Why I think Badiou is worth bothering with:
i) He presents a concept of truth which does two important things at the same time:
i.i) It says that there are truths (plural), and that these are not reducible to opinions, cultural preferences or figures of ideology.
i.ii) It completely separates truth from knowledge. You don't come to know a truth by studying higher mathematics, reading deeply of the great poets of the Western Tradition (tm) and attending reverently to the sage words of an intellectual master. You construct a truth by doing-thinking, in equality with others, and come to embody a finite part of the truth in doing so. A truth can only appear where knowledge gives out, where there is something genuinely new to be thought and done.
ii) He does not present his own philosophy as a truth of this kind. Knowing Badiou - knowing his texts and his arguments exceedingly well, down to the last detail - will not bring you the slightest bit closer to any truth. It may however help to persuade you that there are truths, and that they are worth fighting for.
iii) He esteems cultural and intellectual greatness, but does not regard it as the centre of all human value. He acknowledges plainly that no amount of philosophy or mathematics will emancipate suffering humanity. He does not regard philosophy and mathematics as worthless activities because of this. The humanity he wishes to see emancipated is a humanity that is capable - all of it, no matter how mean its circumstances or limited its horizons - of creation, of participation in the doing-thinking that makes a new truth, be it artistic, scientific, political or amorous.
iv) He recognises that violence and terror are an unavoidable part of the creativity of political truths. He rejects the contemporary moral consensus that says that a world without truths is a price worth paying for the physical safety and social peace of a sheltered minority.
iv.i) Speaking as a member of that sheltered minority, I don't feel at all comfortable about this. I don't want to indulge in any false bravado about being ready to die for a worthy cause. Still less do I wish to surrender myself to the reckless obscenity of declaring my readiness to kill for one. When I think about the last hours of the Paris Commune, or the frenzy of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, I am afraid.
iv.ii) Nevertheless, I agree with Badiou that we must not allow the managers of our wealthy societies to use the fear of violence and terror to force us to accept the world as it - precariously - is. That world is already a violent and terrible place. We must accept rationally, even if it is impossible to accept emotionally, that history has not ended with us, that our safety and prosperity are a temporary illusion, and that there is a great deal still to be done.
v) He makes intelligible, for the educated reader who is not a mathematical adept, mathematical concepts of tremendous beauty and power.
v.i) Only a minority of people, even in our wealthy societies, are fortunate enough to have been educated to the point where they will be able to encounter these concepts through Badiou's texts. And of those that have, not all will want to progress through the often ponderous demonstrations through which they are carefully exposed. Nevertheless, for those who have had the good fortune to become members of that large literate public that an affluent society affords, and who have the desire to educate themselves about some of the great intellectual accomplishments of 20th century mathematics, Badiou is an able and enabling tutor.
v.ii) Politically speaking, Badiou's commitment to conceptual clarity and transmissibility militates against the authoritarian obscurantism of a Heidegger or a Lacan. His prose style is certainly "elevated", and his language full of the terms of art of the specialist discourse that 20th century French philosophy has become, but when it comes to the formal dimension of his argument, he takes enormous pains to be unambiguous and consistent. Quite simply, it is possible for him to be wrong - demonstrably and corrigibly wrong - in a way that it is never possible for Lacan to be wrong.
vi) He pisses off all the right people. Badiou reports that Derrida said to him, during a period of late rapprochement, "at least we have the same enemies". Those are enemies worth having: one should be proud to have acquired them, and endeavour to affront them in all things.
i) He presents a concept of truth which does two important things at the same time:
i.i) It says that there are truths (plural), and that these are not reducible to opinions, cultural preferences or figures of ideology.
i.ii) It completely separates truth from knowledge. You don't come to know a truth by studying higher mathematics, reading deeply of the great poets of the Western Tradition (tm) and attending reverently to the sage words of an intellectual master. You construct a truth by doing-thinking, in equality with others, and come to embody a finite part of the truth in doing so. A truth can only appear where knowledge gives out, where there is something genuinely new to be thought and done.
ii) He does not present his own philosophy as a truth of this kind. Knowing Badiou - knowing his texts and his arguments exceedingly well, down to the last detail - will not bring you the slightest bit closer to any truth. It may however help to persuade you that there are truths, and that they are worth fighting for.
iii) He esteems cultural and intellectual greatness, but does not regard it as the centre of all human value. He acknowledges plainly that no amount of philosophy or mathematics will emancipate suffering humanity. He does not regard philosophy and mathematics as worthless activities because of this. The humanity he wishes to see emancipated is a humanity that is capable - all of it, no matter how mean its circumstances or limited its horizons - of creation, of participation in the doing-thinking that makes a new truth, be it artistic, scientific, political or amorous.
iv) He recognises that violence and terror are an unavoidable part of the creativity of political truths. He rejects the contemporary moral consensus that says that a world without truths is a price worth paying for the physical safety and social peace of a sheltered minority.
iv.i) Speaking as a member of that sheltered minority, I don't feel at all comfortable about this. I don't want to indulge in any false bravado about being ready to die for a worthy cause. Still less do I wish to surrender myself to the reckless obscenity of declaring my readiness to kill for one. When I think about the last hours of the Paris Commune, or the frenzy of the Chinese Cultural Revolution, I am afraid.
iv.ii) Nevertheless, I agree with Badiou that we must not allow the managers of our wealthy societies to use the fear of violence and terror to force us to accept the world as it - precariously - is. That world is already a violent and terrible place. We must accept rationally, even if it is impossible to accept emotionally, that history has not ended with us, that our safety and prosperity are a temporary illusion, and that there is a great deal still to be done.
v) He makes intelligible, for the educated reader who is not a mathematical adept, mathematical concepts of tremendous beauty and power.
v.i) Only a minority of people, even in our wealthy societies, are fortunate enough to have been educated to the point where they will be able to encounter these concepts through Badiou's texts. And of those that have, not all will want to progress through the often ponderous demonstrations through which they are carefully exposed. Nevertheless, for those who have had the good fortune to become members of that large literate public that an affluent society affords, and who have the desire to educate themselves about some of the great intellectual accomplishments of 20th century mathematics, Badiou is an able and enabling tutor.
v.ii) Politically speaking, Badiou's commitment to conceptual clarity and transmissibility militates against the authoritarian obscurantism of a Heidegger or a Lacan. His prose style is certainly "elevated", and his language full of the terms of art of the specialist discourse that 20th century French philosophy has become, but when it comes to the formal dimension of his argument, he takes enormous pains to be unambiguous and consistent. Quite simply, it is possible for him to be wrong - demonstrably and corrigibly wrong - in a way that it is never possible for Lacan to be wrong.
vi) He pisses off all the right people. Badiou reports that Derrida said to him, during a period of late rapprochement, "at least we have the same enemies". Those are enemies worth having: one should be proud to have acquired them, and endeavour to affront them in all things.
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