I’ve decided that intentionally neglecting my work for a particular project is forgivable. As well, I’ve had the idea for a while to (semi)regularly highlight a particular author/theorist/text that I happen to be reading and find interesting. So, perhaps you could call this a new “feature” on my blog.
This weekend, I read Infinite Thought, a collection of essays/lectures by the contemporary philosopher Alain Badiou. I was introduced to Badiou by Terry, a colleague and fellow theory-nut. My comments here are based on my reading of IT as well as some discussions I’ve had with Terry.
Badiou sees three major strains in 20th-Century philosophy: the Hermeneutic (Heidegger/Gadamer, et al.), the Analytic (Wittgenstein/Carnap et al.) and the Postmodern (Lyotard/Derrida, et al.). All three of these positions he sees as inadequate. In particular, it seems that he wants to shift the emphasis from language (which all three of these strains share) to being itself, to an ontology that exists outside of language. Consequently, Badiou is concerned with a return to true and universal statements, for he argues that philosophy “cannot renounce that its address is directed to everyone, in principle if not in fact, and that does not exclude from this address linguistic, national, religious or racial communities.” He wants to focus on “the question of philosophically reconstructing, with a slowness which will insulate us from the speed of the world, the category of truth – not as it is passed down to us by metaphysics, but rather as we are able to reconstitute it, taking into consideration the world as it is.”
To do this, he looks at what he calls the “event”; [his major work, not yet translated from French, is titled L’Etre et l’événment (Being and the Event)]. To be perfectly honest, I don’t fully understand this concept; the writers of the introduction state that his fundamental ontological claim is “There are situations” or “there are multiple multiplicities.” He pulls very heavily from set theory, claiming that this is the way to do ontology, which leads me to believe that he is talking about the event as the arrangement of things, ideas, forces, people, etc. I think, perhaps, he is attempting a non-essentialist ontology that still provides for truth-claims and philosophical inquiry. Hence the rejection of metaphysics yet simultaneously a desire to describe the world as it is.
All of that is to say, I found Infinite Thought fascinating and engaging, although at times challenging. I recommend it, and if anyone has read any Badiou, I’d like to hear what you have to say.