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The [[political ]] [[regime ]] of [[global ]] [[capitalism ]] reduces the [[world ]] to an endless network of numbers within numbers, but how many of us really [[understand ]] what numbers are? Without such an [[understanding]], how can we challenge the regime of [[number]]? In ''Number and Numbers'' Alain  [[Alain]] [[Badiou ]] offers an philosophically penetrating account with a powerful political subtext of the attempts that have been made over the last century to define the special status of number. Badiou argues that number cannot be defined by the multiform calculative uses to which numbers are put, nor is it exhausted by the various [[species ]] described by number [[theory]]. Drawing on the [[mathematical ]] theory of surreal numbers, he develops a [[unified ]] theory of Number as a [[particular ]] [[form ]] of [[being]], an infinite expanse to which our access remains limited. This understanding of Number as being harbours important [[philosophical ]] truths [[about ]] the [[structure ]] of the world in which we live.

In Badiou’s view, only by rigorously [[thinking ]] through Number can [[philosophy ]] offer us some hope of breaking through the dense and apparently impenetrable [[capitalist ]] fabric of numerical relations. For this will finally allow us to point to that which cannot be numbered: the possibility of an [[event ]] that would deliver us from our unthinking subordination of number.