Books by Alain Badiou

Book SynopsisWhy bother to praise mathematics when you claim, as Alain Badiou does, that philosophy is first and foremost a metaphysics of happiness, or else it’s not worth an hour of trouble? What possible relationship can there be between mathematics and happiness? That is precisely the issue at stake in this dialogue, which serves as a very accessible introduction to what mathematics is and an exploration of the crucial influence it has always exerted on the greatest philosophers. Far from the thankless, pointless exercises they are often thought to be, mathematics and logic are indispensable guides to ridding ourselves of dominant opinions and making possible an access to truths, or to a human experience of the utmost value. That is why mathematics may well be the shortest path to the true life, which, when it exists, is characterized by an incomparable happiness.Trade Review�Badiou allows not only those in the know, but also those ignorant of geometry to enter here into his enchanting defense of mathematics. Packed with a variety of pleasures, this brief text introduces readers to brilliantly quirky mathematicians; philosophical problems with mathematical underpinnings; tricks of the trade, such as how to use the false to snare the truth; the passion of form; and the exquisite joy of the QED.� Joan Copjec, Brown UniversityTable of Contents Contents I Mathematics Must be Saved II Philosophy and Mathematics, or the Story of an Old Couple III What is Mathematics About? IV An Attempt at a Mathematics-based Metaphysics V Does Mathematics Bring Happiness? Conclusion

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Book SynopsisWhy bother to praise mathematics when you claim, as Alain Badiou does, that philosophy is first and foremost a metaphysics of happiness, or else it’s not worth an hour of trouble? What possible relationship can there be between mathematics and happiness? That is precisely the issue at stake in this dialogue, which serves as a very accessible introduction to what mathematics is and an exploration of the crucial influence it has always exerted on the greatest philosophers. Far from the thankless, pointless exercises they are often thought to be, mathematics and logic are indispensable guides to ridding ourselves of dominant opinions and making possible an access to truths, or to a human experience of the utmost value. That is why mathematics may well be the shortest path to the true life, which, when it exists, is characterized by an incomparable happiness.Trade Review�Badiou allows not only those in the know, but also those ignorant of geometry to enter here into his enchanting defense of mathematics. Packed with a variety of pleasures, this brief text introduces readers to brilliantly quirky mathematicians; philosophical problems with mathematical underpinnings; tricks of the trade, such as how to use the false to snare the truth; the passion of form; and the exquisite joy of the QED.� Joan Copjec, Brown UniversityTable of ContentsContentsI Mathematics Must be SavedII Philosophy and Mathematics, or the Story of an Old CoupleIII What is Mathematics About?IV An Attempt at a Mathematics-based MetaphysicsV Does Mathematics Bring Happiness?Conclusion

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Book SynopsisWho hasn't had the frightening experience of stumbling around in the pitch dark? Alain Badiou experienced that primitive terror when he, with his young friends, made up a game called "The Stroke of Midnight." The furtive discovery of the dark continent of sex in banned magazines, the beauty of black ink on paper, but also the mysteries of space and the grief of mourning: these are some of the things we encounter as the philosopher takes us on a trip through the private theater of his mind, at the whim of his memories. Music, painting, politics, sex, and metaphysics: all contribute to making black more luminous than it has ever been.Trade Review“Badiou’s Black is a singular and remarkable book. This is not the Badiou of ontology, set theory and the theorization of subjectivity, nor the Badiou of incisive political intervention or philosophical-historical summation. Working through a series of ficto-critical vignettes, Black is composed of subtle and diverse meditations on black as a darkness that obscures at the same time as it discloses. Black at once hearkens back to a style of personal philosophy that seemed lost with Blanchot, while also looking forward to a new mode of singular meditation that is perhaps necessary for twenty-first-century thought.” Claire Colebrook, Penn State University"Alain Badiou's Black: The Brilliance of a Noncolor is a radical departure for the impenetrable thinker of Theory of the Subject and Being and Event. It's more in the tradition of Maurice Blanchot (or even Alexander Theroux, Mark Rothko) than Lacan or Althusser and casts an evocative pall over the way text, thought, and flesh have come to negotiate dark and light (black/white)."Minor LiteraturesTable of ContentsTranslator's note Childhood and youth Military black The Stroke of Midnight The black dog in the dark The inkwell Chalk and markers Confusions Early sexuality The dialectics of black Dialectical ambiguities Black souls Soulages' ultrablack Flags Red and black. And white. And violet. Stendhal: the red and the black The dark desire of/for darkness Clothing The black sign Black humor, or black vs. black Outward appearance Physics, biology, and anthropology The metaphorical black of the Cosmos The secret blackness of plants Animal black An invention of white people

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Book Synopsis'I'm 79 years old. So why on earth should I concern myself with speaking about youth?' This is the question with which renowned French philosopher Alain Badiou begins his passionate plea to the young. Today young people, at least in the West, are on the brink of a new world. With the decline of old traditions, they now face more choices than ever before. Yet powerful forces are pushing them in dangerous directions, into the vortex of consumerism or into reactive forms of traditionalism. This is a time when young people must be particularly attentive to the signs of the new and have the courage to venture forth and find out what they're capable of, without being constrained by the old prejudices and hierarchical ideas of the past. And if the aim of philosophy is to corrupt youth, as Socrates was accused of doing, this can mean only one thing: to help young people see that they don't have to go down the paths already mapped out for them, that they are not just condemned to obey social customs, that they can create something new and propose a different direction as regards the true life.Trade Review"Scarcely any other moral philosopher of our day is as politically clear-sighted and courageously polemical, so prepared to put notions of truth and university back on the agenda."—Terry Eagleton, Lancaster University, UK "Alain Badiou's plea in this stimulating little book contains the 'serious coquetry' one expects from a philosopher committed to the corruption of youth: young people, whether young in body or mind, reorganize your youth, and in so doing reanimate thinking in radically new directions!"—Jason Barker, Kyung Hee UniversityTable of ContentsContents Note 1. To be young, today: Sense and nonsense 2. About the contemporary fate of boys 3. About the contemporary fate of girls

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Book Synopsis'I'm 79 years old. So why on earth should I concern myself with speaking about youth?' This is the question with which renowned French philosopher Alain Badiou begins his passionate plea to the young. Today young people, at least in the West, are on the brink of a new world. With the decline of old traditions, they now face more choices than ever before. Yet powerful forces are pushing them in dangerous directions, into the vortex of consumerism or into reactive forms of traditionalism. This is a time when young people must be particularly attentive to the signs of the new and have the courage to venture forth and find out what they're capable of, without being constrained by the old prejudices and hierarchical ideas of the past. And if the aim of philosophy is to corrupt youth, as Socrates was accused of doing, this can mean only one thing: to help young people see that they don't have to go down the paths already mapped out for them, that they are not just condemned to obey social customs, that they can create something new and propose a different direction as regards the true life.Trade Review"Scarcely any other moral philosopher of our day is as politically clear-sighted and courageously polemical, so prepared to put notions of truth and university back on the agenda."—Terry Eagleton, Lancaster University, UK "Alain Badiou's plea in this stimulating little book contains the 'serious coquetry' one expects from a philosopher committed to the corruption of youth: young people, whether young in body or mind, reorganize your youth, and in so doing reanimate thinking in radically new directions!"—Jason Barker, Kyung Hee UniversityTable of ContentsNote 1. To be young, today: Sense and nonsense 2. About the contemporary fate of boys 3. About the contemporary fate of girls

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Book SynopsisOn 13 November 2015, Paris suffered the second wave of brutal terrorist attacks in a year, leaving 130 dead and many more seriously injured. How are we to make sense of these violent acts and what do they tell us about the forces shaping our world today?In this short book the influential philosopher Alain Badiou argues that while these violent events are commonly portrayed as acts of Islamic terrorism, in fact they attest to a much deeper malaise that is connected to the triumph of global capitalism and to new forms of imperialism that involve the weakening of states, such that whole regions of the world have been turned into ungovernable zones run by armed gangs in which ordinary people are forced to live the most precarious lives. These zones have become the breeding ground for a new kind of nihilism that seeks revenge for the domination of the West. And it is this new nihilism, on to which Islam has been grafted, that exerts a particular appeal to the young men and women on the margins who carried out the atrocities in Paris. The tragedy of 13 November might appear at first sight to be rooted in immigration and Islam but our wound is not so recent: it is rooted in a deeper set of transformations that have reshaped our world, creating small islands of privilege amidst large masses of the destitute and depriving us of a politics that would offer a serious alternative to the present.Trade Review"Badiou�s short book on the roots of recent terrorist attacks can be compared to a single long cinematographic take, which begins with a close-up of an object and then gradually withdraws, so that we see its historical context. This wider context is the dynamics of global capitalism and it is only from such a perspective that we can locate the causes of the attacks. The book reads like a theoretical detective fiction - it is simply unputdownable." Slavoj Zizek

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Book SynopsisThe history of humanity has only just begun. The Neolithic Revolution may have endowed us with unparalleled means of communication, subsistence, and knowledge acquisition. However, it is clear in today’s world that inequality, power hierarchies, and violence persist on a greater scale than ever before. In these two lectures, delivered to the large number of young people who gathered in the Lycée Henri-IV and the École nationale des Beaux-Arts in Paris to hear him speak, Alain Badiou argues that we are still firmly rooted in the Neolithic era, subjugated by the structures of political power – property, family, and state. He calls for a second revolution to restore to each person their freedom and agency. Through an analysis of recent attempts at political organisation, including the Arab Spring, Occupy, and Nuit debout, Badiou shows that progress toward this goal will only be achieved through an emphasis on sameness, not difference. This rallying cry to the young from one of France’s most renowned radical thinkers will appeal to the many who read and follow his work, and to the millions of young people around the world who are passionate about redressing the deeply entrenched inequalities and divisions in our societies today.Trade Review"The main function of ideology today is not to crush actual resistance – this is the job of repressive state apparatuses – but to crush hope, to immediately denounce every critical project as opening a path at the end of which is something like the Gulag. At this precise point, Badiou’s wonderful short book intervenes: it brings hope, especially to the young whose situation is often without any prospects."—Slavoj Zizek, University of Ljubljana

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Book SynopsisThe history of humanity has only just begun. The Neolithic Revolution may have endowed us with unparalleled means of communication, subsistence, and knowledge acquisition. However, it is clear in today’s world that inequality, power hierarchies, and violence persist on a greater scale than ever before. In these two lectures, delivered to the large number of young people who gathered in the Lycée Henri-IV and the École nationale des Beaux-Arts in Paris to hear him speak, Alain Badiou argues that we are still firmly rooted in the Neolithic era, subjugated by the structures of political power – property, family, and state. He calls for a second revolution to restore to each person their freedom and agency. Through an analysis of recent attempts at political organisation, including the Arab Spring, Occupy, and Nuit debout, Badiou shows that progress toward this goal will only be achieved through an emphasis on sameness, not difference. This rallying cry to the young from one of France’s most renowned radical thinkers will appeal to the many who read and follow his work, and to the millions of young people around the world who are passionate about redressing the deeply entrenched inequalities and divisions in our societies today.Trade Review"The main function of ideology today is not to crush actual resistance – this is the job of repressive state apparatuses – but to crush hope, to immediately denounce every critical project as opening a path at the end of which is something like the Gulag. At this precise point, Badiou’s wonderful short book intervenes: it brings hope, especially to the young whose situation is often without any prospects."—Slavoj Zizek, University of Ljubljana

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Book SynopsisAgainst the backdrop of an alarming rise in authoritarianism and the crisis of liberal democracy, few would consider extoling the virtues of politics today. Yet in this lively dialogue with journalist Aude Lancelin, leading French thinker Alain Badiou argues that it is precisely through politics that humanity can still achieve its most ambitious aims. As power becomes ever more concentrated in the hands of the state and global corporations, the role of the citizen is reduced to little more than ritual. But Badiou emphasizes that politics is concerned not just with power and the state, but also with justice. So the central question of politics is “What is a just power?”, and the debate over politics is fundamentally about the norms to which power is subject and its relationship to a community – a community that is able to take control of its own destiny and provide its own direction, based on a shared standard of justice. This engaging dialogue, in which Badiou articulates his view of politics with exceptional clarity, will be of great value to anyone interested in radical politics today.Trade Review “A miracle occurs in this short book: it is as though Plato has somehow returned from the dead and commented on our time in a dialogue with his best pupil. This dialogue on the Platonic topic of justice in politics is an instant classic; compulsive reading for everyone who wants to search for truth in our era of opinions and alternative facts.”Slavoj ŽižekTable of Contents I. What is Politics? II. The Communist Hypothesis III. Revolutions Put to the Test of History IV. What Does “The Left” Mean Today? V. Macron, or the Democratic Coup d’état Conclusion

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Book SynopsisAgainst the backdrop of an alarming rise in authoritarianism and the crisis of liberal democracy, few would consider extoling the virtues of politics today. Yet in this lively dialogue with journalist Aude Lancelin, leading French thinker Alain Badiou argues that it is precisely through politics that humanity can still achieve its most ambitious aims. As power becomes ever more concentrated in the hands of the state and global corporations, the role of the citizen is reduced to little more than ritual. But Badiou emphasizes that politics is concerned not just with power and the state, but also with justice. So the central question of politics is “What is a just power?”, and the debate over politics is fundamentally about the norms to which power is subject and its relationship to a community – a community that is able to take control of its own destiny and provide its own direction, based on a shared standard of justice. This engaging dialogue, in which Badiou articulates his view of politics with exceptional clarity, will be of great value to anyone interested in radical politics today.Trade Review “A miracle occurs in this short book: it is as though Plato has somehow returned from the dead and commented on our time in a dialogue with his best pupil. This dialogue on the Platonic topic of justice in politics is an instant classic; compulsive reading for everyone who wants to search for truth in our era of opinions and alternative facts.”Slavoj Žižek

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Book SynopsisThis volume of conversations between Alain Badiou and Peter Engelmann focuses on the concrete political situation in the world of today. Here the validity and applicability of Badiou’s ideas are tested in relation to the great social and political problems of our time, including terrorism, migration, the surge in support for nationalist and populist parties and the growing gap between rich and poor. Badiou argues that in the age of today’s globalized capitalism, with its division of labour on a global scale and the worldwide interconnection of information through the Internet, there are no longer any national solutions. Because nations and states lose meaning in favour of transnational corporations in globalized capitalism, resistance to capitalism must by definition be global too. Only a politics that defines itself as a politics for all and does not act in the interests of one particular group – whether a nation, religion or community of shared values – can lead the world out of the current crisis of globalized capitalism.Trade Review‘Badiou's powerful exposition of the unfinished project of revolutionary Marxism makes a compelling case for the universality of communist politics. Elaborated with respect to pressing contemporary problems, his vision for a communist politics for us is inspiring, necessary, and – best of all – possible.’Jodi Dean, Hobart and William Smith Colleges “[a] lively and engaging discussion.”Marx & Philosophy Review of BooksTable of ContentsContents Foreword by Peter Engelmann First Conversation The Situation of the Left Today and the Necessity of an Alternative The Democratic Discourse Communism as Modern Politics? Second Conversation The New Imperialism Politics of Identity The Principle of the Common Good, or: Beyond the Economy Afterword: On Trump Notes

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Book SynopsisThis volume of conversations between Alain Badiou and Peter Engelmann focuses on the concrete political situation in the world of today. Here the validity and applicability of Badiou’s ideas are tested in relation to the great social and political problems of our time, including terrorism, migration, the surge in support for nationalist and populist parties and the growing gap between rich and poor. Badiou argues that in the age of today’s globalized capitalism, with its division of labour on a global scale and the worldwide interconnection of information through the Internet, there are no longer any national solutions. Because nations and states lose meaning in favour of transnational corporations in globalized capitalism, resistance to capitalism must by definition be global too. Only a politics that defines itself as a politics for all and does not act in the interests of one particular group – whether a nation, religion or community of shared values – can lead the world out of the current crisis of globalized capitalism.Trade Review‘Badiou's powerful exposition of the unfinished project of revolutionary Marxism makes a compelling case for the universality of communist politics. Elaborated with respect to pressing contemporary problems, his vision for a communist politics for us is inspiring, necessary, and – best of all – possible.’Jodi Dean, Hobart and William Smith Colleges “[a] lively and engaging discussion.”Marx & Philosophy Review of BooksTable of ContentsContents Foreword by Peter Engelmann First Conversation The Situation of the Left Today and the Necessity of an Alternative The Democratic Discourse Communism as Modern Politics? Second Conversation The New Imperialism Politics of Identity The Principle of the Common Good, or: Beyond the Economy Afterword: On Trump Notes

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Book SynopsisThe election of Donald Trump as president of the United States sent shockwaves across the globe. How was such an outcome even possible? In two lectures given at American universities in the immediate aftermath of the election, the leading French philosopher Alain Badiou helps us to make sense of this extraordinary occurrence. He argues that Trump's victory was the symptom of a global crisis made up of four characteristics: the triumph of a brutal form of global capitalism, the decomposition of the established political elite, the growing frustration and disorientation that many people feel today, and the absence of a compelling alternative vision. It was in this context that Trump could emerge as a new kind of political figure that was both inside and outside the political order, a member of the Republican Party who, at the same time, represents something outside the system. The progressive political challenge now is to create something new that offers people a real choice, a radical alternative based on principles of universality and equality. This concise account of the meaning of Trump should be read by everyone who wants to understand what is happening in our world today.Trade Review"What is our task today? Reading Trump as the symptom of global capitalism's political crisis, Badiou compellingly argues that our task is to bring into existence a strategic choice between capitalism and communism. Anything less confines us to the present's democratic fascism. This crucial intervention eschews fear and despair as it finds hope in the creation of a divisive, communist politics."—Jodi Dean, author of Crowds and Party "Approachable and insightful, and will satisfy both general readers and readers more knowledgeable about political theory."—Publishers WeeklyTable of ContentsTwo Days after the Election of Trump Alain Badiou Speaks in Los Angeles Two Weeks after the Election of Trump Alain Badiou Speaks in Boston

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Book SynopsisThe election of Donald Trump as president of the United States sent shockwaves across the globe. How was such an outcome even possible? In two lectures given at American universities in the immediate aftermath of the election, the leading French philosopher Alain Badiou helps us to make sense of this extraordinary occurrence. He argues that Trump's victory was the symptom of a global crisis made up of four characteristics: the triumph of a brutal form of global capitalism, the decomposition of the established political elite, the growing frustration and disorientation that many people feel today, and the absence of a compelling alternative vision. It was in this context that Trump could emerge as a new kind of political figure that was both inside and outside the political order, a member of the Republican Party who, at the same time, represents something outside the system. The progressive political challenge now is to create something new that offers people a real choice, a radical alternative based on principles of universality and equality. This concise account of the meaning of Trump should be read by everyone who wants to understand what is happening in our world today.Trade Review"What is our task today? Reading Trump as the symptom of global capitalism's political crisis, Badiou compellingly argues that our task is to bring into existence a strategic choice between capitalism and communism. Anything less confines us to the present's democratic fascism. This crucial intervention eschews fear and despair as it finds hope in the creation of a divisive, communist politics."—Jodi Dean, author of Crowds and Party "Approachable and insightful, and will satisfy both general readers and readers more knowledgeable about political theory."—Publishers WeeklyTable of ContentsTwo Days after the Election of Trump Alain Badiou Speaks in Los Angeles Two Weeks after the Election of Trump Alain Badiou Speaks in Boston

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Book SynopsisThe notion of ‘the end’ has long occupied philosophical thought. In light of the horrors of the twentieth century, some writers have gone so far as to declare the end of philosophy itself, emphasizing the impossibility of thinking after Auschwitz. In this book the distinguished philosopher Alain Badiou, in dialogue with Giovanbattista Tusa, argues that we must renounce ‘the pathos of completion’ and continue to think philosophically. To accept the atrocities of the twentieth century as marking the end of philosophy is intolerable precisely because it buys into the totalizing doctrines of the perpetrators. Badiou contends that philosophical thinking is needed now more than ever to counter the totalizing effects of globalized capitalism, which prescribes no objective for human life other than integration into its system, giving rise to a widespread sense of hopelessness and nihilism. This book will appeal to the many followers of Badiou’s work and to anyone interested in contemporary philosophy and radical political theory.Trade Review‘For those who are new to the work of Alain Badiou, and for those familiar with his corpus, The End offers a lucid overview of some of his most important concepts – the subject, event, politics. It also works its way through two senses of the end, both the current nihilistic end times of twenty-first-century capitalism, and the more radical and innovative end of the Western philosophical tradition. Part interview, part dialogue, part reflection and part essay, The End is at once an engaging and provocative read.’Claire Colebrook, Penn State UniversityTable of ContentsApologue Prologue The End Epilogue Coda: ‘To the End? Of Europe and Philosophy’ The Infinity of Truths. A Very Short Essay on the End of Ends Notes

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Book SynopsisThe notion of ‘the end’ has long occupied philosophical thought. In light of the horrors of the twentieth century, some writers have gone so far as to declare the end of philosophy itself, emphasizing the impossibility of thinking after Auschwitz. In this book the distinguished philosopher Alain Badiou, in dialogue with Giovanbattista Tusa, argues that we must renounce ‘the pathos of completion’ and continue to think philosophically. To accept the atrocities of the twentieth century as marking the end of philosophy is intolerable precisely because it buys into the totalizing doctrines of the perpetrators. Badiou contends that philosophical thinking is needed now more than ever to counter the totalizing effects of globalized capitalism, which prescribes no objective for human life other than integration into its system, giving rise to a widespread sense of hopelessness and nihilism. This book will appeal to the many followers of Badiou’s work and to anyone interested in contemporary philosophy and radical political theory.Trade Review‘For those who are new to the work of Alain Badiou, and for those familiar with his corpus, The End offers a lucid overview of some of his most important concepts – the subject, event, politics. It also works its way through two senses of the end, both the current nihilistic end times of twenty-first-century capitalism, and the more radical and innovative end of the Western philosophical tradition. Part interview, part dialogue, part reflection and part essay, The End is at once an engaging and provocative read.’Claire Colebrook, Penn State UniversityTable of ContentsApologue Prologue The End Epilogue Coda: ‘To the End? Of Europe and Philosophy’ The Infinity of Truths. A Very Short Essay on the End of Ends Notes

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Book SynopsisThe question of migration has come to dominate the news agenda in many countries, but what does the word ‘migrant’ really mean today and how should we respond to those who are labelled ‘migrants’? In this short book Alain Badiou argues that our way of thinking about migration should be governed both by an ethical duty to welcome the migrant in the name of hospitality and also by the urgent need to put an end to the global capitalist oligarchy that has produced the migrant as a figure of contemporary crisis. For the ‘migrant,’ argues Badiou, is in fact a nomadic proletarian. Today, our homeland is the world, and any meaningful politics must include those who come to us and who represent the universal nomadic proletariat. Writing with the rigor, clarity, and polemical flair that have made him one of the world’s most influential philosophers, and drawing on a rich body of material including contemporary poetry and the words of an anonymous migrant, Badiou develops a powerful riposte to those who have stoked the fear of migrants and exploited the migration question for political ends.

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Book SynopsisWhat is the relation between politics and the world? It might seem that global capitalism has created one world, but this is an illusion because capitalism creates a world of objects and money that divides human existence into regions separated by fences and walls built to keep some people out. In place of this falsely unified world of global capitalism, we need to assert a fundamental principle – namely, that there is one world of living subjects. This, in Badiou's view, is the categorical imperative of all true politics. The one world of living subjects is the place where an infinity of differences and identities exist. Hence foreigners are not a problem but rather an opportunity and a gift. They bear witness to the youth of the world in its infinite variety, and it is with this youth that the politics of the future rests. Foreignness is the means by which existence is re-evaluated, and all true politics is a new dawn of existence. This collection of essays by Badiou, in which he draws out the political implications of recent events and social movements, will be of value to anyone interested in the great social and political questions of our time.Trade Review"Badiou once again demonstrates the necessity of communism for thought. Nothing less than a new dialectical materialism is capable of breaking free from the present's ideological confinement."—Jodi Dean, author of Comrade: An Essay on Political Belonging "Badiou's great attempt to show us how to think, to act, and to write as revolutionaries in order to create a society, planet, a new age where Good prevails"—Inscriptions"elegant and provocative"—Emancipations: A Journal of Critical Social AnalysisTable of ContentsPart I: Structures and Notions, Becomings and Visions 1. The Neolithic Age, Capitalism and Communism 2. The Notion of ‘Crisis’ 3. Science, Ideology, and the Middle Class 4. Lecture at the Institute of Political Sciences Part II: Thinking the Present from the To-Come 5. Lessons from the ‘Gilets Jaunes’ Movement 6. Pandemic, Ignorance, and New Sites of Collectivity 7. Movements without an Idea and an Idea for Movements 8. World, Existence, Foreignness: A New Dawn for Politics

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Book SynopsisWhat is the relation between politics and the world? It might seem that global capitalism has created one world, but this is an illusion because capitalism creates a world of objects and money that divides human existence into regions separated by fences and walls built to keep some people out. In place of this falsely unified world of global capitalism, we need to assert a fundamental principle – namely, that there is one world of living subjects. This, in Badiou's view, is the categorical imperative of all true politics. The one world of living subjects is the place where an infinity of differences and identities exist. Hence foreigners are not a problem but rather an opportunity and a gift. They bear witness to the youth of the world in its infinite variety, and it is with this youth that the politics of the future rests. Foreignness is the means by which existence is re-evaluated, and all true politics is a new dawn of existence. This collection of essays by Badiou, in which he draws out the political implications of recent events and social movements, will be of value to anyone interested in the great social and political questions of our time.Trade Review"Badiou once again demonstrates the necessity of communism for thought. Nothing less than a new dialectical materialism is capable of breaking free from the present's ideological confinement."—Jodi Dean, author of Comrade: An Essay on Political Belonging "Badiou's great attempt to show us how to think, to act, and to write as revolutionaries in order to create a society, planet, a new age where Good prevails"—Inscriptions"elegant and provocative"—Emancipations: A Journal of Critical Social AnalysisTable of ContentsPart I: Structures and Notions, Becomings and Visions1. The Neolithic Age, Capitalism and Communism2. The Notion of ‘Crisis’3. Science, Ideology, and the Middle Class4. Lecture at the Institute of Political SciencesPart II: Thinking the Present from the To-Come5. Lessons from the ‘Gilets Jaunes’ Movement 6. Pandemic, Ignorance, and New Sites of Collectivity7. Movements without an Idea and an Idea for Movements8. World, Existence, Foreignness: A New Dawn for Politics

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Book SynopsisWhat kind of philosophy do we need for the 21st century? To answer to this question, Alain Badiou imagines a dialogue between Tocéras, an earnest and engaging professor, and various interlocutors from different countries and philosophical cultures John After from Britain, Amantha from Greece, B'adj Akil from Senegal, Xi La Pong from China and several others. Their conversation takes readers on a playful journey through the history of philosophy framed by the five great questions that have preoccupied Alain Badiou: democracy, freedom, universality, language and being. At the same time, philosophy is presented not as a system or doctrine but as movement and dialogue. The philosopher is not a solitary figure; he is inseparable from his pupils, his disciples and his adversaries. It is only at the end of the journey that he arrives at the written, stable forms of his work. So we are dealing more with a play than a treatise, more with dialogues than monologues, more with a course than a book. The obvious model is Plato's Socrates, who, in founding philosophy as a discipline, ensured that it could be established anywhere in the world. In praise, yes, of philosophy as the public creation of a thought that, inventing itself and transporting itself anywhere, speaking to anyone about anything, invents the theatricalization of being.

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Book SynopsisWhat kind of philosophy do we need for the 21st century? To answer to this question, Alain Badiou imagines a dialogue between Tocéras, an earnest and engaging professor, and various interlocutors from different countries and philosophical cultures John After from Britain, Amantha from Greece, B'adj Akil from Senegal, Xi La Pong from China and several others. Their conversation takes readers on a playful journey through the history of philosophy framed by the five great questions that have preoccupied Alain Badiou: democracy, freedom, universality, language and being. At the same time, philosophy is presented not as a system or doctrine but as movement and dialogue. The philosopher is not a solitary figure; he is inseparable from his pupils, his disciples and his adversaries. It is only at the end of the journey that he arrives at the written, stable forms of his work. So we are dealing more with a play than a treatise, more with dialogues than monologues, more with a course than a book. The obvious model is Plato's Socrates, who, in founding philosophy as a discipline, ensured that it could be established anywhere in the world. In praise, yes, of philosophy as the public creation of a thought that, inventing itself and transporting itself anywhere, speaking to anyone about anything, invents the theatricalization of being.

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Book SynopsisIn a series of seven trenchant interventions Alain Badou analyses the decisive developments in Greece since 2011. Badiou considers this Mediterranean country "a sort of open-air political lesson", with much to tell us about the wider situation. Greece is exemplary of "our fundamental contradictions in Europe, which are also ultimately the fundamental contradictions of the world such as it is-the world served up to the authoritarian anarchy of capitalism."Notwithstanding the Greeks' heartening opposition to the financial markets' hegemony, Badiou considers it also important to address the reasons why this opposition failed. "Movementist" politics may arouse widespread sympathy, but for the French philosopher they have "absolutely no effect other than to temporarily trap the movement in the negative weakness of its affects." Badiou argues that a consequential opposition inspired by the emancipatory politics of the past-or by what he calls "the communist hypothesis"-should set its compass by the "orienting maxims" proposed in this book, defining a direction for political action.Trade ReviewIn the past few years, Alain Badiou's oeuvre has imposed itself as the most significant philosophical import from the Continent. -- Alberto Toscano, author of Fanaticism: On the Uses of an Idea * The British Journal of Sociology *Whatever his pessimistic assessments of the contemporary situation (St Paul in the place of Lenin?), Badiou's emphasis on activity and production, his insistence on fidelity as the resurrected of the dormant Events of a seemingly extinct political praxis, can only be energizing for us. -- Fredric Jameson * New Left Review *One of the most important philosophers writing today. -- Joan CopjecA figure like Plato or Hegel walks here among us! -- Slavoj ZizekAn heir to Jean-Paul Sartre and Louis Althusser. * New Statesman *Badiou's sardonically compressed style is never less than pungent. * Guardian *Shaking the foundations of Western liberal democracy. * Times Higher Education Supplement *A thinker of tremendously invigorating moral fervour, able to rise to Swiftian scorn or fine Cocteau-like flourishes. Badiou's passionate belief in human autonomy is inspiring. * Daily Telegraph *Scarcely any other moral thinker of our day is as politically clear-sighted and courageously polemical, so prepared to put notions of truth and universality back on the agenda. -- Terry EagletonFrench philosophy still has a kick in it, and it can still turn heads. You have been warned. -- Jonathan Rée * Prospect *Magnificently stirring. A characteristically lucid polemic from a philosopher who is far from willing to abandon humanity to the vicissitudes of so-called global capitalism. -- Mark Fisher * Frieze *Badiou has been an intellectual hero of France's anti-capitalist left since the Paris street protests of 1968. * BBC HARDtalk *Greece has long been a country with 'too much history,' a harbinger of broader developments in Europe. In the course of its recent crisis it provided the testing ground for several political approaches. Failure was general, but none was greater than the abject capitulation of Syriza. Alain Badiou surveys the wreckage calmly and with sadness, seeking the reinvention of a radical and class-based politics. This is indeed what Europe needs today, and the only positive outcome from the Syriza debacle. -- Costas Lapavitsas, SOAS, University of London

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Book SynopsisBadiou indicts this approach, which reduces politics to a matter of opinion, thus eliminating any of its truly radical and emancipatory possibilities. Against this intellectual tradition, Badiou proposes instead the consideration of politics in terms of the production of truth and the affirmation of equality. He demands that the question of a possible "political truth" be separated from any notion of consensus or public opinion, and that political action be rethought in terms of the complex process that binds discussion to decision. Starting from this analysis, Badiou critically examines the thought of anthropologist and political theorist Sylvain Lazarus, Jacques Ranciere's writings on workers' history and democratic dissensus, the role of the subject in Althusser, as well as the concept of democracy and the link between truth and justice.Trade ReviewA figure like Plato or Hegel walks here among us! -- Slavoj ZizekAn heir to Jean-Paul Sartre and Louis Althusser. * New Statesman *One of the most important philosophers writing today. -- Joan Copjec

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Book Synopsis

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Book Synopsis

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Book Synopsis

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Book Synopsis

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Book Synopsis

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Book Synopsis

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Book SynopsisEn este breve ensayo, Alain Badiou habla de las matanzas perpetradas el 13 de noviembre de 2015 en París y analiza lo que ocurrió.Quiénes son los asesinos? Cómo calificar su acción?Qué sucede con nuestro mundo, desde el punto de vista de lo que se estableció insidiosamente, luego de forma evidente, después con encarnizamiento, desde hace poco más de treinta años?El 10% de la población mundial posee el 86% de los recursos disponibles. El 50% de la población no posee nada. Nuestro mundo reconfigura una situación oligárquica que conocimos hace mucho tiempo. Pero sufrimos la ausencia, a escala mundial, de una política disociada del capitalismo hegemónico. Mientras no se haga otra propuesta estratégica, el mundo permanecerá en una desorientación esencial.Cómo intentar construir un pensamiento diferente??Para el filósofo Alain Badiou, pensar los asesinatos del 13 de noviembre de 2015, como hace en este último ensayo, exige comprender que el mal viene de más lejos: de la ausencia de un horizonte político emancipador, del poder de un nihilismo contemporáneo que alimenta el fascismo contemporáneo?.lesinrocks.com (enero de 2016)

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