French philosophy Contemporary philosophy
Name	Alain Badiou
Birth	1937 Rabat, Morocco
School/tradition	Continental philosophy, Maoism
Main interests	Set Theory, Mathematics, Metapolitics,
Influenced by	Plato, Marx, Cantor, Albert Lautman, Mao Zedong, Lacan, Althusser, Paul Cohen, Sartre, Deleuze, Hegel
Influenced	Slavoj Žižek, Bruno Bosteels, Peter Hallward, Simon Critchley, Ray Brassier,

Alain Badiou (born 1937, Rabat, Morocco) is a prominent French Marxist philosopher, formerly chair of philosophy at the École Normale Supérieure (ENS). Along with Giorgio Agamben and Slavoj Zizek, Badiou is a prominent figure in an anti-postmodern strand of continental philosophy. Particularly through a creative appropriation of set theory from his early interest in mathematics, Badiou seeks to recover the concepts of being, truth and the subject in a way that is neither postmodern nor simply a repetition of modernity. This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... Image File history File links Metadata Size of this preview: 399 × 599 pixelsFull resolution (533 × 800 pixel, file size: 48 KB, MIME type: image/jpeg) File historyClick on a date/time to view the file as it appeared at that time. ... Year 1937 (MCMXXXVII) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Mausoleum of Mohammed V through mosque ruins NASA image of Rabat Rabat (Arabic الرباط, transliterated ar-Rabāṭ or ar-Ribāṭ), population 1. ... Set theory is the mathematical theory of sets, which represent collections of abstract objects. ... For other meanings of mathematics or uses of math and maths, see Mathematics (disambiguation) and Math (disambiguation). ... Metapolitics is the study of theories regarding the structure of which political ideologies are built upon. ... For other uses, see Plato (disambiguation). ... Karl Heinrich Marx (May 5, 1818 – March 14, 1883) was a 19th century philosopher, political economist, and revolutionary. ... Georg Ferdinand Ludwig Philipp Cantor (March 3, 1845[1] – January 6, 1918) was a German mathematician. ... Mao redirects here. ... Jacques-Marie-Émile Lacan (French pronounced ) (April 13, 1901 – September 9, 1981) was a French psychoanalyst, psychiatrist, and doctor, who made prominent contributions to the psychoanalytic movement. ... Louis Pierre Althusser (Pronunciation: altuË¡seʁ) (October 16, 1918 – October 22, 1990) was a Marxist philosopher. ... Paul Joseph Cohen (April 2, 1934 – March 23, 2007[1]) was an American mathematician. ... Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre (June 21, 1905 – April 15, 1980), normally known simply as Jean-Paul Sartre (pronounced: ), was a French existentialist philosopher and pioneer, dramatist and screenwriter, novelist and critic. ... Gilles Deleuze (January 18, 1925 - November 4, 1995) was a major French philosopher of the late 20th century. ... Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (August 27, 1770 - November 14, 1831) was a German philosopher born in Stuttgart, Württemberg, in present-day southwest Germany. ... Slavoj Žižek (pronounced: ) (born 21 March 1949) is a Slovenian sociologist, postmodern philosopher, and cultural critic. ... Simon Critchley is a British philosopher, working in Continental philosophy and related fields. ... Year 1937 (MCMXXXVII) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Mausoleum of Mohammed V through mosque ruins NASA image of Rabat Rabat (Arabic الرباط, transliterated ar-Rabāṭ or ar-Ribāṭ), population 1. ... Marxism is the political practice and social theory based on the works of Karl Marx, a 19th century philosopher, economist, journalist, and revolutionary, along with Friedrich Engels. ... A philosopher is a person who thinks deeply regarding people, society, the world, and/or the universe. ... For other uses, see Philosophy (disambiguation). ... The École normale supérieure (also known as Normale Sup, Normale, ENS, ENS-Paris, ENS-Ulm or Ulm) is a prestigious French grande école, possibly the most prestigious. ... Giorgio Agamben (born 1942) is an Italian philosopher who teaches at the Università IUAV di Venezia. ... Slavoj Žižek. ... Postmodernity (also called post-modernity or the postmodern condition) is a term used by philosophers, social scientists, art critics and social critics to refer to aspects of contemporary art, culture, economics and social conditions that are the result of the unique features of late 20th century and early 21st century... Continental philosophy is a term used in philosophy to designate one of two major traditions of modern Western philosophy. ... Set theory is the mathematical theory of sets, which represent collections of abstract objects. ... For other meanings of mathematics or uses of math and maths, see Mathematics (disambiguation) and Math (disambiguation). ... This article is about ontology in philosophy. ... Time Saving Truth from Falsehood and Envy, François Lemoyne, 1737 For other uses, see Truth (disambiguation). ... Subject (philosophy) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia /**/ @import /skins-1. ... The Age of Enlightenment (French: ; Italian: ; German: ; Spanish: ; Swedish: ) was an eighteenth-century movement in Western philosophy. ...

Biography

Badiou was trained formally as a philosopher as a student at the École Normale Supérieure (ENS) from 1956 to 1961, a period during which he took courses at the Sorbonne. He had a lively and constant interest in mathematics. He was politically active very early on, and was one of the founding members of the Unified Socialist Party (PSU). The PSU was particularly active in the struggle for the decolonization of Algeria. He wrote his first novel, Almagestes, in 1964. In 1967 he joined a study group organized by Louis Althusser and grew increasingly influenced by Jacques Lacan. A philosopher is a person who thinks deeply regarding people, society, the world, and/or the universe. ... The École normale supérieure (also known as Normale Sup, Normale, ENS, ENS-Paris, ENS-Ulm or Ulm) is a prestigious French grande école, possibly the most prestigious. ... The Sorbonne, Paris, in a 17th century engraving The historic University of Paris (French: ) first appeared in the second half of the 12th century, but was in 1970 reorganised as 13 autonomous universities (University of Paris I–XIII). ... The Unified Socialist Party (French: Parti Socialiste Unifié, PSU) was a socialist political party in France, founded on April 3, 1960. ... Colonialism in 1945 Decolonization refers to the undoing of colonialism, the establishment of governance or authority through the creation of settlements by another country or jurisdiction. ... Also Nintendo emulator: 1964 (emulator). ... Year 1967 (MCMLXVII) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display full calendar) of the 1967 Gregorian calendar. ... Louis Pierre Althusser (Pronunciation: altuË¡seʁ) (October 16, 1918 – October 22, 1990) was a Marxist philosopher. ... Jacques-Marie-Émile Lacan (French pronounced ) (April 13, 1901 – September 9, 1981) was a French psychoanalyst, psychiatrist, and doctor, who made prominent contributions to the psychoanalytic movement. ...

The student uprisings of May 1968 reinforced Badiou's commitment to the far Left, and he participated in increasingly radical communist and Maoist groups, such as the UCFML. In 1969 he joined the faculty of 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 Deleuze and Jean-François Lyotard, whose philosophical works he considered unhealthy deviations from the Althusserian program of a scientific Marxism. A May 1968 poster: Be young and shut up, with stereotypical silhouette of General de Gaulle. ... The term far left refers to the relative position a person or group occupies within the political spectrum. ... This article is about communism as a form of society and as a political movement. ... Maoism or Mao Zedong Thought (Chinese: 毛澤東思想, pinyin: Máo Zédōng Sīxiǎng), also called Marxism-Leninism–Mao Zedong Thought or Marxism-Leninism-Maoism (MLM), is a variant of communism derived from the teachings of Mao Zedong (1893–1976). ... Also: 1969 (number) 1969 (movie) 1969 (Stargate SG-1) episode. ... The Sorbonne, Paris, in a 17th century engraving The historic University of Paris (French: ) first appeared in the second half of the 12th century, but was in 1970 reorganised as 13 autonomous universities (University of Paris I–XIII). ... Gilles Deleuze (IPA: ), (January 18, 1925 – November 4, 1995) was a French philosopher of the late 20th century. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... Marxism is both the theory and the political practice (that is, the praxis) derived from the work of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. ...

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 abstract 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.

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 Philosophie. He is now a member of "L'Organisation Politique" which he founded with some comrades from the Maoist UCFML in 1985. Badiou has also enjoyed success as a dramatist with plays such as Ahmed le Subtil. Events of 2008: (EMILY) Me Lesley and MIley are going to China! This article is about the year. ... The Collège International de Philosophie (Ciph), located in Paris Ve arrondissement, is an open university co-founded in 1983 by Jacques Derrida, François Châtelet, Jean-Pierre Faye and Dominique Lecourt in an attempt to re-think the teaching of philosophy in France, and to liberate it from...

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 Ink, New Left Review, Radical philosophy, Cosmos and History [1] 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 Fanon. Lacanian 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. ... In 1960 in the UK, the editors of the New Reasoner and the Universities and Left Review merged their boards and formed the New Left Review. ... Radical Philosophy is a UK-based journal of critical theory and continental philosophy, appearing 6 times a year. ... Frantz Fanon (July 20, 1925 – December 6, 1961) was an author from Martinique, essayist, psychoanalyst, and revolutionary. ...

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" [2]. 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 Monde and in the cultural journal "Les temps modernes." Another philosopher Jean-Claude Milner identified him with Maoism and has accused Badiou of Anti-Semitism.^[1] Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. ... For the song by the Thievery Corporation, see Le Monde (song). ... This article or section does not adequately cite its references or sources. ... The Eternal Jew: 1937 German poster. ...

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.

Four discourses

According to Badiou, philosophy takes place under four conditions (Art, Love, Politics, and Science), which he maintains are truth procedures, in the sense that they produce philosophical truths. Badiou consistently maintains throughout his work that philosophy must avoid the temptation to attach its own truth to that of any of the discourses, a process he terms a philosophical "disaster". Badiou often attempts to find 'points of suture', or places of exceptional connection between the truths produced by the various discourses. It should be noted that Badiou's concept of truth procedure does not imply a denial of external reality. Badiou, following Lacan, uses 'the real' to designate the space of existing but unsymbolizable reality that can only be thought retroactively through the truth procedures. Thus, while a truth procedure is required to access the real, the real also serves as an external limit on the possibility of its production of truth.

Inaesthetic

In "the 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 mimesis, or poetic reflection of 'nature', Badiou claims that art is 'immanent' and 'singular'. 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 Beckett and the poetry of Stéphane Mallarmé and Fernando Pessoa (who he argues has developed a body of work that philosophy is currently incapable of incorporating), among others. Samuel Barclay Beckett (13 April 1906 – 22 December 1989) was an Irish dramatist, novelist and poet. ... Portrait of Stéphane Mallarmé by Édouard Manet. ... Fernando Pessoa Fernando António Nogueira de Seabra Pessoa (pron. ...

Introduction to Being and Event

Drawing from March 8, 2006 "Art's Imperative" lecture

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-structuralist and constructivist ontologies.^[2] A frequent criticism of post structuralist work is that it prohibits, through its fixation on semiotics and language, any notion of a subject. Badiou's work is, by his own admission,^[3] 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 rigourous mathematical formulae with his readings of poets and religious thinkers such as Mallarmé, Hölderlin and Pascal. His philosophy draws equally upon '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.^[4] 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. Image File history File links Download high resolution version (552x729, 30 KB)Alain Badiou, scan of a drawing on paper given to the audience of the lecture titled Arts Imperative: Speaking the Unspeakable March 8, 2006 at Drawing Center, NYC Presented by LACANIAN INK File history Legend: (cur) = this... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (552x729, 30 KB)Alain Badiou, scan of a drawing on paper given to the audience of the lecture titled Arts Imperative: Speaking the Unspeakable March 8, 2006 at Drawing Center, NYC Presented by LACANIAN INK File history Legend: (cur) = this... This article is about ontology in philosophy. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article may require cleanup. ... Constructivism is a perspective in philosophy that views all of our knowledge as constructed, under the assumption that it does not necessarily reflect any external transcendent realities; it is contingent on convention, human perception, and social experience. ... Semiotics, semiotic studies, or semiology is the study of signs and symbols, both individually and grouped into sign systems. ... Mallarmé can refer to: Stéphane Mallarmé (1842–1898), French poet and critic. ... Friedrich Hölderlin Johann Christian Friedrich Hölderlin [] (March 20, 1770 – June 6, 1843) was a major German lyric poet. ... Blaise Pascal (pronounced ), (June 20 [[1624 // ]] – August 19, 1662) was a French mathematician, physicist, and religious philosopher. ...

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 ontology — through which the subject finds his or her realization and reconciliation with truth. This situation of being and the rupture which characterizes the event are thought in terms of set theory, and specifically Zermelo–Fraenkel set theory (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. Set theory is the mathematical theory of sets, which represent collections of abstract objects. ... Zermelo–Fraenkel set theory, with the axiom of choice, commonly abbreviated ZFC, is the most common form of axiomatic set theory, and as such is the most common foundation of mathematics. ...

Mathematics as ontology

For Badiou the problem which the Greek 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: there being a term 'existing' without there also being a system of terminology within which there is difference between terms as context impleting any one term with meaning 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 heuristic. Badiou uses the axioms 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 paradox 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 Cantor, from whom he draws heavily — staunchly atheist. 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 (the axiom of foundation is not regarded as particularly useful in set theory), 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. For other uses, see Heuristic (disambiguation). ... This article is about a logical statement. ... Part of the foundation of mathematics, Russells paradox (also known as Russells antinomy), discovered by Bertrand Russell in 1901, showed that the naive set theory of Frege leads to a contradiction. ... The axiom of regularity (also known as the axiom of foundation) is one of the axioms of Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory. ... Georg Ferdinand Ludwig Philipp Cantor (March 3, 1845[1] – January 6, 1918) was a German mathematician. ... Atheist redirects here. ...

The event and the subject

Drawing from November 18, 2006 "Truth procedure in politics" lecture

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 Foucault, Butler, Lacan and Deleuze, among others. In short, it represents that which cannot be discerned in 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. Image File history File links Download high-resolution version (1522x1189, 68 KB)a drawing by Alain Badiou, handed out during his Nov 18, 2006 lecture entitled Truth procedure in politics, with some original drawings held at the Miguel Abreu Gallery in New York City. ... Image File history File links Download high-resolution version (1522x1189, 68 KB)a drawing by Alain Badiou, handed out during his Nov 18, 2006 lecture entitled Truth procedure in politics, with some original drawings held at the Miguel Abreu Gallery in New York City. ... Michel Foucault (pronounced ) (October 15, 1926 – June 25, 1984) was a French philosopher, historian and sociologist. ... Image:J Butler. ... Jacques Lacan Jacques Lacan (April 13, 1901 – September 9, 1981) was an influential French psychoanalyst as well as a structuralist who based much of his theories on Ferdinand de Saussures theories on language. ... Gilles Deleuze (January 18, 1925 - November 4, 1995) was a major French philosopher of the late 20th century. ... Gottfried Leibniz Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz (July 1, 1646 in Leipzig - November 14, 1716 in Hannover) was a German philosopher, scientist, mathematician, diplomat, librarian, and lawyer of Sorb descent. ...

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. Cohen, 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 forcing. 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. Paul Joseph Cohen (April 2, 1934 – March 23, 2007[1]) was an American mathematician. ... In axiomatic set theory, forcing is a technique, invented by Paul Cohen, for proving consistency and independence results with respect to the Zermelo-Fraenkel axioms. ...

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 by which a subject (who, it is important to note, becomes a subject through this process) nominates and maintains fidelity to 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 undecideability is necessarily experimental, and one potentially recasts the situation in which being takes place.

In line with his concept of the event, Badiou maintains, politics is not about politicians, but activism based on the present situation and the 'evental' (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): Galileo can refer to: Galileo Galilei, astronomer, philosopher, and physicist (1564 - 1642) the Galileo spacecraft, a NASA space probe that visited Jupiter and its moons the Galileo positioning system Life of Galileo, a play by Bertolt Brecht Galileo (1975) - screen adaptation of the play Life of Galileo by Bertolt Brecht...

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.

Works

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)
• 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 provisoire (1998)
• Petit manuel d'inesthétique (1998)
• D'un désastre obscur (1998)
• Le siècle (2005)
• Logiques des mondes. L'être et l'événement, 2. (2006)

Also: 1969 (number) 1969 (movie) 1969 (Stargate SG-1) episode. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) is the current year, a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and the AD/CE era in the 21st century. ... Year 1982 (MCMLXXXII) was a common year starting on Friday (link displays the 1982 Gregorian calendar). ... This article is about the year. ... Year 1988 (MCMLXXXVIII) was a leap year starting on Friday (link displays 1988 Gregorian calendar). ... Year 1989 (MCMLXXXIX) was a common year starting on Sunday (link displays 1989 Gregorian calendar). ... This article is about the year. ... Year 1992 (MCMXCII) was a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will display full 1992 Gregorian calendar). ... Year 1993 (MCMXCIII) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display full 1993 Gregorian calendar). ... Year 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday (link displays full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... For the band, see 1997 (band). ... St. ... For the band, see 1997 (band). ... Also see: 2002 (number). ... Year 1998 (MCMXCVIII) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display full 1998 Gregorian calendar). ... Year 1998 (MCMXCVIII) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display full 1998 Gregorian calendar). ... Year 1998 (MCMXCVIII) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display full 1998 Gregorian calendar). ... Year 1998 (MCMXCVIII) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display full 1998 Gregorian calendar). ... Year 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday (link displays full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

Critical essays

• Rhapsodie pour le théâtre (1990)
• Beckett, l'increvable désir (1995)
• Le Siècle (2005)

This article is about the year. ... Year 1995 (MCMXCV) was a common year starting on Sunday. ... Year 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday (link displays full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ...

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)

Also Nintendo emulator: 1964 (emulator). ... Year 1967 (MCMLXVII) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display full calendar) of the 1967 Gregorian calendar. ... Also: 1979 by Smashing Pumpkins. ... Year 1994 (MCMXCIV) The year 1994 was designated as the International Year of the Family and the International Year of the Sport and the Olympic Ideal by the United Nations. ... Year 1995 (MCMXCV) was a common year starting on Sunday. ... Year 1996 (MCMXCVI) was a leap year starting on Monday (link will display full 1996 Gregorian calendar). ... For the band, see 1997 (band). ...

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 (2003)
• Circonstances 2 (2004)
• Circonstances 3 (2005)
• Circonstances 4: De quoi Sarkozy est-il le nom ? (2007)

Year 1975 (MCMLXXV) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1976 Pick up sticks(MCMLXXVI) was a leap year starting on Thursday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Also: 1977 (album) by Ash. ... Year 2003 (MMIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2004 (MMIV) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday (link displays full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) is the current year, a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and the AD/CE era in the 21st century. ...

English translations

Books

• Manifesto for Philosophy, transl. by Norman Madarasz; (Albany: SUNY Press, 1999)
• Deleuze: The Clamor of Being, transl. by Louise Burchill; (Minnesota University Press, 1999)
• Ethics; An Essay on the Understanding of Evil, transl. by Peter Hallward; (New York: Verso, 2000)
• On Beckett, transl. by A. Toscano, ed. by Nina Power; (London: Clinamen Press, 2003)
• ''Infinite Thought: Truth and the Return to Philosophy, transl. and ed. by Oliver Feltham & Justin Clemens; (London: Continuum, 2003)
• Metapolitics, transl. by J. Baker; (New York: Verso, 2005)
• Saint Paul: The Foundation of Universalism; transl. by Ray Brassier; (Standford: Standford University Press, 2003)
• Handbook of Inaesthetics, transl. by A. Toscano; (Standford: Standford University Press, 2004)
• Theoretical Writings, transl. by Ray Brassier; (New York: Continuum, 2004)^[5]
• Briefings on Existence: A Short Treatise on Transitory Ontology, transl. by Norman Madarasz; (Albany: SUNY Press, 2005)
• Being and Event, transl. by O. Feltham; (New York: Continuum, 2005)
• Polemics, transl. by Steve Corcoran; (New York: Verso, 2007)
• The Century, transl. by A. Toscano; (New York: Polity Press, 2007)
• The Concept of Model, transl. by Zachery Luke Fraser & Tzuchien Tho; (Melbourne: re.press, 2007)^[6]
• Number and Numbers (New York: Polity Press, 2008): ISBN 0745638791 (paperback); ISBN 0745638783 (hardcover)
• Logics of Worlds: Being and Event, Volume 2, transl. by A. Toscano; (New York: Continuum, 2008) forthcoming: ISBN 0826494706

Metapolitics is the study of theories regarding the structure of which political ideologies are built upon. ...

External links

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Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:

Alain Badiou

• Alain Badiou at Lacan Dot Com
• Alain Badiou Bibliography
• Collège International de Philosophie
• Organisation politique
• Badiou at the European Graduate School
• Cosmos and History

Image File history File links Broom_icon. ... Image File history File links This is a lossless scalable vector image. ... Wikiquote is one of a family of wiki-based projects run by the Wikimedia Foundation, running on MediaWiki software. ...

Articles by Badiou

In English

• The Contemporary Figure of the Soldier in Politics and Poetry, UCLA
• Destruction, Negation, Subtraction Art Center College of Design - Pasadena
• The Uses of the Word "Jew"
• The Adventure of French Philosophy
• Behind the Scarfed Law, There is Fear (On the French headscarf ban)
• Bodies, Languages Truths
• The Cultural Revolution: The Last Revolution? (PDF)
• Democratic Materialism and the Materialist Dialectic
• The Desire for Philosophy and the Contemporary World
• Destruction, Negation, Subtraction - on Pier Paolo Pasolini
• Eight Theses on the Universal
• An Essential Philosophical Thesis: "It Is Right to Rebel against the Reactionaries" (PDF)
• The Event in Deleuze (PDF)
• Fifteen Theses on Contemporary Art
• The Formulas of L'Etourdit
• The Factory as Event Site
• Further Selections from Théorie du sujet on the Cultural Revolution (PDF)
• Highly Speculative Reasoning on the Concept of Democracy (from Metapolitics)
• Lacan and the Pre-Socratics
• A Musical Variant of the Metaphysics of the Subject (PDF)
• Number and Numbers
• On the European Constitution
• On the Truth-Process
• One Divides into Two (On Lenin)
• Philosophical Considerations of the Very Singular Custom of Voting
• Philosophy as Creative Repetition
• Philosophy and Politics
• The Political as a Truth Procedure (from Metapolitics)
• Politics: a Non-expressive Dialectics (PDF)
• The Scene of Two (English translation from De l'amour)
• Selections from Théorie du sujet on the Cultural Revolution (PDF)
• The Subject of Art (Deitch Projects, New York, April 1, 2005)
• The Triumphant Restoration (PDF)
• What Happens (On Beckett; PDF)
• What is to be Thought? What is to be Done? (On the 2002 French elections; written by Badiou, Sylvain Lazarus and Natasha Michel)
• A Musical Variant of the Metaphysics of the Subject
• The Event in Deleuze
• What is a Philosophical Institution?
• 'What is the Left?' An excerpt from 'The Paris Commune: A Political Declaration'
• What is Love? (PDF)
• The Communist Hypothesis

Binomial name Ucla xenogrammus Holleman, 1993 The largemouth triplefin, Ucla xenogrammus, is a fish of the family Tripterygiidae and only member of the genus Ucla, found in the Pacific Ocean from Viet Nam, the Philippines, Palau and the Caroline Islands to Papua New Guinea, Australia (including Christmas Island), and the... Photo of Art Center during the night. ... The French law on secularity and conspicuous religious symbols in schools bans wearing conspicuous religious symbols in French public (i. ... Vladimir Ilyich Lenin ( Russian: Влади́мир Ильи́ч Ле́нин  listen?), original surname Ulyanov (Улья́нов) ( April 22 (April 10 ( O.S.)), 1870 – January 21, 1924), was a Russian revolutionary, the leader of the Bolshevik party, the first Premier of the Soviet Union, and the founder of the ideology of Leninism. ... is the 91st day of the year (92nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday (link displays full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Samuel Barclay Beckett (13 April 1906 – 22 December 1989) was an Irish dramatist, novelist and poet. ... The 2002 French presidential election consisted of a first round election on 21 April 2002, and a runoff election between the top two candidates (Jacques Chirac and Jean-Marie Le Pen) on 5 May 2002. ...

In French

• L'aveu du philosophe
• Considérations philosophiques sur des événements récents (On the September 11, 2001 attacks; PDF)
• De la demande de faire des lois et de la façon d'y répondre

• De la dialectique négative dans sa connexion à un certain bilan de Wagner (part one; part two) (Two lectures on Theodor Adorno and Richard Wagner)
• De l'idéologie (PDF)
• L'Homme aux Rats (On the 2007 French presidential election)
• Huit thèses sur l'universel
• L'humiliation ordinaire (On the 2005 civil unrest in France; translation)
• Notes sur Le Dernier des hommes (On the movie The Last Laugh by Murnau)
• Panorama de la philosophie française contemporaine
• La subversion infinitésimale (PDF)
• Théorie de la contradiction (PDF)
• Un, multiple, multiplicité(s) (On Gilles Deleuze)

A sequential look at United Flight 175 crashing into the south tower of the World Trade Center The September 11, 2001 attacks (often referred to as 9/11—pronounced nine eleven or nine one one) consisted of a series of coordinated terrorist[1] suicide attacks upon the United States, predominantly... Max Horkheimer (front left), Theodor Adorno (front right), and Jürgen Habermas in the background, right, in 1965 at Heidelberg. ... Richard Wagner Wilhelm Richard Wagner (22 May 1813 – 13 February 1883) was a German composer, conductor, music theorist, and essayist, primarily known for his operas (or music dramas as they were later called). ... The 2007 French presidential election, the ninth of the Fifth French Republic was held to elect the successor to Jacques Chirac as president of France for a five-year term. ... French riots and French civil unrest redirect here. ... The Last Laugh (Der Letzte Mann) is a 1924 silent film by German director F. W. Murnau and based on a Broadway play by Charles W. Goddard. ... F W Murnau Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau (December 28, 1888 – March 11, 1931) was one of the most influential directors of the silent film era. ... Gilles Deleuze (IPA: ), (January 18, 1925 – November 4, 1995) was a French philosopher of the late 20th century. ...

In other languages

• (Spanish) en "Grupo Acontecimiento"
• (Spanish) en "antroposmoderno"
• (Spanish) en "Turbulencias"
• (Spanish) La Etica (Translation of Badiou's book on ethics)
• (Spanish) Nietzsche, filosofía y antifilosofía (On Friedrich Nietzsche)
• (Italian) Il cinema come falso movimento
• (Italian) Si può parlare di un film?

For other uses, see Ethics (disambiguation). ... Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (October 15, 1844 – August 25, 1900) (IPA: ) was a nineteenth-century German philologist and philosopher. ...

Interviews

• On Evil (Badiou interviewed by Christoph Cox and Molly Whalen)
• Matters of Appearance: An Interview with Alain Badiou (Badiou interviewed by Lauren Sedofsky)
• AGR interviews Professor Alain Badiou (Badiou interviewed by Shane Perlowin)

• Being by Numbers (part one; part two; part three; part four; part five; Badiou interviewed by Lauren Sedofsky)
• Beyond Formalisation (Badiou interviewed by Peter Hallward and Bruno Bosteels; questions in English, answers in French)
• A Conversation with Alain Badiou (Badiou interviewed by Mario Goldenberg)

• (Spanish) "Las democracias están en guerra contra los pobres" (Badiou interviewed by Héctor Pavón; PDF)

• (Spanish) Entrevista a Alain Badiou (Badiou interviewed by Julia Goldenberg)

• (French) L’être, l’événement, la militance (Badiou interviewed by Nicole-Édith Thévenin)

• (Spanish) "Las ideas existen y tienen poder" (Badiou interviewed by Pedro B. Rey)

• (French) "L'intellectuel de gauche va disparaître, tant mieux" (Badiou interviewed by Nicolas Weill)
• "Universal Truths & the Question of Religion" (Badiou interviewed by Adam S. Miller)
• Carceraglio: Interview (Badiou interviewed by Diana George and Nic Veroli)

• (French) "Alain Badiou: Le XXIe siècle n'a pas commencé" (Badiou interviewed by Elie During)
• New Horizons in Mathematics as Philosophical Condition: an Interview with Alain Badiou (Badiou interviewed by Tzuchien Tho; PDF)
• Interview with Alain Badiou from InDigest Magazine (Interviewed by Genoa Mungin)

Videos of Badiou

• (French) "Autour des Logiques des Mondes" at The American University of Paris
• Art as a Place for Politics (Video - Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, 11/16, 2006)
• Truth Procedure in Politics (Video - Abreu Gallery, New York, 11/18, 2006)
• Truth Procedure in Art (Video - Tilton Gallery, New York, 11/17, 2006)
• Jacques Lacan's Seminar On Anxiety (Video - The Drawing Center, New York, 03/07, 2006)

Year 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

Political movements & organisations influenced by Badiou's works

• Abahlali baseMjondolo
• Congolese Rally for Democracy
• L'Organisation politique
• Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign

There are very few or no other articles that link to this one. ... The Congolese Rally for Democracy, sometimes Rally for Congolese Democracy, was a rebel group operating in the eastern region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). ...

Commentry and Interpretation

Arguably, the most important commentators on Badiou in English are considered to be [[Peter Hallward, see for instance his Badiou: A Subject to Truth (2003) and Think Again: Alain Badiou & the Future of Philosophy (2004) and Bruno Bosteels, see his Badiou and Politics, forthcoming Duke UP, and Badiou o el recomienzo del materialismo dialectico, Palinodia, 2007.

• Fractal Ontology (English) featuring original translations of Alain Badiou's work by Taylor Adkins and Joseph Weissman
• On Badiou and Logiques des mondes by Slavoj Zizek

Notes