48[[Alain Badiou]] (born 1937, 106Rabat, 107Morocco) is a prominent [[France|French]] [[left-wing]] [[philosopher]] formerly chair of [[Philosophy]] at the [[École Normale Supérieure]] (ENS). ==Biography==Badiou was trained formally as a [[philosopher]] as a student at the ENS from 1956 to 1961, 108a period during which he took courses at the [[University of Paris|Sorbonne]]. He had a lively and constant interest in mathematics. He was politically active very early on, 128and was one of the founding members of the [[United Socialist Party (France)|United Socialist Party]] (PSU), an offshoot of the [[French Communist Party]]. The PSU was particularly active in the struggle for the [[decolonization]] of [[Algeria]]. He wrote his first novel, [[Almagestes]], in 1964. In 1967 he joined a study group organized by [[Louis Althusser]] and grew increasingly influenced by [[Jacques Lacan]]. The student uprisings of [[May 1968]] had a huge impact on Badiou. While 1968 politicized many [[intellectual]]s, it served to reinforce Badiou's commitment to the [[far left]], and he continued to organize [[communist]] and [[Maoist]] groups such as the UCFML. In 1969 he joined the faculty of [[University of Paris]] VIII (Vincennes-9Saint Denis), 135which was a bastion of counter-cultural thought. There he engaged in fierce intellectual debates with fellow professors [[Gilles Deleuze]] and [[Jean-6François Lyotard]], 137whose [[leftist]] philosophy he considered an unhealthy deviation of more main-line [[Marxism]]. In 1988 he published what is now considered by many to be his major statement, 144-5''L'être et l'événement''. He took up his current position at the ENS in 1999. He is also associated with a number of other institutions, 158such as the [[European Graduate School]] and the [[Collège International de Philosophie]]. He is now a member of "L'Organisation Politique" which he founded with some comrades from the Maoist UCFML in 1985. ==Articles by Alain Badiou==<blockquote>''Main Page: [[Articles by Alain Badiou]]''</blockquote> ==Resources==<blockquote>''Main Page: [[Resources for Alain Badiou]]''</blockquote>
TICKLISH=In the work of Slavoj Žižek=The French philosopher Alain Badiouhas played a crucial role in Žižek’s work, Alain America and Roman Empire 211 anti-communitarian communitarian 172 Being and Truth-Event 128-35particularly since 1999, when he devoted an entire chapter of ''[[The Ticklish Subject: The Absent Centre of Political Ontology|The Ticklish Subject]]'' to Badiou’s ''[[Saint Paul: The Foundation of Universalism]]'' (1997). In recent years, 237-8 beyond the Good 161 Christianity and psychoanalysis 145-51 differences Žižek’s dialogue with Lacan 3Badiou has become increasingly active, 159-64 fidelity to the Truth-Event 164culminating in ''[[The Parallax View]]'' and ''[[In Defense of Lost Causes]]'', 166-7 ideology and the Truth-Event 141-5 influence both of Althusser 128 is the gap the subject? 158-9 Master/Hysteric/University 164-5 return which include detailed responses to the Substance 209 St Paul and psychoanalysis 153-4 subjectivity 182-4 transformation of Truth-Event into universal 157-8 undecidability Badiou’s ''[[Logics of the Event 135-41Worlds]]'' (2006).
Why is Badiou’s work so important to Žižek? Broadly, Badiou’s political and philosophical engagement as a revolutionary leftist has been a key influence on Žižek in his attempt to think a political project that constitutes an “alternative to global capitalism and its ideological supplement, liberal-democratic multiculturalism” (''TS'': 4). Badiou, like Žižek, sees the discourse of multiculturalism as an impediment to authentic forms of resistance (Badiou 2001: 20). Like Žižek, too, he is a universalist, an “anti-anti-essentialist” who vindicates the possibility of a universal, immortal Truth (''PV'': 323). These points of contact, though, are conjugated with divergences: among other things, Žižek criticizes Badiou for his supposed Kantian idealism, his omission of Marxism from his otherwise communist perspective and even his philosophy’s lack of radical potential.
How are these ambivalent relations played out in Žižek’s texts? In ''[[CategoryThe Ticklish Subject:PeopleThe Absent Centre of Political Ontology|The Ticklish Subject]]'', Žižek upholds Badiou’s politics of Truth and his “pathbreaking reading of St Paul” (''TS'': 3), while re-inscribing them into a Lacanian psychoanalytical framework. As Žižek points out, the core of Badiou’s philosophy is the opposition between Being and Event, which he theorizes in mathematical terms, using Cantorian set theory. Being, or Being-as-Being, is for Badiou an “irreducible multiplicity” (Badiou 1999: 104), a pure, inconsistent, unstructured multitude of elements. These existent elements form a “situation”, a positive ontological order accessible to Knowledge, a “consistent presented multiplicity” (''ibid''. 2005: 522), or what Žižek in Lacanian terms calls the symbolic order. When these elements are collected together under a shared term (like Victorian society, modern art or capitalism), they are, in Badiou’s terms, “counted as One” (''ibid''.: 24). From this count-as-One arises a representation of the presented multiplicity, a metastructure that Badiou terms the “state of the situation”, referring at once to the political state and the general status quo. Since “it is formally impossible … for everything which is included (every subset) to belong to the situation” (''ibid.'': 97), there is an excess of representation over presentation, of the state over the situation.
This excess is reformulated in Žižek’s terms as the “symptom”, and exemplified by an economic crisis in the system of capitalism (''TS'Alain Badiou': 131). It is this excess that opens the space for an Event, or in Žižek’s terms the “traumatic encounter with the Real”, the Lacanian '' (born [[1937Objet (petit) a|objet petit a]]'' (''TS'': 141). The Event, which belongs to the domain of non-Being, [[Rabat]]suddenly renders visible what was repressed or made invisible by the state. In turn, [[Morocco]]) the Truth is constituted through the active intervention of a subject, who chooses to be faithful to its potential for disrupting consensual knowledge and instituting a prominent [[France|French]] [[leftnew order of Being. In Badiou’s Christian paradigm, Christ’s Resurrection is the Event that emerges from the foundational void of Being-as-wing]] [[philosopher]] formerly chair Being, and St Paul is the subject of [[Philosophy]] at the [[École Normale Supérieure]] (ENS)Truth-Event.
==Biography==Although the Badiouian Truth relies upon a subjective intervention, this is not to say that it is personal or contingent. In Badiou’s own terms, “he who is a militant of truth identif[ies] himself … on the basis of the universal” (Badiou 2003: 109). Žižek insists on this point: although Truth is contingent in so far as it emerges from a concrete historical situation, “in every concrete and contingent situation there is ''one and only Truth''” (''TS'': 131). For Žižek, Badiou’s notion of a universal, infinite truth is a crucial retort to deconstructionism and to the advocates of anti-essentialist postmodernism. Badiou’s insight also allows Žižek to distinguish between historicism and “historicity proper”: whereas the former refers to a specific set of historical circumstances that lead to, and explain, the Event, the latter “involves the specific temporality of the Event and its aftermath, the span between the Event and its final End” (''TS'': 133) – between Christ’s death and the Last Judgement, between revolution and communism, and so forth.
It is the relation between Event and mortality that drives a wedge between Žižek and Badiou was trained formally . Badiou’s theoretical edifice is built upon an anti-dialectical – and what Žižek criticizes as a Kantian – opposition between two orders, Being and Event, and therefore finitude and immortality. His Event is radically separated from the death-drive, and linked instead with infinity, immortality and subjective constitution. Lacan’s [[philosopherThe Act|act]] as a student at , on the ENS contrary, is inextricable from 1956 to 1961mortality, a period during which he took courses at the [[University of Paris|Sorbonne]]. He had a lively death-drive and constant interest in mathematics. He was politically active very early on, and was one of the founding members of the [[United Socialist Party to use Lacan’s own words, “destruction beyond putrefaction” (France)|United Socialist Party]] (PSU''SVII'': 268). Instead of an opposition between Being and Event, Lacan insists on an offshoot “in-between” space – the “between two deaths”, the monstrous state of the ''[[French Communist Partylamella]]'' – that bridges this gap. The PSU was particularly active in the struggle subject’s immortality, for Lacan and Žižek after him, can emerge only from human finitude. Badiou’s distance from Lacan on this point is the [[decolonization]] principal weakness of [[Algeria]]. He wrote his first novel, philosophy according to Žižek: “What remains beyond Badiou’s reach is [[Almagestes]the]‘domain beyond the good’, in [[1964]]. In [[1967]] he joined which a study group organized human being encounters the death-drive at the utmost limit of human experience, and pays the price by [[Louis Althusser]] and grew increasingly influenced undergoing a radical ‘subjective destitution’, by [[Jacques Lacan]]being reduced to an excremental remainder” (''TS'': 161). For Žižek, the Lacanian subject’s “limit-experience” sets them apart from the Badiouian subject (''ibid''.). Since the death-drive is essential to any rupture from the symbolic order, the Lacanian act is a better basis for Badiou’s notions of a new political practice than his own Event.
The student uprisings of In ''[[May 1968The Parallax View]] had a huge impact on Badiou. While [[1968]] politicized many [[intellectual]]s, it served to reinforce Badiou's commitment to the [[far left]]', Žižek moves beyond negotiating between Lacan’s and he continued to organize [[communist]] Badiou’s theories and places himself in a more direct relationship with Badiou’s then-unpublished ''[[Maoist]] groups such as the [[UCFMLLogic of Worlds]]''. Žižek’s primary focus is on Badiou’s politics of prescription, mediated through Peter Hallward’s essay on that subject (Hallward 2005). In [[1969]] As he joined explains, the faculty Truth-Event is posited in Badiou’s theory as a point of [[University departure from which new codes of Paris]] VIII action are directly put into place (Vincennes-Saint DenisPV: 322). The Badiouian Truth, which was in this sense, is treated as already realized. Its future power is anticipated by the subject’s fidelity in the present. Hence Badiou’s primary example of a bastion subject of counter-cultural thought. There /to Truth is Paul, an apostle rather than a prophet: he engaged in fierce intellectual debates with fellow professors [[Gilles Deleuze]] and [[Jean-François Lyotard]]announces that the Event has come, whose [[leftist]] philosophy he considered an unhealthy deviation not that it is to come. Žižek finds this politics useful on a number of more main-line [[Marxism]]levels. In [[1988]] he published what First, it allows a clear distinction between radical emancipatory politics and the predominant status quo politics: whereas the former is an Event that at once stems from, and leads to, a universal Truth, the latter is a State, which according to Žižek is now considered enforced and (im)mobilized by many to be his major statementmeans of fear, whether of immigrants, crime or ecological catastrophes (''PV''L: 323). Second, the possibility of a universal, immortal Truth serves him in his struggle against the humorously termed “gang of democracy-to-come deconstructionist-postsecular-Levinasian-respect-for-Otherness suspects” ('être et l'événementPV'': 11). He took up his current position at Žižek offers two examples of successful practitioners of prescriptive political acts: John Brown in the ENS context of abolitionism in [[1999]]. He is also associated with a number of other institutionsnineteenth-century America, such as the [[European Graduate School]] and José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero in the [[Collège International de Philosophie]]. He is now a member context of political equality of "L'Organisation Politique" which he founded with some comrades from the Maoist UCFML women in 1985twenty-first-century Spain.
As in ''[[The Ticklish Subject: The Absent Centre of Political Ontology|The Ticklish Subject]]'', though, Žižek raises several points of contention. Expanding on his previous criticism of Badiou’s disavowed Kantianism, Žižek criticizes his continued insistence on the opposition between the Real and the subject, between existent Being and emergent Truth, and his consequent refusal of any Lacanian ontologization of the subject. On the one hand, Žižek agrees that the excess of the Unnameable – which he translates as the “''stupidity'' of the Real” (''PV'': 325) – should not be essentialized. On the other hand, he finds the maintenance of this unbridgeable gap problematic, since it jars with Badiou’s politics of prescription: since the Truth cannot be reinserted into the ontological domain of Being, Žižek argues, it remains to-come, it refuses actualization, it is a constantly deferred possibility in the future rather than a present actuality (''ibid''.). In other words, the notion of the Event is too idealistic, because the infinite immaterial order of the Truth-Event is privileged above the material, finite order of Being (PV: 166). His second problem with Badiou’s politics of prescription is that it is grounded in the concept of equality. According to Žižek, Badiou’s egalitarian political extremism (or what he terms “enforced ‘terrorist’ equality”) is “a phenomenon of ideologico-political ''displacement'': an index of its opposite, of a limitation, of a refusal actually to ‘go to the end’” (''PV'': 326). We thus return to his aforementioned suggestion that Badiou’s philosophy is not radical enough. Th is time, though, Žižek insists that Badiou’s lack of radicalism is due to his abandonment not of Lacan, but of Marx. Against Marx’s crucial insertion of political emancipation into the sphere of economics, Badiou refuses to regard the economy as a potential site for an Event. As Žižek points out, his four “generic procedures” – his four principal categories for Truth-processes, art, love, mathematics and politics – exclude economics.
==External links==
{{Wikiquote}}
*[http://www.lacan.com/bibliographyb.htm Alain Badiou Bibliography]
*[http://www.lacan.com/frameabad.htm Alain Badiou page at lacan dot com]
*[http://students.washington.edu/schenold/badiou/ Blooded by Thought - Bibliography, Resource (updated 04.01.2006)]
===Articles by Badiou=References==<references />48, 106, 107, 108, 128-9, 135-6, 137, 144-5, 158
====In English====TICKLISHBadiou, Alain*[http://newleftreview.co.uk/Issue35.asp?Article=04 The Adventure of French Philosophy]America and Roman Empire 211anti-communitarian communitarian 172*[http://www.islamonline.net/English/in_depth/hijab/2004Being and Truth-Event 128-03/article_04.shtml Behind the Scarfed Law35, There is Fear] (On 237-8beyond the [[French law on secularity and conspicuous religious symbols in schools| French headscarf ban]]) *[http://positions.dukejournals.org/cgi/reprint/13/3/481 The Cultural Revolution: The Last Revolution?] ([[Portable Document Format| PDF]])Good 161*[http://www.radicalphilosophy.com/default.asp?channel_id=2188&editorial_id=17175 Democratic Materialism Christianity and the Materialist Dialectic]psychoanalysis 145-51 *[http://www.lacan.com/badeight.htm Eight Theses on the Universal] *[http://positions.dukejournals.org/cgi/reprint/13/differences with Lacan 3/669 An Essential Philosophical Thesis: "It Is Right to Rebel against the Reactionaries"] (PDF) *[http://www.lacan.com/issue22.htm Fifteen Theses on Contemporary Art] *[http://positions.dukejournals.org/cgi/reprint/13/3/649 Further Selections from ''Théorie du sujet'' on the Cultural Revolution] (PDF) *[http://www.lacan.com/conceptsym.htm Highly Speculative Reasoning on the Concept of Democracy] (from ''Metapolitics'') *[http://blog.urbanomic.com/dread/archives/badiou, 159-numbers.pdf Number and Numbers] (A partial translation of Badiou's book ''Le nombre et les nombres'' on [[Number Theory]]; PDF)64 *[http://www.cinestatic.com/infinitethought/2005/05/badiou-on-eu.asp On fidelity to the European Constitution] *[http://www.egs.edu/faculty/badiou/badiouTruth-truth-processEvent 164,166-2002.html On the Truth-Process] (Lecture and discussion) *[http://www.lacan.com/divide.htm One Divides into Two] (On [[Lenin]])7*[http://www.radicalphilosophy.com/default.asp?channel_id=2188&editorial_id=10144 Philosophy ideology and Politics] *[http://www.lacan.com/badtruth.htm The Political as a the Truth Procedure] (from ''Metapolitics'') *[http://www.irrationalnumbers.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/badiou-politics.pdf Politics: a NonEvent 141-expressive Dialectics] (PDF)5*[http://www.lacan.com/frameXXI3.htm The Scene influence of Two] (English translation from ''De l'amour'')Althusser 128 *[http://positions.dukejournals.org/cgi/reprint/13/3/635 Selections from ''Théorie du sujet'' on is the Cultural Revolution] (PDF) *[http://www.lacan.com/symptom6_articles/badiou.html The Subject of Art] (Deitch Projects, New York, April 1 2005) *[http://positions.dukejournals.org/cgi/reprint/13/3/659 The Triumphant Restoration] (PDF) *[http://www.benstebbing.co.uk/ch4.pdf What Happens] (On [[Samuel Beckett|Beckett]]; PDF) *[http://www.counterpunch.org/badiou0501.html What is to be Thought? What is to be Done?] (On gap the [[French presidential election, 2002| 2002 French elections]]; written by Badiou, [[Sylvain Lazarus]] and [[Natasha Michel]]) *[http://www.cjs.ucla.edu/Mellon/Badiou_What_Is_Love.pdf What is Lovesubject?] (PDF) ====In French====158-9*[http:Master/Hysteric/ciepfc.rhapsodyk.net/article.php3?id_article=40 L'aveu du philosophe]University 164-5 *[http://www.organisationpolitique.com/distance/36_37/6_conf_A.B.pdf Considérations philosophiques sur des événements récents] (On return to the [[September 11, 2001 attacks]]; PDF) *[http://orgapoli.net/article.php3?id_article=143&var_recherche=badiou De la demande de faire des lois et de la façon d'y répondre]Substance 209*De la dialectique négative dans sa connexion à un certain bilan de Wagner ([http://www.entretemps.asso.fr/Adorno/Badiou part one]; [http://www.entretemps.asso.fr/Adorno/Badiou/22janvier.htm part two]) (Two lectures on [[Theodor Adorno]] St Paul and [[Richard Wagner]]) *[http://etoilerouge.chezpsychoanalysis 153-alice.fr/docrevfra/ucfml2.pdf De l'idéologie] (PDF) *[http://ciepfc.rhapsodyk.net/article.php3?id_article=44 Huit thèses sur l'universel]4 *[http://www.lemonde.fr/web/article/0,1subjectivity 182-0,36-710389,0.html L'humiliation ordinaire] (On the [[2005 civil unrest in France]]; [http://lecolonelchabert.blogspot.com/2005/11/badiou.html translation])4 *[http://www.lacan.com/dernier.htm Notes sur ''Le Dernier des hommes''] (On the movie [[The Last Laugh]] by [[F.W. Murnau| Murnau]]) *[http://www.lacan.com/badfrench.htm Panorama de la philosophie française contemporaine] *[http://etoilerouge.cheztransformation of Truth-alice.fr/docrevfra/ucfml1.pdf Théorie de la contradiction] (PDF) *[http://multitudes.samizdat.net/article.php3?id_article=217 Un, multiple, multiplicité(s)] (On [[Gilles Deleuze]]) ====In other languages====Event into*{{es icon}} [http://www.grupoacontecimiento.com.ar/documentos/documentos.htm en "Grupo Acontecimiento"]*{{es icon}} [http://www.google.com/custom?domains=antroposmoderno.com&q=badiou&sa.x=0&sa.y=0&sa=B%9Asqueda&sitesearch=antroposmoderno.com&client=pub-1455545019444106&forid=1&channel=9396407273&ie=ISO-8859-1&oe=ISO-8859universal 157-1&cof=GALT%3A%2339A9DB%3BGL%3A1%3BDIV%3A%23000000%3BVLC%3A39A9DB%3BAH%3Aleft%3BBGC%3A404040%3BLBGC%3A000000%3BALC%3A39A9DB%3BLC%3A39A9DB%3BT%3AFFFFFF%3BGFNT%3A39A9DB%3BGIMP%3A39A9DB%3BLH%3A50%3BLW%3A261%3BL%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.antroposmoderno.com%2FPix%2Flogo_nuevo_g_antro.gif%3BS%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2F%3BFORID%3A1%3B&hl=es en "antroposmoderno"]8*{{es icon}} [http://agora.ya.com/ivian/badiou.html en "Turbulencias"]*{{es icon}} [http://www.elortiba.org/badiou.html La Etica] (Translation undecidability of Badiou's book on [[ethics]])*{{es icon}} [http://www.nietzscheana.com.ar/badiou.htm Nietzsche, filosofía y antifilosofía] (On [[Friedrich Nietzsche]])*{{it icon}} [http://www.kainos.it/Pages/artic%20emer02.html Il cinema come falso movimento]*{{it icon}} [http://www.kainos.it/Pages/artic%20emer04.html Si può parlare di un film?] ===Interviews=== * [http://mambo.agrnews.rack2.purplecat.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=270&Itemid=2 AGR interviews Professor Alain Badiou] (Badiou interviewed by Shane Perlowin) * Being by Numbers ([http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0268/is_n2_v33/ai_16315394 part one]; [http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0268/is_n2_v33/ai_16315394/pg_2 part two]; [http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0268/is_n2_v33/ai_16315394/pg_3 part three]; [http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0268/is_n2_v33/ai_16315394/pg_4 part four]; [http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0268/is_n2_v33/ai_16315394/pg_5 part five]; Badiou interviewed by Lauren Sedofsky) *[http://ciepfc.rhapsodyk.net/article.php3?id_article=48 Beyond Formalisation] (Badiou interviewed by Peter Hallward and Bruno Bosteels; questions in English, answers in French) *[http://www.lacan.com/lacinkXXIII6.htm A Conversation with Alain Badiou] (Badiou interviewed by Mario Goldenberg) *{{es icon}} [http://www.grupoacontecimiento.com.ar/documentos/entrebadiou.pdf "Las democracias están en guerra contra los pobres"] (Badiou interviewed by Héctor Pavón; PDF) *{{es icon}} [http://www.lacan.com/jgbadiouf.htm Entrevista a Alain Badiou] (Badiou interviewed by Julia Goldenberg) *{{fr icon}} [http://multitudes.samizdat.net/article.php3?id_article=620 L’être, l’événement, la militance] (Badiou interviewed by Nicolethe Event 135-Édith Thévenin) *{{es icon}} [http://www.rebelion.org/cultura/040426ln.htm "Las ideas existen y tienen poder"] (Badiou interviewed by Pedro B. Rey) *[http://www.cabinetmagazine.org/issues/5/alainbadiou.php On Evil] (Badiou interviewed by Christoph Cox and Molly Whalen)41
*[http[Category:People|Badiou, Alai]][[Category:Philosophy|Badiou, Alai]][[Category://www.philosophyandscripture.org/Issue3-1/Politics|Badiou/, Alai]][[Category:Political theory|Badiou.html "Universal Truths & the Question of Religion", Alai]] ([[Category:Marxist theory|Badiou interviewed by Adam S. Miller), Alai]]
[[Image:Badiou_being_and_appearance.png|thumb|left|230px|Drawing from Art's Imperative lecture]]
===Audio===
*{{fr icon}} Journée Wagner ([http://www.diffusion.ens.fr/audio/2005_05_14_wagner_01.mp3 part one]; [http://www.diffusion.ens.fr/audio/2005_05_14_wagner_02.mp3 part two])
*[http://www.lacan.com/badioulecture.html Alain Badiou Live: The Subject of Art] New York City, April 1 2005
*[http://www.open-organizations.org/view/Main/PoliticsOfTruth2005 Politics: a Non-expressive Dialectics] London, November 26 2005
*[http://www.radio4all.net/pub/files/soundcoalition@riseup.net/1663-1-20060318-Badiou_ArtsImperative_1of2.mp3 Art's Imperative: Speaking the Unspeakable Part 1] New York City, March 8 2006
*[http://www.radio4all.net/pub/files/soundcoalition@riseup.net/1663-1-20060318-Badiou_ArtsImperative_2of2.mp3 Art's Imperative: Speaking the Unspeakable Part 2] New York City, March 8 2006
===Video=References==*[http://www.tate.org.uk/onlineevents/archive/deleuze/deleuze_day1_2.ram Immanent Choreographies: Deleuze and Neo-Aesthetics] (Lecture and discussion)*[http://www.egs.edu/video/alain-badiou-2003-hi-us.ram On Beckett]*[http://www.egs.edu/video<references /alainbadiou_us.ram On the Construction of a Truth]>
[[Category:PhilosophyPeople|Badiou, Alain]][[Category:PoliticsIndex|Badiou, Alain]][[Category:PeopleTarrying with the Negative|Badiou, Alain]][[Category:MarxismZizek Dictionary]]
