Alain Badiou
Rene Descartes Chair and Professor of Philosophy at The European Graduate School / EGS.
Biography
Alain Badiou (b. 1937) is a French philosopher and professor of philosophy at The European Graduate School / EGS. He is one of the most significant philosophers of our time. While Badiou’s political position has drawn him the most attention within academia and beyond, it is his ontology that is the center of his system. Badiou’s “system” is built upon the purity of mathematics––specifically, set and category theory. The structure—of vast complexity—stands in relation to the history of contemporary French philosophy, German Idealism, and the primary works of antiquity. It is constituted out of a series of determinate negations of the history of philosophy, but also out of the histories of what Badiou terms conditions: art, politics, science, and love––the essence of his theory of compossibility. In brief, as Alain Badiou defines it in the Introduction to Being and Event (2005), philosophy is that which “circulates between … ontology (thus, mathematics), the modern theories of the subject and its own history” (p. 3). An outspoken critic of both the analytic as well as the postmodern schools of thoughts, his philosophy seeks to expose and make sense of the potential of radical innovation (revolution, invention, transfiguration) in every situation.
The primary philosophical system developed by Alain Badiou is constructed in Being and Event, Logics of Worlds: Being and Event II, and the forthcoming Immanence of Truths: Being and Event III. Surrounding these works––as is consistent with his definition of philosophy––are numerous supplementary and tangential works. While many significant books and seminars remain untranslated into English, those which are include: Deleuze: The Clamor of Being (1999), Metapolitics (2005), The Meaning of Sarkozy (2008), Saint Paul: The Foundation of Universalism (2003), Second Manifesto for Philosophy (2011), Ethics: An Essay of the Understanding of Evil (2001), Theoretical Writings (2004), Philosophy for Militants (2012), Theory of the Subject (2009), Plato’s Republic: A Dialogue in 16 Chapters (2012), Polemics (2006), Philosophy and the Event (2013), In Praise of Love (2012), Conditions (2008), Infinite Thought (2006), The Century (2007), Wittgenstein’s Antiphilosophy (2011), Five Lessons of Wagner (2010), and The Adventure of French Philosophy (2012), among others. In addition to his books, Badiou has published innumerable articles that can be found among edited collections in philosophy, politics, and psychoanalysis. He is also the author of several successful novels and plays.
Alain Badiou studied philosophy at the École normale supérieure, where he in 1999 would become chair of the philosophy department. From 1969 (and until 1999), he taught at the University of Paris VIII (Vincennes-Saint Denis) in the founding philosophy department with Gilles Deleuze, Michel Foucault, and Jean-François Lyotard. He has also taught, and continues to hold seminars, at the Collège international de Philosophie in Paris. Politically active since his youth, Badiou was a founding member of the Unified Socialist Party (PSU) and was active in supporting the decolonization of Algeria. Much of Badiou’s life and work has been shaped by his dedication to the consequences of the May 1968 revolts in Paris. As he writes in The Meaning of Sarkozy:
“The task facing us, after the negative experience of the socialist states, and the ambiguous lessons of the Cultural Revolution and May ’68––and this is why our research is so complicated, so erratic, so experimental––is to bring the communist hypothesis into existence in a different modality from that of the previous sequence. The communist hypothesis remains the right hypothesis, as I have said, and I do not see any other. If this hypothesis should have to be abandoned, then it is not worth doing anything in the order of collective action. Without the perspective of communism, without this Idea, nothing in the historical and political future is of such a kind as to interest the philosopher. Each individual can pursue their private business, and we won’t mention it again” (p. 15).
He is a leading member of Union des jeunesses communistes de France marxistes-léninistes, and was, with Sylvain Lazarus and Natacha Michel, a founding member of L’Organisation Politique, a formation focusing on direct intervention. In addition to the political influence of Mao Zedong, Badiou’s primary influences range from Plato to Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel to Jean-Paul Sartre, and the psychoanalytic theories of Jacques Lacan.
In such a brief overview, it is most fitting to render a sketch here of Badiou’s ontology. For Badiou, being qua being, according to mathematics, which “thinks ontology,” is pure multiplicity, multiplicity without One. Therefore, it is beyond the reach of comprehension or understanding, which is always based on a count-as-one with the exception of thought immanent to a truth-procedure, or set theory. This exception is key. Set theory is a theory of presentation, thus ontology is the presentation of presentation. Ontology, as set theory, is Badiou’s philosophical version of “knowledge in the real.” For Badiou, only set theory can write and think without One.
According to the opening Meditation of Being and Event, philosophy is buried within the false choice between being qua being, being One, or being multiple. Akin to Hegel in his Phenomenology of Spirit, Badiou in Being and Event sets out to resolve long standing impasses in philosophy opening up to a new horizon of thought. For Badiou, the true opposition is not between the One and the multiple, but between this pair and the third position they exclude: the One is not. In fact, this false pair constitutes itself as exhaustive of the horizon of possibility by the foreclose of the third. The details of this thesis are developed in the first six Meditations of Being and Event. The essential consequence is that there is no direct access to being as pure multiplicity, since everything from within a situation appears as one, and everything is a situation. The apparent paradox of this conclusion is Badiou’s simultaneous affirmation of Truth and truth(s).
Like his German predecessors, and Jacques Lacan, Badiou divides the nothing beyond presentation between nothing as non-being and nothing as not non-being, to which he gives the name “void,” as it designates a not non-being which is anterior even to the attribution of number. Truth at the ontological level is what Badiou––borrowing again from mathematics––calls a generic multiple. In brief, this is Badiou’s ontological foundation for the world of truths he later constructs.
Perhaps more than the assertion that ontology is possible, Badiou’s doctrine is distinct in the affirmation of Truth and truth(s). The first “Truth” is, strictly speaking, philosophical; the second “truth(s)” belongs to the conditions. The relation between these two is comprehensible through the delicate distinction between religion and atheism, or more specifically, through the distinction between residual and imitative atheisms and post-theological thought, that is, philosophy. For Badiou, philosophy is inherently empty, that is, it has no privileged access to some realm of Truth beyond the reach of artistic, scientific, political, and amorous thought and creation. Therefore, philosophy is conditioned; it is conditioned by the conditions as truth-procedures and ontology. The simplest way to articulate the apparent temporal paradox between philosophy and Truth and the truths of the conditions, is through Hegelian terminology: the thoughts of the conditions are particular, the constructed category of Truth is universal, and the truths of the conditions, i.e., the truth-procedures, are singular. In other words, philosophy takes the propositions of the conditions and tests them, so to speak, against ontology, and then constructs out of them the very category that will serve as their measure, Truth. The thoughts of the conditions, in so far as they pass through the category of Truth can be declared to be truths. Truth, therefore, is literally constructed out of what will have been truths––and ontology. With the relation of Truth and truths Badiou constructs a philosophical system adequate to Kant’s summation of the Enlightenment––thought will not obey any other authority than itself (which is not the same as saying that it will not obey).
The truths of the conditions, therefore, are procedures which, taking cause from a crack in the consistency of a presentation, itself secured by representation, are thoughts which traverse the semblance of neutrality and naturalness of an established situation from a position of assuming that––ontologically speaking––the One is not. Truths, in other words, are phenomena, or phenomenal procedures, which bear a fidelity to the foundations of ontology. Truth––the philosophical category––on the other hand, is the subtracted universal articulation of these singular thoughts, which Badiou names “generic procedures.”
To this process stretched between an encounter with the void, as cause, and the construction of a consistency not founded on the foreclosure of the real of being, Badiou gives the name subject. The subject itself involves a number of elements or moments, namely, intervention, fidelity, and forcing. More specifically, this process––given the nature of ontological truth––involves a sequence of subtractions that are always subtractions from any and all conceptions of the One. Truth, therefore, is the subtractive process of truths.
––Srdjan Cvjeticanin
Works
Books
Chapters
What is it to Live
Badiou, Alain. “What is it to Live?” Foreword to To Live and Think Like Pigs: The Incitement of Envy and Bordem in Market Democracies, by Gilles Châtelet. Translated by Robin Mackay, xi-xvii.Urbanomic/Sequence, 2014. ISBN: 0983216967
The Communist Idea and the Question of Terror
Badiou, Alain. “The Communist Idea and the Question of Terror.” In The Idea of Communism Vol. 2, edited by Slavoj Žižek, 1. Verso, 2014. ISBN: 1844679802
Anti-Semitism Everywhere in France Today
Badiou, Alain, and Eric Hazan. “Anti-Semitism Everywhere in France Today.” In Reflections On Anti-Semitism, 6. Verso, 2013. ISBN: 1781681155
Preface in After Finitude
Badiou, Alain. Preface to After Finitude, by Quentin Meillassoux. Translated by Ray Brassier. Bloomsbury, 2010.
The Idea of Communism
Badiou, Alain. “The Idea of Communism.” In The Idea of Communism, edited by Slavoj Žižek and Costas Douzinas, 1. Verso, 2010. ISBN: 184467455X
Articles
Ethics and Politics
Badiou, Alain. “Ethics and Politics.” Translated by C. J. Davies. Philosophy Today Vol. 59, No. 3 (2015): 401-407.
Pornographie de la démocratie
Badiou, Alain. “Pornographie de la démocratie.” Le nouvel Observateur, January 24, 2013.
The Pornography of Democracy
Badiou, Alain. “The Pornography of Democracy.” Translated by Huw Lemmey. Verso.com, January 28, 2013.
Pornogrfija sedanjega časa
Badiou, Alain, “Pornogrfija sedanjega časa.” Translated by Janina Kos. Problemi Vol. 52, Issue 5/6 (2014): 27-39.
24e Forum philo ‘Le Monde’ Le Mans. L’amour, une aventure obstinée
Badiou, Alain. “24e Forum philo ‘Le Monde’ Le Mans. L’amour, une aventure obstinée.” Le Monde Des Livres, November 11, 2012.
Sauvons le peuple grec de ses sauveurs!
Badiou, Alain, Jean-Christophe Bailly, Étienne Balibar, Claire Denis, Jean-Luc Nancy, Jacques Ranciere, Avital Ronell, “Sauvons le peuple grec de ses sauveurs!” Liberation,February 22, 2012.
Save the Greeks from their Saviors
Badiou, Alain, Jean-Christophe Bailly, Étienne Balibar, Claire Denis, Jean-Luc Nancy, Jacques Ranciere, and Avital Ronell. “Save the Greeks from their Saviors!” February 22, 2012. Translated by Drew S. Burk and Anastazia Golemi.
Retten wir das griechische Volk vor seinen Rettern
Badiou, Alain, Jean-Christophe Bailly, Étienne Balibar, Claire Denis, Jean-Luc Nancy, Jacques Ranciere, and Avital Ronell, “Retten wir das griechische Volk vor seinen Rettern!” February 21, 2012. Translated by Judith Dellheim.
Salvemos el pueblo griego de sus salvadores
Badiou, Alain, Jean-Christophe Bailly, Étienne Balibar, Claire Denis, Jean-Luc Nancy, Jacques Ranciere, and Avital Ronell. “Salvemos el pueblo griego de sus salvadores!” February 22, 2012. Translated by Mauricio Rugeles Schoonewolff.
Vamos salvar o povo grego dos seus salvadores
Badiou, Alain, Jean-Christophe Bailly, Étienne Balibar, Claire Denis, Jean-Luc Nancy, Jacques Ranciere, and Avital Ronell. “Vamos salvar o povo grego dos seus salvadores!” February 23, 2012. Translation by Alexandra Balona de Sá Oliveira and Sofia Borges.
Salviamo la Grecia dai suoi salvatori: Un appello agli intellettuali europe
Badiou, Alain, Jean-Christophe Bailly, Étienne Balibar, Claire Denis, Jean-Luc Nancy, Jacques Ranciere, and Avital Ronell. “Salviamo la Grecia dai suoi salvatori: Un appello agli intellettuali europe,” laRepubblica.it, February 22, 2012. Translated by Vicky Skoumbi, Dimitris Vergetis, and Michel Surya.
“Να Σώσουμε Τον Ελληνικό Λαό Aπό Tους Σωτήρες Του
Badiou, Alain, Jean-Christophe Bailly, Étienne Balibar, Claire Denis, Jean-Luc Nancy, Jacques Ranciere, and Avital Ronell. “Να Σώσουμε Τον Ελληνικό Λαό Aπό Tους Σωτήρες Του.” in tometopo, February 21, 2012.
Rädda det grekiska folket från sina räddare
Badiou, Alain, Jean-Christophe Bailly, Étienne Balibar, Claire Denis, Jean-Luc Nancy, Jacques Ranciere, and Avital Ronell. “Rädda det grekiska folket från sina räddare!” February 24, 2012. Translation into Swedish by Erik Bryngelsson and Elin Fritiofsson.
Verlos de Grieken van hun verlossers
Badiou, Alain, Jean-Christophe Bailly, Étienne Balibar, Claire Denis, Jean-Luc Nancy, Jacques Ranciere, and Avital Ronell. “Verlos de Grieken van hun verlossers!” February 23, 2012. Translated by Dennis Schep.
Zbawmy Greków od ich zbawców
Badiou, Alain, Jean-Christophe Bailly, Étienne Balibar, Claire Denis, Jean-Luc Nancy, Jacques Ranciere, and Avital Ronell. “Zbawmy Greków od ich zbawców!” February 23, 2012. Translated by Krzyś Rowiński.
Spasimo Grčki Narod Od Njegovih Spasitelja!
Badiou, Alain, Jean-Christophe Bailly, Étienne Balibar, Claire Denis, Jean-Luc Nancy, Jacques Ranciere, and Avital Ronell. “Spasimo Grčki Narod Od Njegovih Spasitelja!” February 22, 2012. Translated by Vesna Madzoski.
Rešite Grke pred njihovimi rešitelji!
Badiou, Alain, Jean-Christophe Bailly, Étienne Balibar, Claire Denis, Jean-Luc Nancy, Jacques Ranciere, and Avital Ronell. “Rešite Grke pred njihovimi rešitelji!” February 24, 2012. Translated by Jožica Grgič.
Yunan Halkını Kurtarıcılarından Kurtaralım!
Badiou, Alain, Jean-Christophe Bailly, Étienne Balibar, Claire Denis, Jean-Luc Nancy, Jacques Ranciere, and Avital Ronell. “Yunan Halkını Kurtarıcılarından Kurtaralım!” February 24, 2012. Translated by Ali Bolcakan, Nilüfer Akalın and Can Semercioğlu.
Shpëtojini grekët nga shpëtimtarët e tyre!
Badiou, Alain, Jean-Christophe Bailly, Étienne Balibar, Claire Denis, Jean-Luc Nancy, Jacques Ranciere, and Avital Ronell. “Shpëtojini grekët nga shpëtimtarët e tyre!” February 24, 2012. Translated by Arlind Qori.
Que signifie « changer le monde »
Badiou, Alain. “Que signifie « changer le monde » ?” Entremps (2010-2011).
¿Qué significa ‘cambiar el mundo’?
Badiou, Alain. “¿Qué significa ‘cambiar el mundo’?” Translated by Max Hernández Calvo. Tusk of the Translator (2010-2011).
Tunisia, Egypt. The Universal Reach of Popular Uprisings
Badiou, Alain. “Tunisia, Egypt. The Universal Reach of Popular Uprisings.” The Symptom (2011).
An open letter from Alain Badiou to Jean-Luc Nancy
Badiou, Alain. “An open letter from Alain Badiou to Jean-Luc Nancy.” Greek Left Review, April 4, 2011.
Una carta abierta de Alain Badiou a Jean-Luc Nancy
Badiou, Alain. “Una carta abierta de Alain Badiou a Jean-Luc Nancy.” Translated by Max Hernández Calvo. The Tusk of the Translator.
Un monde de bandits, dialogue philosophique
Badiou, Alain. “Un monde de bandits, dialogue philosophique.” Liberation, March 28, 2011.
Ce que les peuples arabes nous signifient
Badiou, Alain. “Ce que les peuples arabes nous signifient.” Liberation, March 28, 2011.
What the Arab People Signify to Us
Badiou, Alain. “What the Arab People Signify to Us.” Translated by Sarah Shin. Verso Books.com, March 31, 2011.
Women and Families
Badiou, Alain. “Women and Families.” Lacanian Ink 38 (2011).
The Philosophy of Government
Badiou, Alain. “The Philosophy of Government.” Lacanian Ink 36 (2011).
Disciplines of the Body: diet, medicine, and sports
Badiou , Alain. “Disciplines of the Body: diet, medicine, and sports.” Lacanian Ink 36 (2010).
Reducing the Sophist to Silence
Badiou, Alain, “Reducing the Sophist to Silence.” Translated by Susan Spitzer. Lacanian Ink 35 (2010).
For Today Plato: The Republic
Badiou, Alain. “For Today Plato: The Republic.” Translated by Susan Spitzer. Lacanian Ink 34 (2009).
Adorno’s Negative Dialectics and Wagner
Badiou, Alain. “Adorno’s Negative Dialectics and Wagner.” Translated by Jake Bellone, Barbara P. Fulks, and Peter Bradley. Lacanian Ink 33 (2009).
On a Finally Objectless Subject
Badiou, Alain. “On a Finally Objectless Subject.” The Symptom Vol. 10 (2009).
The Son’s Aleatory Identity in Today’s World
adiou, Alain, “The Son’s Aleatory Identity in Today’s World.” Translated by James Curley-Egan. Lacanian Ink 32 (2008).
A Political Variant on the Physics of the Subject-of-Truth from Logiques des mondes
Badiou, Alain. “A Political Variant on the Physics of the Subject-of-Truth from Logiques des mondes.” Lacanian Ink 31 (2008).
What is to Live? from Logiques des mondes
Badiou, Alain. “What is to Live? from Logiques des mondes.” Lacanian Ink 31 (2008).
Philosophy as Biography
Badiou, Alain. “Philosophy as Biography.” The Symptom 9 (2008).
Some Remarks Concerning Marcel Duchamp
Badiou, Alain. “Some Remarks Concerning Marcel Duchamp.” The Symptom 9 (2008).
The Dimensions of Art – on Udi Aloni’s film Forgiveness
Badiou, Alain. “The Dimensions of Art – on Udi Aloni’s film Forgiveness.” The Symptom 9 (2008).
The Communist Hypothesis
Badiou, Alain. “The Communist Hypothesis.” The New Left Review 49 (2008).
Cinema as Democratic Emblem
Badiou, Alain. “Cinema as Democratic Emblem.” Parrhesia 6 (2008).
We Need a Popular Discipline: Contemporary Politics and the Crisis of the Negative
Badiou, Alain. “We Need a Popular Discipline: Contemporary Politics and the Crisis of the Negative.” Critical Inquiry 645 (2008).
Hegel, Kant, Lacan from Logiques des mondes
Badiou, Alain. “Hegel, Kant, Lacan from Logiques des mondes.” Lacanian ink 30 (2007).
35 Propositions from Logiques des mondes
Badiou, Alain. “35 Propositions from Logiques des mondes.” Lacanian Ink 29 (2007).
Towards a New Concept of Existence
Badiou, Alain. “Towards a New Concept of Existence” Lacanian Ink 29 (2007).
The Event in Deleuze
Badiou, Alain. “The Event in Deleuze.” Parrhesia (2007).
A Musical Variant of the Metaphysics of the Subject
Badiou, Alain. “A Musical Variant of the Metaphysics of the Subject.” Parrhesia (2007).
Bodies, Languages Truths
Badiou, Alain. “Bodies, Languages Truths.” lacan.com (2007).
Philosophy as Creative Repetition
Badiou, Alain. “Philosophy as Creative Repetition.” The Symptom 8 (2007).
The Uses of the Word Jew
Badiou, Alain. “The Uses of the Word Jew.” lacan.com (2007).
The Question of Democracy
Badiou, Alain. “The Question of Democracy.” Lacanian Ink 28 (2006).
The Formulas of the Real
Badiou, Alain. “The Formulas of the Real.” Lacanian Ink 28 (2006).
What is a Philosophical Institution
Badiou, Alain. “What is a Philosophical Institution?” Cosmos & History: The Journal of Natural and Social Philsophy Vol. 2, No 1-2 (2006).
Drawing
Badiou, Alain. “Drawing.” Lacanian Ink 28 (2006).
The Formulas of L’étourdit
Badiou, Alain. “The Formulas of L’étourdit.” Lacanian Ink 27 (2006).
Lacan and the Pre-Socratics
Badiou, Alain. “Lacan and the Pre-Socratics.” lacan.com (2006).
The Desire for Philosophy and the Contemporary World
Badiou, Alain. “The Desire for Philosophy and the Contemporary World.” lacan.com(2006).
Eight Theses on the Universal
Badiou, Alain. “Eight Theses on the Universal.” lacan.com (2006).
Lacan. Seminar, Book X: Anxiety
Badiou, Alain. “Lacan. Seminar, Book X: Anxiety.” Lacanian Ink 26 (2005).
The Subject of Art
Badiou, Alain. “The Subject of Art.” The Symptom 6 (2006).
On the European Constitution
Badiou, Alain. “On the European Constitution.” ENS, May 18, 2005.
Democratic Materialism and the Materialistic Dialectic
Badiou, Alain. “Democratic Materialism and the Materialistic Dialectic.” Radical Philosophy 130 (2005).
The Adventure of French Philosophy
Badiou, Alain. “The Adventure of French Philosophy.” New Left Review 35 (2005).
Manifesto of Affirmationism
Badiou, Alain. “Manifesto of Affirmationism.” Lacanian Ink 24/25 (2005).
Fifteen Theses on Contemporary Art
Badiou, Alain. “Fifteen Theses on Contemporary Art.” Lacanian Ink 23 (2004).
Behind the Scarfed Law, There is Fear
Badiou, Alain. “Behind the Scarfed Law, There is Fear.” IslamOnline.net, March 3, 2004.
Of an Obscure Disaster: On the End of the Truth of State
Badiou, Alain. “Of an Obscure Disaster: On the End of the Truth of State.” Lacanian Ink 22 (2003).
The Scene of Two
Badiou, Alain. “The Scene of Two.” Lacanian Ink 22 (2003).
Fragments of a Public Diary on the American War Against Iraq
Badiou, Alain. “Fragments of a Public Diary on the American War Against Iraq.” Contemporary French and Francophone Studies 8 (2003).
Seven Variations on the Century
Badiou, Alain. “Seven Variations on the Century.” Parallax 9 (2003).
What is to Be Thought?
Badiou, Alain. “What is to Be Thought?” Counterpunch, May 1, 2002.
Un, Multiple, Multiplicité(s)
Badiou, Alain. “Un, Multiple, Multiplicité(s).” Multitudes 1 (2002).
Philosophical Considerations of Some Recent Facts
Badiou, Alain. “Philosophical Considerations of Some Recent Facts.” Theory and Event 6 (2002).
Art & Philosophy
Badiou, Alain. “Art & Philosophy.” Lacanian Ink 17 (2000).
Psychoanalysis and Philosophy
Badiou, Alain. “Psychoanalysis and Philosophy.” Analysis 9 (2000).
On a Contemporary Usage of Frege
Badiou, Alain. “On a Contemporary Usage of Frege.” Umbr(a) (2000).
Highly Speculative Reasoning on the Concept of Democracy
Badiou, Alain. “Highly Speculative Reasoning on the Concept of Democracy.” Lacanian Ink 16 (2000).
Philosophy and Politics
Badiou, Alain. “Philosophy and Politics.” Radical Philosophy 96 (1999).
Is There a Theory of the Subject in Georges Canguilhem?
Badiou, Alain. “Is There a Theory of the Subject in Georges Canguilhem?” Economy and Society 27 (1998).
Interviews
The Crisis of Negation: An Interview with Alain Badiou/La crisis de la Negación: Una entrevista con Alain Badiou
Badiou, Alain, and John Van Houdt. “The Crisis of Negation: An Interview with Alain Badiou/La crisis de la Negación: Una entrevista con Alain Badiou.” continent Vol. 1, No. 4 (2011): 234-238.
Interview with Alain Badiou
Badiou, Alain. “Interview with Alain Badiou.” Ashville Global Report, November 14, 2005.
A Conversation with Alain Badiou
Badiou, Alain. “A Conversation with Alain Badiou.” Lacanian Ink 23 (2004).
On Evil: An Interview with Alain Badiou
Badiou, Alain, Christopher Cox, and Molly Whalen. “On Evil: An Interview with Alain Badiou.” Cabinet Magazine Online Issue 5, Winter (2001/02).
Being by Numbers: interview with Lauren Sedofsky
Badiou, Alain. “Being by Numbers: interview with Lauren Sedofsky.” Artforum,October 1996.
Edited Works
L’Idée du Communisme Vol. 1 (London Conference, 2009)
Badiou, Alain, and Slavoj Žižek, eds. L’Idée du Communisme Vol. 1 (London Conference, 2009). Editions Lignes, 2010.
Lectures
Contemporary art: considered philosophically and poetologically