Alain Badiou: Philosophy and its Conditions

Aitías.Revista de Estudios Filosóficos., 2023

“L’histoire des idees”, has a nominal existence in the period of the Enlightenment, that is to say, it has its origins in the 19th century in France. From the moment of its appearance and establishment as an independent field, it maintained a close and complementary relationship with philosophy. At present, the History of Ideas is a field in dialogue with History, Historiography, Philosophy and even Psychoanalysis. It is necessary to return to the French intellectual terrain, to the living history and intellectual production of our time in order to analyze the contribution that French philosophers make to the history of Ideas in the 21st century. Specifically, to pay special attention to the system of thought created by the philosopher Alain Badiou. The present document, which emerges as an initial and introductory kick-off to a more complex project, is a general reading and analysis of some of Badiou’s contributions to contemporary philosophy.

In the light of some recent criticisms, this text seeks to promote a debate that takes place on two fronts: on the one hand, the logic of the origin of logic and, on the other hand, the relationship between psychoanalysis and Marxism. To this end, some texts published by Alain Badiou towards the end of the 1960s, in which he polemicizes with Jacques-Alain Miller around the concepts of "suture" and "subject" (Zizek), are recovered in order to situate both the different positions and the coherent reconsiderations throughout his intellectual trajectory. Indeed, from "The Concept of the Model" to his most recent trilogy (Theory of the Subject, Being and the Event and Logic of Worlds), a perspective is proposed that, far from establishing hierarchies and subordinations, seeks to promote connections based on specificities and differences through that particular path that is philosophy. In this way it is possible to appreciate that, despite his critique of the primacy of the logic of the signifier, the concepts proposed by Jacques Lacan functioned as a notorious source of inspiration for Badiou, especially in relation to the subject of the unconscious.

2007

Built into the essence of materialism is an intrinsic dimension of praise and blame, of jnstice and infamy, as witnessed by the endless attacks and rebuttals that make up most of the history of its stmggle against idealism. This is not merely an issue of judgment or taste, whether good or bad, added onto the ideas of materialism and idealism as a moral or political afterthought. Instead, the strategic value of each term is inseparable from the definition of the concepts themselves, just as the use made out of both terms belongs to the core of their meaning. There is thus something irreducibly practical and impure about the debate concerning materialism, which from the start defeats the purpose of a strictly speculative or philosophical elaboration. One should never forget, in other words, how the concept of materialism functions as part of a polemical apparatus-or

Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Communication, 2018

French philosopher Alain Badiou (b. 1937) is one of the more important European thinkers to emerge after May 1968. His work may be read as a response to the structuralism, post-structuralism, existentialism, and postmodern thought characteristic of post-World War II French theory. Through the use of set theory, he argues that our understanding of reality is largely determined by major, world shifting events in politics, mathematics/science, aesthetics/poetry, and love. A Maoist, he maintains that true changes in human reality require decisive interventions that create a new sense of temporality, subjectivity, and order. Events radically change the order of an existing world and create new worlds. For example, the Russian or French revolutions brought an end to absolutist monarchies and the rule that were specific to them. A new order and form of political power were introduced by the ascendant regimes. The sense of who and what human beings living under such regimes were changed fro...

This paper examines Alain Badiou's critical engagement with religion. It is argued that there are two central points at which religion enters the scene of Badiou's philosophy. First, in his critique, the 'motif of finitude' Badiou repeatedly refers to religion, claiming that 'the obsession with finitude is a remnant of the tyranny of the sacred'. Second, Badiou stages his attempt to regenerate philosophy against the proclamation of its end as a confrontation with the religion, through philosophy's detachment from the poetization of philosophy and its reattachment to mathematics. By examining these two points, the paper aims to encircle Badiou's notion of religion and thus clarify the role it plays in his philosophical system. This paper suggests that his notion of religion is a by-product of his polemics and therefore needs to be 'extracted' from his writings. Hence, the 'critique of religion' present in Badiou's work is not straightforward and explicit critique. Another central aspect of Badiou's critique of religion is related to his effort to separate the concept of truth from the category of meaning, which he understands as the emblem of religion. The paper sheds light on this matter and its setting in Jacques Lacan's considerations on religion.