Book
Licensed
Unlicensed
Requires Authentication
Badiou and Politics
-
Bruno Bosteels
Language:
English
Published/Copyright:
2011
About this book
Examines the political thinking of French philosopher of Alain Badiou, whose theories of ontology and mathematics have set him apart from many of his post-structuralist contemporaries.
Author / Editor information
Bruno Bosteels is Professor of Romance Studies at Cornell University. He is the author of several books, including Alain Badiou, une trajectoire polémique and The Actuality of Communism, and the translator of Theory of the Subject and Wittgenstein’s Antiphilosophy, both by Alain Badiou.
Reviews
“If it is, by definition, unfair to expect critical theory to respond at the level of direct relevancy to the current conjuncture – if, indeed, such an imperative would dilute the very critical potency that makes the best critical writing transcend the immediate context of its composition – the circumstances of philosophical production and reception should, nonetheless, figure more in our reading, should trouble us more even as we learn from the ‘stars’ of the current philosophical firmament. Those circumstances – institutional, economic, academic – form the ambient frame through which Bosteels’ luminously written reflections on Badiou’s political philosophy should be read.” - Tom Eyers, Marx and Philosophy Review of Books
“Politics is a tough topic to tackle on any level. Badiou is a tough thinker to engage with. Bosteels unites, complements, and distinguishes both in his 436-page book working through the theories of a thinker who himself is grappling directly with politics: politics as an event, politics as being, and politics as one of four truth procedures defining the subject.” - Kevin D. Kuswa, Culture Machine
“Bruno Bosteels’s fine book restores the political and philosophical context of Alain Badiou’s lifework, and shows in particular how he has aimed at completing all the great unfinished problems of contemporary theory, particularly those of Althusser and Lacan. Not only does it serve as a useful introduction to a complex and many-faceted thinker, it also makes it possible for us to grasp some of the debates of the 1960s in a far more comprehensive way than before.”—Fredric R. Jameson, Duke University
“The most eagerly awaited book on Alain Badiou’s political thought yet written, Bruno Bosteels’s study is in a class of its own in every respect, remarkable as much for its enthusiasm and commitment as for its insight and precision, its depth of analysis and extraordinary breadth of reference. Badiou and Politics not only tracks the full course of Badiou’s own distinctive post-Maoist trajectory in meticulous detail, it also provides an incisive and illuminating discussion of virtually the whole field of emancipatory theoretical engagement after Sartre.”—Peter Hallward, author of Badiou: A Subject to Truth
“If it is, by definition, unfair to expect critical theory to respond at the level of direct relevancy to the current conjuncture – if, indeed, such an imperative would dilute the very critical potency that makes the best critical writing transcend the immediate context of its composition – the circumstances of philosophical production and reception should, nonetheless, figure more in our reading, should trouble us more even as we learn from the ‘stars’ of the current philosophical firmament. Those circumstances – institutional, economic, academic – form the ambient frame through which Bosteels’ luminously written reflections on Badiou’s political philosophy should be read.”
-- Tom Eyers Marx & Philosophy Review of Books
“Politics is a tough topic to tackle on any level. Badiou is a tough thinker to engage with. Bosteels unites, complements, and distinguishes both in his 436-page book working through the theories of a thinker who himself is grappling directly with politics: politics as an event, politics as being, and politics as one of four truth procedures defining the subject.”
-- Kevin D. Kuswa Culture Machine
Topics
-
Download PDFPublicly Available
Frontmatter
i -
Download PDFPublicly Available
Contents
vii -
Download PDFPublicly Available
Preface
ix -
Download PDFPublicly Available
Acknowledgments
xxi -
Requires Authentication UnlicensedLicensed
Introduction. Elements of Dialectical Materialism
1 -
Requires Authentication UnlicensedLicensed
1. The Absent Cause
45 -
Requires Authentication UnlicensedLicensed
2. Lack and Destruction
77 -
Requires Authentication UnlicensedLicensed
3. One Divides into Two
110 -
Requires Authentication UnlicensedLicensed
4. The Ontological Impasse
157 -
Requires Authentication UnlicensedLicensed
5. Forcing the Truth
174 -
Requires Authentication UnlicensedLicensed
6. Logics of Change
197 -
Requires Authentication UnlicensedLicensed
7. From Potentiality to Inexistence
226 -
Requires Authentication UnlicensedLicensed
8. For Lack of Politics
250 -
Requires Authentication UnlicensedLicensed
Conclusion. The Speculative Left
273 -
Requires Authentication UnlicensedLicensed
In dialogue with Alain Badiou
287 -
Requires Authentication UnlicensedLicensed
Appendix 1. Can Change Be Thought?
289 -
Requires Authentication UnlicensedLicensed
Appendix 2. Beyond Formalization
318 -
Requires Authentication UnlicensedLicensed
Notes
351 -
Requires Authentication UnlicensedLicensed
Selected Bibliography
407 -
Requires Authentication UnlicensedLicensed
Index
423
Publishing information
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
eBook published on:
August 10, 2011
eBook ISBN:
9780822394471
Pages and Images/Illustrations in book
Main content:
464
eBook ISBN:
9780822394471
Audience(s) for this book
Professional and scholarly;
