The Praxis of Alain Badiou

Following the publication of his magnum opus L’être et l’événement (Being and Event) in 1988, Alain Badiou has been acclaimed as one of France’s greatest living philosophers. Since then, he has released a dozen books, including Manifesto for Philosophy, Conditions, Metapolitics and Logiques des mondes (Logics of Worlds), many of which are now available in English translation. Badiou writes on an extraordinary array of topics, and his work has already had an impact upon studies in the history of philosophy, the history and philosophy of science, political philosophy, aesthetics, psychoanalysis, and ontology. This volume takes up the challenge of explicating, extending and, in many places, criticising Badiou’s stunningly original theses. Above all, the essays collected here put Badiou’s concepts to the test in a confrontation with the four great headings that he himself has identified as essential to our humanity: science, love, art and politics. Many of the contributors have already been recognised as outstanding translators of and commentators on Badiou’s work; they appear here with fresh voices also destined to make a mark. Introduction Masters & Disciples: Institution, Philosophy, Praxis Paul Ashton, A. J. Bartlett & Justin Clemens What is a Philosophical Institution? Or: Address, Transmission, Inscription Alain Badiou Science The Law of the Subject: Alain Badiou, Luitzen Brouwer and the Kripkean Analyses of Forcing and the Heyting Calculus Zachary Fraser The Limits of The Subject in Badiou’s Being and Event Brian Anthony Smith Had we but worlds enough, and time, this absolute, philosopher… Justin Clemens Love Count-as-one, Forming-into-one, Unary Trait, S1 Lorenzo Chiesa Introduction to Sam Gillespie Sigi Jöttkandt Giving Form to Its Own Existence: Anxiety and the Subject of Truth Sam Gillespie Conditional Notes on a New Republic A. J. Bartlett Art An Explosive Genealogy: Theatre, Philosophy and the Art of Presentation Oliver Feltham Ontology and Appearing: Documentary Realism as a Mathematical Thought Lindsey Hair Can Cinema Be Thought? Alain Badiou and the Artistic Condition Alex Ling Politics Towards an Anthropology of Infinitude: Badiou and the Political Subject Nina Power The Bourgeois and the Islamist, or, The Other Subjects of Politics Alberto Toscano Philosophy and Revolution: Badiou’s Infidelity to the Event Toula Nicolacopoulos and George Vassilacopoulos Follysophy Dominique Hecq Bibliography of Work on and by Alain Badiou in English Contributors Index