Badiou's Theory Research Articles

Revisiting Badiou's Theory of the Political Subject

Abstract This article argues that Alain Badiou's theory of the subject offers conceptual resources that help make sense of ordinary life-experiences of ‘evental moments’ and enable the critique of hypertrophic forms of political or corporate agency. The article identifies a set of ideas through which Badiou's philosophy contributes to much-needed emancipatory thinking today. As it investigates the notions of horlieu and the event, the article stresses that true political change requires the emancipation of the ‘quasi-totality’, something that ‘reactive’ political or corporate subjects would not be able to deliver. The piece emphasises that, for Badiou, universalist equality is the indispensable game-changer of politics, and that every single person can contribute to genuinely egalitarian projects. In Badiou's view, there are no meta-subjects and meta-events. Everyone can experience truth in their lives.

The Evental Conception of Love

AbstractThis article proposes a critical presentation and development of Alain Badiou's theory of romantic love, at the center of which is an understanding of the phenomenon in terms of a truth‐generating event. I discuss this notion against the more familiar ontological modes of theorizing love: as the subject's intentional attitude and as an activity of internal value. Arguing that the evental conception of love poses a preferable alternative to the former mode, my analysis focuses on its complementary relations with the latter, of which I take Stanley Cavell's theory of marriage as a representative. My further argument is concerned with the place of sexuality in the evental conception of love, compensating for what I argue to be the shortcomings of Badiou's treatment of the topic by turning to Roger Scruton's account of the immanent significance of the sexual.

On Militantism in Thought: A Formal Consideration of Badiou's Political Subject

On Militantism in ThoughtA Formal Consideration of Badiou's Political Subject Jan-Jasper Persijn (bio) introduction The relation between philosophy and politics has always been a problem for philosophers rather than for politicians. Most importantly in his 1998 book Abrégé de Métapolitique, Badiou blames what he calls "political philosophy" for providing a legitimation of political discourse, insofar as every "political philosophy" necessarily comes to legitimate the State in the end. From within Badiou's philosophical system, the answer to this critique is well known: politics is one of those domains that condition philosophy by making it a retroactive moment of reflection that cannot but produce silence in the heat of political processes themselves—an idea that is most clearly articulated in his 1992 book, Conditions, but that appears throughout all of his work.1 The evident problem, then, is that it becomes hard for a philosopher to engage in politics in his function as philosopher. It has to be considered a matter of philosophical rigor that philosophy is structurally unable to produce political truths itself. However, I will argue in this essay that Badiou's philosophical system is to a certain extent conditioned by the particular form of his very own Maoist engagement. Therefore, I will follow his own logic as outlined here, that is, philosophy as conditioned by nonphilosophical truth domains. Hence, this essay applies an insight from within his theory to the historical elaboration of his system itself. In the first part of the argument, I will show how Badiou's Theory of the Subject (2009) forces the Lacanian legacy on the subject into a possibility of political emancipation. I will try to demonstrate that it is in this sense that he is able to implement his own Maoist convictions within the formal structure of his project. In a second part, I will examine the hypothesis that [End Page 27] this Maoist core is preserved in Being and Event (2005b), although the context and conditions of this book are significantly different. I will try to demonstrate a certain continuity between both parts insofar as the notion of "force" in the early work and the "event" in the later work are equally centered upon an inquiry into the subject. I will do so, however, within a limited scope, that is, without losing sight of the ongoing debates on this question of continuity in his work. In all this, it is my underlying motivation to understand all of the philosophical work of Badiou as a relevant unity, as it is suggested, following "a single idea," although crossing different philosophical territories, moments, and modalities (Badiou and Tho, 103). Insofar as the argument works, it becomes clear in what sense Badiou's philosophical inquiry reflects a certain (at least formal) Maoism—whatever that may mean for now—although still faithful to the idea that philosophy is unable to produce any truth itself. In this way, a question is addressed that Badiou asks himself as well: At bottom, what is the internal link between the traversing of the Maoist experience in all its dimensions and the arrangement of thought … ? And is this link of such a nature as to enable us truly and persuasively to isolate it, in the way I have attempted to do, starting in Being and Event, so as to reconstruct all the elements while separating them from their political genealogy? (Badiou and Bosteels, 298) the subject of force: a formal articulation It is the main aim of this first part to demonstrate how exactly a Maoist engagement can be read from the formal structure of Badiou's early philosophical project. Hence, I will point to a couple of significant moments in his early philosophical career that bear some importance for the investigation of this hypothesis. Hence, the general idea of my argument is centered upon the subject as pivotal point: insofar as its specific formal figure was, to a certain extent, "designed" to serve Badiou's political purposes, a certain militantism became formally inscribed in his philosophical system as well. More generally, this part investigates the relation between experience and thought: never "a question of history, or of historical facts" but "a matter of transmitting the...

On Militantism in Thought: A Formal Consideration of Badiou's Political Subject

On Militantism in ThoughtA Formal Consideration of Badiou's Political Subject Jan-Jasper Persijn (bio) introduction The relation between philosophy and politics has always been a problem for philosophers rather than for politicians. Most importantly in his 1998 book Abrégé de Métapolitique, Badiou blames what he calls "political philosophy" for providing a legitimation of political discourse, insofar as every "political philosophy" necessarily comes to legitimate the State in the end. From within Badiou's philosophical system, the answer to this critique is well known: politics is one of those domains that condition philosophy by making it a retroactive moment of reflection that cannot but produce silence in the heat of political processes themselves—an idea that is most clearly articulated in his 1992 book, Conditions, but that appears throughout all of his work.1 The evident problem, then, is that it becomes hard for a philosopher to engage in politics in his function as philosopher. It has to be considered a matter of philosophical rigor that philosophy is structurally unable to produce political truths itself. However, I will argue in this essay that Badiou's philosophical system is to a certain extent conditioned by the particular form of his very own Maoist engagement. Therefore, I will follow his own logic as outlined here, that is, philosophy as conditioned by nonphilosophical truth domains. Hence, this essay applies an insight from within his theory to the historical elaboration of his system itself. In the first part of the argument, I will show how Badiou's Theory of the Subject (2009) forces the Lacanian legacy on the subject into a possibility of political emancipation. I will try to demonstrate that it is in this sense that he is able to implement his own Maoist convictions within the formal structure of his project. In a second part, I will examine the hypothesis that [End Page 27] this Maoist core is preserved in Being and Event (2005b), although the context and conditions of this book are significantly different. I will try to demonstrate a certain continuity between both parts insofar as the notion of "force" in the early work and the "event" in the later work are equally centered upon an inquiry into the subject. I will do so, however, within a limited scope, that is, without losing sight of the ongoing debates on this question of continuity in his work. In all this, it is my underlying motivation to understand all of the philosophical work of Badiou as a relevant unity, as it is suggested, following "a single idea," although crossing different philosophical territories, moments, and modalities (Badiou and Tho, 103). Insofar as the argument works, it becomes clear in what sense Badiou's philosophical inquiry reflects a certain (at least formal) Maoism—whatever that may mean for now—although still faithful to the idea that philosophy is unable to produce any truth itself. In this way, a question is addressed that Badiou asks himself as well: At bottom, what is the internal link between the traversing of the Maoist experience in all its dimensions and the arrangement of thought … ? And is this link of such a nature as to enable us truly and persuasively to isolate it, in the way I have attempted to do, starting in Being and Event, so as to reconstruct all the elements while separating them from their political genealogy? (Badiou and Bosteels, 298) the subject of force: a formal articulation It is the main aim of this first part to demonstrate how exactly a Maoist engagement can be read from the formal structure of Badiou's early philosophical project. Hence, I will point to a couple of significant moments in his early philosophical career that bear some importance for the investigation of this hypothesis. Hence, the general idea of my argument is centered upon the subject as pivotal point: insofar as its specific formal figure was, to a certain extent, "designed" to serve Badiou's political purposes, a certain militantism became formally inscribed in his philosophical system as well. More generally, this part investigates the relation between experience and thought: never "a question of history, or of historical facts" but "a matter of transmitting the...

Tragic Foundationalism

This essay puts the modern philosopher Alain Badiou's theory of foundationalism into dialogue with the early modern playwright William Shakespeare's Hamlet. Doing so reveals a new candidate for Hamlet's traditionally hard-to-define hamartia—his "tragic mistake"—while providing an opportunity to theorize the notion of tragic foundationalism.

Ontology, belief and the politics of sanction: An application of Badiou’s Theory of the Event

In this article, I apply Alain Badiou's theory of the event to make sense of the beliefs of an anti-sanction activist in Germany. Sanctions are deductions to unemployment benefits imposed by jobs counselors on their unemployed clients. Ethnographic research with Renate shows how her beliefs about the welfare state and her own personal life are examined by her as conditions for the abolition of sanctions in Germany, which is considered here as an event within Badiou’s ontological framework.

Anthropological (in)fidelities to Alain Badiou

This article constructs a dialogue between Alain Badiou's philosophy of evental subjectivation and anthropology as an empirical social science. Elaborating on the few existing anthropological engagements with Badiou's theory by bringing in his more recent writing, it aims to familiarise anthropologists with some key dimensions of his approach and conceptual apparatus and to consider its use for anthropological theorisation of political struggle and process. Reflecting ethnographically on the (after)life of one happening in Bosnia and Herzegovina (the 2014 Winter Revolt) in light of another happening (the 1992–1995 war), I investigate the conditions under which happenings may or may not come to function—and be recognised—as events, as catalysts of change. Substantially departing from Badiou's normative-universalist approach, I nevertheless argue that a core dimension of his project—an effort to conceptualise subject formation processually in relation to events—can inspire interesting avenues for anthropological theorising. Particularly in addressing questions of perspective, intensity and duration, I contend that anthropologists are well-placed to trace modalities of what Badiou calls ‘fidelity' and its refusal.

Kwartet prawd w filozofii Badiou

Alain Badiou is one of the most popular French philosophers. He created the ontological system based on renovated concepts of being, truth, and subject. In this way he refers to the classical philosophy. The current article intends to introduce the reader to Badiou's theory of truth. He opposed correspondence theory. He believes that a truth has nothing to do with the statements about the actual state of affairs. Truth is the result of the process, the final effect of the generic procedures. There are only four types of such procedures, which produce the truths: scientific, artistic, political, and amorous. The main aim of this work is to characterize every kind of truth.

들뢰즈와 바디우의 영화론에서 ‘거짓’이 만들어내는 역량(puissance) 문제

들뢰즈와 바디우의 영화론에서 ‘거짓’이 만들어내는 역량(puissance) 문제

On the Subject of Badiou: A Deleuzian Critique

ABSTRACT In the Deleuze–Badiou debate most criticisms of Badiou focus on how Badiou gets Deleuze wrong. What this defensive posture does not exploit, though, is the way in which Deleuze and Guattari can be seen to have anticipated and criticized Badiou's work. I argue that in A Thousand Plateaus, particularly “On Several Regimes of Signs,” Badiou's theory of the subject can be read as an attempt to extract a passional, postsignifying regime out of its mixture with a despotic, signifying regime. It is here that we can locate all of Badiou's concerns about subject formation in fidelity to an event.

The Rebirth of History: Times of Riots and Uprisings

The Rebirth of History: Times of Riots and Uprisings

Raising the Stakes of Perversion: A Response to Tracy McNulty

AbstractThe work of Alain Badiou attempts to refound the project of Western philosophy by returning to the platonic celebration of mathematics as the basis for any transmissible knowledge. In “The New Man's Fetish,” Tracy McNulty shows that Badiou's return to Plato is secretly mediated by the French libertine tradition. Badiou derives the militant figure of mathematics less from Plato than from Lautréamont—in whose “Songs of Maldoror” she (mathematics) appears as a stern mistress. Reading McNulty, within the framework of psychoanalytic debates around the clinic of perversion, I show that McNulty's emphasis upon this mediation, despite appearances, functions less to undermine the authority of Badiou's philosophical project than to raise the stakes of perversion. Taking Badiou's libertinism seriously makes it possible to grasp how perversion strives to formalize the death drive and thus to open politics and philosophy to the future. At the same time, McNulty shows that Badiou's theory of number makes it possible to rethink the distinctions between number, trope, figure, and fetish; and thus to reopen a discussion of the relationships between philosophy, psychoanalysis, and literature.

The violence of the new: Badiou's subtractive destruction and Gandhi's satyagraha

This article examines the changing relation between politics and violence in Alain Badiou's theory of the subject. It is argued that, emerging from his early Maoism, Badiou initially entertains the notion of a ‘creative destruction’ but that, in his later work, he moves towards a ‘subtractive destruction’ which is logical rather than ontological. As a result, he moves away from the Leninist instrumentalisation of violence. On this basis, it is claimed that an emancipatory relation between politics and violence can be envisaged as long as violence is subtracted from the dominant Statist version of violence, which has at its core the trope of the vulnerable individual but also social body. The last third of the article applies this renewed theory of violence to Gandhi's satyagraha movement. It is shown that Gandhi's form of ‘non-violence’ is in fact a mode of ‘progressive violence’ in the Badiouian sense, but also, that the trope of the vulnerable body remains central to its logic, and that it is this that has enabled the cycle of violence witnessed in post-Independence India.

Anthropology, Pentecostalism, and the New Paul: Conversion, Event, and Social Transformation

This essay brings together the current philosophical discussion of Paul and recent anthropological work on Christianity. Taking the development of notions of the event as a source of radical cultural change as the center of new philosophical discussions of Paul, I argue that the rapid spread of Pentecostalism around the world in the last hundred years has subjected many communities to just this kind of evental transformation. Given this, how might philosophical theories of the event that claim Paul as their patron saint be read in relation to what it means for Pentecostal converts to become Christian in the contemporary world? After outlining Alain Badiou's theory of the event and arguing for its anthropological usefulness, I deploy it in analyzing in some detail the history of a community's conversion in Papua New Guinea. While Badiou's model brings out many aspects of this case—showing the value of putting anthropological materials on lived Christianity into dialogue with recent philosophical work on Paul—the case's details also push in some ways against the model. In particular, they demonstrate the difficulty people have living their lives wholly in terms of what Badiou sees as the universalism of the event. This point leads to a consideration of the possibility that Christianity and, in fact, all universalisms are best understood as what Simon Coleman calls “part-cultures”—those that require some other culture that they both reject and curate in order to be able to play a role in shaping social life. Taking account of this part-culture quality of evental universalisms allows for a more complex account of the nature of radical cultural transformation than one finds in the new philosophical literature on Paul.

What cannot be said: speech and violence

In this article, I consider the moment where speech becomes violent because it wants to name at any price – something that can be felt as a desire in speech, a tension of creation and destruction. I discuss Habermas' theory of communicative action and the propositional conception of truth that underpins it. That conception of truth can be contrasted to the theory of truth as event, as it has been developed by Alain Badiou. A similarity between Badiou's theory of truth and the latent utopianism of Adorno's negative dialectics shows that, for contemporary philosophy, the first phase of Frankfurt School theorising remains important. A philosophy that is able to ‘motivate and guide the will’ (Habermas) needs to include a non-propositional conception of truth; only with a non-propositional conception of truth can we articulate what is involved in communicative violence and come to understand what the place of what cannot be said is, in thought as well as in private, social and political life.

The Obliteration of Truth by Management: Badiou, St. Paul and the question of economic managerialism in education

This paper considers the questions that Badiou's theory poses to the culture of economic managerialism within education. His argument that radical change is possible, for people and the situations they inhabit, provides a stark challenge to the stifling nature of much current educational debate. In Saint Paul: The Foundation of Universalism, Badiou describes the current universalism of capitalism, monetary homogeneity and the rule of the count. Badiou argues that the politics of identity are all too easily subsumed by the prerogatives of the marketplace and unable to present, therefore, a critique of the status quo. These processes are, he argues, without the potential for truth. What are the implications of Badiou's claim that education is the arranging of ‘the forms of knowledge in such a way that truth may come to pierce a hole in them’ (Badiou, 2005, p. 9)? I will argue that Badiou's theory opens up space for a kind of thinking about education that resists its colonisation by the cultures of management and marketisation and leads educationalists to consider the emancipatory potential of education in a refreshing new light.

‘Extraction from the Mortal Site’: Badiou on the Resurrection in Paul

This essay explores the heuristic force of Alain Badiou's theory of ‘truth-processes’ for an understanding of the psycho-social effect of Paul's gospel upon first-century inhabitants of the Roman Empire, both elite and lower class. Badiou's analysis of the ‘situated void’ around which existence is constructed directs attention to figures of the subject as ‘living death’ in the literature of the first century, illuminating the process by which a new, liberated self came forth, in response to Paul's message of the resurrection. An immanent critique of Badiou's singular emphasis upon the resurrection as the Pauline ‘truth-event’ gives rise to an hypothesis regarding Paul's description of his gospel as ‘Christ crucified’ in his later epistles: Paul dared to name the ‘situated void’ around which the existence of slaves was constructed in order to redeem the oppressed, whose identities were submerged in shame, from the annihilating power of the cross.

The Philosophy of Restoration: Alain Badiou and the Enemies of May

Alain Badiou has defined his philosophical project in terms of the attempt to account for the abandonment and betrayal of the revolutionary impetus in the 1970s. This article examines this contention by tracking the way in which the definition of different antipolitical or anti-emancipatory figures plays a crucial role in the development of Badiou's theory of political subjectivity. How are we to think subjects which oppose, betray, or neutralize egalitarian militancy, or what Badiou would call fidelity to a truth-procedure? The article combines an account of this little-explored aspect of Badiou's theory of the subject with a historical contextualization and periodization, touching on the importance of the theory of “revisionism,” the development of an account of reactive subjectivity, the humanism and antihumanism debate, and Badiou's cartography of a “philosophical front” in terms of “deviations” from a militant line. These various elements will converge in Badiou's portrait of the subjectivity proper to the moment that followed les années rouges of the sixties and seventies—the period which he calls the Restoration, and whose latest incarnation he has identified in the “transcendental Pétainism” of French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

On the limits of negation in Badiou's theory of art

Alain Badiou's writing on art has achieved a certain visibility recently as part of a wider debate on the new forms of sociability in art (relational and postrelational aesthetics). Its resistance to these new forms of politicization is based on a renewed commitment to art's negation and autonomy. In this, his writing takes its distance from the participatory and dialogic ethos of the moment, emphasizing art's powers of small-scale disclosure or subtractive difference. Yet he is no conventional modernist. His writing on art is intimately linked to a politics in which the subtractive negations of art are the precursor of, and a precondition for, the revolutionary destruction of capitalist relations. In this article I draw on Hegel and Adorno to reveal the weaknesses of this model of autonomy (Badiou fails to fully render art as a socialized category under capitalism) while defending the centrality of negation for any adequate theory of art's autonomy.

Politics as Thought? The Paradoxes of Alain Badiou's Theory of Politics

In his theory of the event, Alain Badiou argues that the realm of politics is particularly important. Drawing to an extent on Marx, Lenin and Mao, he argues that true politics is revolutionary, or at least ‘eventmental’. Badiou's political thought places great emphasis on the role of the agent of change — the subject — but he argues controversially that subjecthood in politics as well as in other domains comes only after the event has taken place, leaving the potential subject in a highly passive position before the event has taken place. He has relinquished some but not all of Marx's materialist and historical approach, in favour of a more idealist approach influenced in part by Plato, with the effect that his theory of politics is rather disjointed. Badiou's uneasy blend of idealism and materialism means that he has at times highly unorthodox things to say about the notion of democracy and has uneven positions regarding both parliamentary politics and political activism. A lonely, committed voice in contemporary France, Badiou's theory of politics nevertheless offers a rare opportunity to engage with a thinker who is attempting to offer a new philosophy of praxis.