinäre Studien...
. 2009
- "Interview with Alain Badiou" BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
HARDtalkHardtalk is a flagship BBC television programme, consisting of in-depth half-hour one-on-one interviews.It is broadcast four days a week on BBC World News and the BBC News channel. Launched in 1997, much of its worldwide fame is due to its global reach via BBC World...
. March 2009.
- Creative Thinking. Al-Quds University
Al-Quds University is a Palestinian university with campuses in Jerusalem, Abu Dis, and al-Bireh. It was founded in 1984, but its official constitution was written in 1993 when Mohammed Nusseibeh, its first Chancellor and Chancellor of the College of Science and Technology, announced its...
, Jerusalem, Palestine, 17 January 2009.
- "Is the Word Communism forever Doomed?". Miguel Abreu Gallery, New York, 6 November 2008.
- "Theatre et Philosophie." with Martin Puchner
Martin Puchner is a literary critic and philosopher. He studied at Konstanz University, the University of Bologna, and the University of California, before receiving his Ph.D. at Harvard University. Until 2009 he held the H. Gordon Garbedian Chair at Columbia University, where he also served as...
& Bruno BosteelsBruno Bosteels is a philologist, a translator, Professor of Romance Studies at Cornell University. He currently serves as the General Editor of diacritics. Bosteels is best known to the English-speaking world for his translations of the work of Alain Badiou...
. La Maison Française, New York University, New York, 7 November 2008.
- What is love? Sexuality and Desire, European Graduate School
The European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland is a privately funded graduate school founded by the non-profit European Foundation of Interdisciplinary Studies. Its German name is Europäische Universität für Interdisziplinäre Studien...
. 2008
- "Democracy and Disappointment: On the Politics of Resistance", with Simon Critchley
Simon Critchley is an English philosopher currently teaching at The New School. He works in continental philosophy. Critchley argues that philosophy commences in disappointment, either religious or political...
. Slought Foundation, Philadelphia, the Departments of Romance Languages, History, and English, and the Program in Comparative Literature at the University of Pennsylvania. 15 November 2007.
- "Destruction, Negation, Subtraction", European Graduate School
The European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland is a privately funded graduate school founded by the non-profit European Foundation of Interdisciplinary Studies. Its German name is Europäische Universität für Interdisziplinäre Studien...
, August 2007.
- "Homage to Jacques Derrida", University of California, Irvine
The University of California, Irvine , founded in 1965, is one of the ten campuses of the University of California, located in Irvine, California, USA...
, 1 March 2006 (RealPlayerRealPlayer is a cross-platform media player by RealNetworks that plays a number of multimedia formats including MP3, MPEG-4, QuickTime, Windows Media, and multiple versions of proprietary RealAudio and RealVideo formats.-History:...
).
- "Democracy, Politics, Theory and Philosophy", European Graduate School
The European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland is a privately funded graduate school founded by the non-profit European Foundation of Interdisciplinary Studies. Its German name is Europäische Universität für Interdisziplinäre Studien...
, August 2006.
- "Ours is not a terrible situation." with Simon Critchley. Labyrinth Books, New York, 6 March 2006.
- "Politics, Democracy and Philosophy: An Obscure Knot", University of Washington
University of Washington is a public research university, founded in 1861 in Seattle, Washington, United States. The UW is the largest university in the Northwest and the oldest public university on the West Coast. The university has three campuses, with its largest campus in the University...
23 February 2006.
- "Political Perversion and Democracy", European Graduate School
The European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland is a privately funded graduate school founded by the non-profit European Foundation of Interdisciplinary Studies. Its German name is Europäische Universität für Interdisziplinäre Studien...
, August 2004.
- "Panorama de la Filosofía Francesa Contemporánea" Biblioteca Nacional de Buenos Aires, 2004
- "Finkielkraut-Badiou: Le-Face-à-Vace" The Nouvel Obs (Transcript in French)
- "Faut-il réinventer l'amour?" Ce Soir. French television. En direct, France 3
France 3 is the second largest French public television channel and part of the France Télévisions group, which also includes France 2, France 4, France 5, and France Ô....
(French)
Secondary Literature on Badiou's Work in English (Books)
- Jason Barker
Jason Barker is a British theorist of contemporary French philosophy.Most notable for his translation and introductions to the philosophy of Alain Badiou, Barker draws on an eclectic range of influences, from Neoplatonism to Lacanian psychoanalysis....
, Alain Badiou: A Critical Introduction, London, Pluto Press, 2002.
- Peter Hallward
Peter Hallward is a Canadian political philosopher, best known for his work on Alain Badiou and Gilles Deleuze. He has also published works on post-colonialism and contemporary Haiti...
, Badiou: A Subject to Truth, Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press, 2003.
- Peter Hallward (ed.), Think Again: Badiou and the Future of Philosophy", London, Continuum, 2004.
- Paul Ashton (Editor), A. J. Bartlett (Editor), Justin Clemens
Justin Clemens is an Australian philosopher, translator, social critic, and poet. He is primarily known today for his work on Alain Badiou as an editor, translator, and scholar writing, speaking, and lecturing on the impact of Badiou's thought in this contemporary juncture.A former instructor in...
(Editor): The Praxis of Alain Badiou; (Melbourne: re.press, 2006).
- Adam Miller, Badiou, Marion, and St. Paul: Immanent Grace, London, Continuum, 2008.
- Bruno Bosteels
Bruno Bosteels is a philologist, a translator, Professor of Romance Studies at Cornell University. He currently serves as the General Editor of diacritics. Bosteels is best known to the English-speaking world for his translations of the work of Alain Badiou...
, Badiou and Politics, Durham, Duke University Press, forthcoming.
- Oliver Feltham
Oliver Feltham is an Australian philosopher and translator working in Paris, France. He is known primarily for his English translations of Alain Badiou, most notably Badiou’s magnum opus Being and Event . Feltham's own writings are drawn from many of his research interests including Marxism,...
, Alain Badiou: Live Theory, London, Continuum, 2008.
- Sam Gillespie
Sam Gillespie was a philosopher with a particular interest in the work of Alain Badiou. Gillespie was described by Joan Copjec as "one of the most gifted and promising philosophers of his generation". He was a co-founder of the academic journal Umbr , a talented graphic designer and a committed...
, The Mathematics of Novelty: Badiou's Minimalist Metaphysics, (Melbourne, Australia: re.press, 2008) (details on re.press website) (Open Access)
- Adrian Johnston, Badiou, Zizek, and Political Transformations: The Cadence of Change, Evanston, Northwestern University Press, 2009, forthcoming.
- Gabriel Riera (Editor), Alain Badiou: Philosophy and its Conditions, Albany: New York, SUNY Press, 2005.
- Christopher Norris, Badiou's Being and Event: A Reader's Guide, London, Continuum, 2009
- A.J. Bartlett & Justin Clemens (eds) " Badiou: Key Concepts," London, Acumen, 2010
- Alex Ling, Badiou and Cinema, Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press, 2010.
- Ed Pluth, Badiou: A Philosophy of the New, Malden, Polity, 2010.
- A. J. Bartlett, "Badiou and Plato: An education by truths", Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press, 2011.
- P. M. Livingston, The Politics of Logic: Badiou, Wittgenstein, and the Consequences of Formalism, New York, Routledge, 2011.
Secondary Literature on Badiou's Work in English (Journals, Essays and articles)
Secondary Literature on Badiou's Work in French (Books)
- Charles Ramond (éd), Penser le multiple, Paris, Éditions L'Harmattan, 2002
- Fabien Tarby, La Philosophie d'Alain Badiou, Paris, Éditions L'Harmattan, 2005
- Fabien Tarby, Matérialismes d'aujourd'hui : de Deleuze à Badiou , Paris, Éditions L'Harmattan, 2005
- Eric Marty, Une Querelle avec Alain Badiou, philosophe, Paris, Editions Gallimard, coll. L'Infini, 2007
- Bruno Besana et Oliver Feltham (éd), Écrits autour de la pensée d'Alain Badiou, Paris, Éditions L'Harmattan, 2007.
External links
Critical Opinions