Infinite Thought Truth and the Return to Philosophy ALAIN BADIOU Translated and edited by Oliver Feltham and Justin Clemens Continuum The Tower Building 15 East 26th Street II York Road New York London, SE I 7~X ;\IY 10010 www.continuumbooks.com Editorial material and selection © Oliver Feltharn and Justin Clemens Philosophy and Desire, Philosophy and Film, Philosophy and"the war against terrorism" © Alain Badiou Contents Philosophy andArt, and The Definition of Philosophy © Seuil (from Conditions, 1992) Philosophy and the Death of Communism © Editions de l'Aube (from D'un desastre obscur, 1998) An introduction to Alain Badiou's philosophy English language translations: 'Philosophy and Truth' © Pli; 'Philosophy and Politices' © Radical Philosophy; 'Philosophy and Psychoanalysis' (!:') Ana{ysis; all other English language translations © Continuum I Philosophy and desire 39 2 Philosophy and truth 58 Reprinted 2003 3 Philosophy and politics 69 This paperback edition published 2004 by Continuum 4- Philosophy and psychoanalysis 79 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or 5 Philosophy and art 91 transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical 6 Philosophy and cinema 109 including photocopying, recording or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. 7 Philosophy and the 'death of communism' 126 8 Philosophy and the 'war against British Library Oatalcgufng-dn-Publicarlon Data terrorism' 141 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library 9 The definition of philosophy 165 ISB:\" 0-8264-6724-5 (Hardback) 10 Ontology and politics: an interview with 0-8264-7320-2 (Paperback) Alain Badiou 169 Index of names 195 Typeset by BookEns Ltd, Royston, Herts. Printed and bound by in Great Britain by The Bath Press, Bath v An introduction to Alain Badiou's philosophy Alain Badiou is one ofFrance's foremost living philosophers. Yet recognition ofthe force and originality ofhis work in the English-speaking world has been slow to come, perhaps because it is difficult to assimilate his work within the established categories of 'contemporary French philosophy'. However, such recognition is now gathering momentum. No fewer than six translations of his major works, two collections of his essays, and one monograph on his work are currently in press.' The first English-language con­ ference devoted to his work was held in May 2002 at Cardiff, a critical introduction to his work has appeared, and three translations of his works ~ Ethics, Deleuze, and Manifesto for Philosophy - are already on the shelves.f The present volume aims to provide a brief, accessible introduction to the diversity and power ofBadiou's thought, collecting a series of conference papers and essays. The opening text sets the scene, giving a polemical overview of the state of philosophy in relation to the contemporary world. The second chapter gives a general overview, via the categories of ethics and truth, of Badiou's model of fundamental change in the domains of art, love, politics Infinite Thought An introduction to Alain Badiou's philosophy and science - philosophy's four 'conditions'. The following Badiou's question chapters present specific applications of his central concep­ tion of philosophy as an exercise of thought conditioned by Badiou is neither a poststructuralist nor an analytic such changes in art (Chapters 5 and 6 on poetry and philosopher, and for one major reason: there is a question cinema), love (Chapter 4 on psychoanalysis), politics which drives his thought, especially in his magnum opus, (Chapter 3) and science. Since Badiou's work in relation L'Etre et l'eoenement. This question is foreign to both to science is mainly found in the huge tome L' Etre et poststructuralism and analytic philosophy - in fact not only I'eoenement (Being and Event) we chose to sketch the latter's foreign, but unwelcome. It is this question that governs the argument in the introduction. ~ Chapters 7 and 8 exemplify peculiarity of Badiou's trajectory and the attendant a return to one of philosophy's classical roles: the analytical difficulties of his thought. denunciation ofideology, Badiou attacking first the 'war on In the introduction to L'Etre et l'ivenement Badiou seizes terrorism' and then the 'death of communism'. The upon an exchange between Jacques-Alain Miller and penultimate chapter sets out Badiou's doctrine on philoso­ Jacques Lacan during the famous Seminar XI.4 Miller, phy in relation to its conditions, and then the collection without blinking, asks Lacan, the grand theorist of the closes with an interview with Badiou in which he explains barred subject, 'What is your ontology?'5 For Badiou this is and reconsiders some of his positions. a crucial moment, for it reveals a fundamental difficulty ­ In our introduction we identify one of the manners in one that many argue Lacan never solved, even with his which Badiou's philosophy differs from the contemporary loopy 1970s recourses to knot theory. The difficulty is that of French philosophy known as poststructuralism: its treat­ reconciling a modern doctrine of the subject (such as that of ment of the question of the subject. We then engage in a psychoanalysis) with an ontology. Hence Badiou's guiding long, at times difficult, but necessary exegesis ofBadiou's set question: How can a modern doctrine of the subject be reconciled theory ontology; necessary since it grounds his entire with an ontology? doctrine, and not particularly long in relation to its matter; But what exactly does Badiou understand by a 'modern Being and Event comprises over 500 pages in the French doctrine of the subject'? Badiou takes it as given that in the edition. At every point we have attempted to render the contemporary world the subject can no longer be theorized technical details in as clear a fashion as possible, yet without as the self-identical substance that underlies change, nor as undue distortion. the product of reflection, nor as the correlate of an object." If the prospective reader wishes to skip over the more This set ofnegative definitions is all very familiar to a reader abstruse discussions offered in the introduction, he or she of poststructuralism. Surely one could object that post­ should feel absolutely free to do so - for Badiou is still his structuralism has developed a modern doctrine of the own best exegete. He effectively tries to speak to those who subject? do not spend their lives in professional institutions, but act The problem with poststructuralism is that exactly the and think in ways that usually exceed or are beneath notice. same set of negative definitions serves to delimit its implicit As Badiou himself puts it: 'Philosophy privileges no ontology (whether ofdesire or difference): there are no self­ language, not even the one it is written in.' identical substances, there are no stable products of 2 3 Infinite Thou/;ht An introduction to Alain Badiou's philosopkv reflection, and since there are no stable objects there can be subject is nothing other than a perpetual movement of no correlates ofsuch objects. Thus in poststrucruralism there translation." This brings the subject within the ambit of his is no distinction between the general field of ontology and a much-maligned but fateful early ontological claim: 'There is theory of the subject; there is no tension between the being no ou tsidc-text.' The conseq uence of this move, of this of the subject and being in general. merger of the subject with a general ontology within the Where Badiou sees an essential question for modern context of a general critique of identity and representation, philosophy, then, poststructuralism sees nothing. For many is the emergence of a problem with the differentiation of this lack of distinction between the being of the subject and subjects. How can one subject be differentiated from the being ofeverything else would appear to be a virtue; the another without recourse to some sort of definable identity? privilege of the rational animal is finally removed in favour As for agency - philosophy's second fundamental of a less anthropocentric ontology. There is, however, a problem in the thought of the subject - the consequence price to be paid for lumping the subject together with of poststructuralisrri's almost exclusive concentration on the whatever else is usually recognized in an ontology. first problem has been that the critics of poststructuralism Poststructuralism typically encounters a number of pro­ have had an easy pitch: all they have had to do is to accuse blems in its theory of the subject. Funnily enough, these the poststructuralists of robbing the subject of agency: if problems are quite clearly inherited From the very there is no self-identical subject, then what is the ground for philosophical tradition whose 'death' poststructuralisrn autonomous rational action? This is what lies behind the gleefully proclaims. There was enough lite left in the corpse infamous jibe that poststructuralism leads down a slippery to pass something on -- and what it passed on were the two slope to apoliticism. fundamental problems in the thought of the subject. When poststructuralists do engage with the problem of The,first ;)roblem i~ that of identity; the second, problem, agency they again meet with difficulties, and again precisely that o(age~iY" 'the mind-body problem derIves for' the most because they merge their theory of the subject with their part from the former, and the free will versus determinism general ontology. For example, in his middle period debate from the latter. Poststructuralists have concentrated Foucault argued that networks of disciplinary power not almost exclusively on a critique ofthe first problem, arguing only reach into the most intimate spaces of the subject, but that there is no solution to the problem of the identity of the actually produce what we call subjects." However, Foucault subject because the subject has no substantial identity: the also said that power produces resistance.