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badiou: reactionary modernist
We don't do enough Radical Philosophy around here, I suppose because there's not enough on-line for us to link to. But it really is - along with NLR and n+1 - one of the few things I'm genuinely excited to see drop through the slot in the front door.
In the new one, a particularly lucid piece by Peter Osborne on Badiou. Here are the first paragraphs, all that's publicly available on-line:
Neo-classic Alain Badiou’s Being and Event
Peter Osborne
If anyone was in doubt about the continuing grip of French philosophy on the theoretical imagination of the anglophone humanities, the reception of the writings of Alain Badiou must surely have put paid to such reservations. The translation of his magnum opus, Being and Event, in spring 2006, brought to eleven the number of his books published in English in eight years – a period following swiftly on, not entirely contingently, from the deaths of Deleuze, Levinas and Lyotard (1995–1998), and coinciding with that of Derrida (2004).* However, it is not simply the number of translations that is remarkable (‘remarkable, but not surprising’, as Wittgenstein would say), but the fact that a philosophy such as this – for all its idiosyncratic philosophical charms – could so readily have assumed the role of ‘French philosophy of the day’ within the transnational market for theory.
Badiou’s philosophy takes a forbiddingly systematic form; it is anti-historical, technically mathematical and broadly Maoist in political persuasion. It has no interest in (in fact, denies the philosophical relevance of) ‘meaning’, and appears impervious to feminism. It takes a roguish self-satisfaction in its heterosexism.
Stylized individuality is a condition of branding, and ‘difficulty’ is a prerequisite of entry into this particular field, but there are more than market factors at work in Badiou’s successful transition to international theorist. It is a gauge of a number of things: the desire still invested in the English-language reception of French philosophy; the theoretical heresies that a new generation of the so-called ‘old’ Left will overlook in exchange for political solidarity (Žižek, master of this field, is Badiou’s mentor here); the strategic brilliance of two interventions – against Deleuze (The Clamour of Being, 1997; trans. 2000) and against the ‘delirium’ of ethics (Ethics, 1994; trans. 2001);1 the inherent brilliance of Being and Event, for all its ultimate philosophical madness; and last, but by no means least, the rhetorical power of ‘the (re)turn of philosophy itself’ – title of an essay of Badiou’s from 1992.2 It is in the profoundly contradictory character of the return of philosophy in Badiou – at once avant-garde and breathtakingly traditional – that the historical meaning of his thought is to be found.3 To anticipate my conclusion: Being and Event is a work – perhaps the great work – of philosophical neo-classicism. As such, at the level of philosophical form, it surpasses its ambivalent predecessor, Heidegger’s Being and Time, in the rigour of its reactionary modernism. The modernity of Badiou’s mathematics does not mitigate, but rather reinforces, the authoritarianism of his philosophical axiomatics and the mysticism of his conception of the event.
It really is a shame that we can't read this together on here. There's even a convincing bit on our perennial favorite, the history of big T little t theory, that I'm sure would produce a lovely comment thread. (The wonderful thing is, Osborne is able to 1) treat the subject "theory" while 2) never losing sight of the particulars, especially, the historical particulars of its rise and fall...)
If every one of you out there would just subscribe, we could talk a bit more about the piece. What are you waiting for?
By CR | March 1, 2007 in Badiou | Permalink
Comments
I'm tempted. Sounds like a great piece, and my exposure to Osbourne thus far has been nothing but positive.
Posted by: Kenneth Rufo | Mar 1, 2007 12:32:59 AM
my exposure to Osbourne thus far has been nothing but positive
Me too! I assigned huge bits of his Politics of Time in my grad seminar last semester - went very well. I'd have had them buy the whole book if it were available. I think a new edition is supposed to come out soon...
Posted by: CR | Mar 1, 2007 12:41:36 AM
Shorter version of this comment: Osborne's criticisms are nonsense, and I have some better ones.
The "authoritarianism of his philosophical axiomatics"?
Please. Either change the name of the journal to Radical Rhetorical Criticism, or answer the book on its merits. Is this really the best response Continental philosophy has to the project? That poetry equals good and mathematics equals bad? That books on painting and sex are courageous and nouveau but doing any work in logic or math is automatically reactionary? I don't know if this reflex criticism is rooted in laziness or just fear of the unknown.
I honestly don't even understand the objection. The only axioms Badiou defends are mathematical ones. How can a mathematical axiom be authoritarian? By extension, I suppose the law of non-contradiction breeds fascism. A = A is the stuff of Leni Riefenstahl.
Criticize Badiou's style and hubris all day, I concede any such point. But then let me posit a humble and more relaxed permutation of Being and Event; and the argument of the book can remain, unchanged and unresponded to.
How can a metaphysics be "impervious to feminism" or heterosexist? I understand how legal theory, political science, public policy, &c. can be those things. But I fail to see how discussions about the universal and existential quantifiers have anything to do with feminism, unless we're willing to trivialize and make vacuous the latter term.
More importantly, all these (by now) boilerplate criticisms are all the more embarrassing in light of the more obvious problems they ignore. For instance, that Badiou's blurring the lines between metaphysics and philosophy of mathematics helps neither; that if Being and Event makes any metaphysical sense it is as a modern successor to Pythagoras and Speusippus, which is a dubious achievement; that the real interlocutors with whom Badiou should be brawling are not Deleuze and Heidegger, but David Lewis, Kit Fine, Peter Simons, and David Armstrong.
I doubt Badiou's own forbears and contemporaries - Lautmann, Cavailles, Desanti, Vuillemin - would have approved of the metaphysical use to which he puts set theory. Badiou certainly gives no defense or justification for that uneasy marriage on which he builds so much. And it's more than a little annoying that Anglophone reception of Badiou so far has been only either breathless or dismissive.
Posted by: Jared Woodard | Mar 1, 2007 1:24:10 AM
Ok, I really wish we could work with the whole paper. A few of the issues that jared brings up are addressed more fully and fairly there. But I'm not really willing to, you know, incessantly type in Osborne passages in response to arguments contra.
Help! RP, tear down that wall!
Posted by: CR | Mar 1, 2007 1:41:31 AM
Wow, Jared, this is one of those times when the speed of blogging and commenting serves you poorly.
Let's start with "Osborne's criticisms are nonsense" juxtaposed to "I honestly don't even understand the objection." Osbourne's work, if you're not familiar with it, is about the role that temporality plays in philosophy, how it is, more specifically, different thinkers configure time in order to make sense or to manifest their project. When he says "reactionary modernity," he's alluding to a particular mode of thinking time as a flow or development, often epochal, segmented by events or actions that can be capitalized as a means of redirecting and controlling that flow. The same sense of temporality is operative in early Heidegger, hence his reference to Heidegger. I say this without having read the piece, but having read the book CR is referring to and finding it rather brilliant. I'd recommend it if you haven't come across it, if only to resolve the tension between these two statements in your comment.
"Please. Either change the name of the journal to Radical Rhetorical Criticism, or answer the book on its merits." Are you serious? I mean really? So you're ad hom against the argument is functionally the Platonic complaint against rhetoric vis a vis philosophy? That's the ground from which you begin your critique? That's pathetic for a number of really obvious reasons, but perhaps the easiest is that one of the major problems that the stupid anglophones have when reacting to Badiou as if he's a philosopher is precisely that he has so little attentiveness to rhetoric despite the fact that he necessarily uses it to make his case for the fundamental math = ontology claim. It's clear from your post that you could give a fig about language and debates over its function, but you'll have to forgive the continental's their "embarrassing" interest in how we say the stuff that we say.
Your second to last paragraph, which there's no reason to quote in full, is, btw, nonsensical. I say this as someone who likes rhetoric and studies it, so you might want to discount it. But I'm trying to understand how the fact that you think Badiou is really a successor to Pythagoras is one of the "obvious problems" that those dumb boilerplate criticisms ignore. And I'm trying to understand why it is that because you think Badiou would be more productively parried with folks like Fine and Simons that this somehow implies that Osbourne is illegitimate in his interest in matching Badiou with Heidegger. I mean there's a number of obvious problems with this from a rhetorical perspective - the absence of anything called a warrant being a striking one, or the a fortiori claim about real interlocutors - but that's just rhetoric after all, and I wouldn't want to be too "breathless or dismissive" in my complaints here, given the overwhelming substance of your comment.
Oh, and lest I forget, there's the utter insipid paragraph on feminism, that includes this nugget: "But I fail to see how discussions about the universal and existential quantifiers have anything to do with feminism, unless we're willing to trivialize and make vacuous the latter term." So Osbourne is wrong to say impervious, because what feminism and other more political or ideological concerns is in relation to Badiou are irrelevant. They just have nothing to do with Badiou's discussion of the universal and the existential. Badiou's discussion is, in other words, just not affected, not penetrated, not influenced by these secondary concerns. Oh shit - that's the very definition of being impervious. Damn, there's that problem with rhetoric and language again.
Other moves that you might want to recognize as being rhetorical: CR quotes three paragraphs, none of which mention poetry, but that's ok, you set up a binary between poetry and math, dismissing the article as an example of the former. CR describes the piece as lucid, you exaggerate that as "best" and then dismiss the piece for having such lofty pretensions.
Now I know you don't put much stock in rhetorical criticism, so maybe it doesn't bother you that you use the sort of rhetorical devices Plato mocks, and you probably just use them because, heh, they're "rooted in laziness or just fear of the unknown."
Posted by: Kenneth Rufo | Mar 1, 2007 9:43:13 AM
Jared,
I'm neither a fan of Badiou nor Osborne, but I do own the issue and have read the article and can tell you that many of your points are way off base (in part because the whole of Badiou's philosophy isn't simply Being and Event and so there are aspects of his thoughts that are, indeed, very heterosexist). You may have a valid point about the math and metaphysics bit, but the last stuff you had communicated in a public forum led me to think you were taking a "turn to the small" where things are essentially distinct from one another.
Nice to know you are alive though. I suppose turning your back on Continental philosophy entailed turning your back on a lot.
Posted by: Anthony Paul Smith | Mar 1, 2007 11:12:01 AM
That last sentence is completely in the wrong tone. I just meant you've cut off talking in these circles.
Posted by: Anthony Paul Smith | Mar 1, 2007 11:42:06 AM
"[T]here are aspects of his thoughts that are, indeed, very heterosexist"
Would it be asking too much to inquire: Which aspects?
Posted by: daniel | Mar 1, 2007 12:00:54 PM
Badiou’s philosophy takes a forbiddingly systematic form; it is anti-historical, technically mathematical and broadly Maoist in political persuasion
Badiou's "mathematics" appear to be a strange amalgamation of set theory, platonism and perhaps some bare-bones probability issues (not enough--those are the few interesting, and somewhat deterministic aspects). There is this persistent myth among postmods (perhaps due to Mssr. Badiou) that having a consistent set of axioms will suffice for all types of mathematics--whether building bridges, programming in java, or performing a reductio, etc. That ain't the case. Cantor is of little help for most practical mathematical issues--say load-bearing problems; for that matter, neither is Plato. And anyone who quotes Mao approvingly, like, probably needs some reconditioning..........
Posted by: nominalist | Mar 1, 2007 12:05:46 PM
The troll, always with the troll!
Badiou isn't exactly taken with practical math. It's mostly the 'pure' sort he is interested in, so please just shut up.
Daniel,
The Ethics book isn't exactly 'yays for gays'. You couldn't call him a feminist philosopher surely. He's a bit of an anti-humanist too, though in a strange vein. Not that this makes him bad, he isn't exactly for taking away woman's sufferage or thinking they shouldn't be paid as much as men. I suppose he just isn't very into the cultural left.
Posted by: Anthony Paul Smith | Mar 1, 2007 1:14:42 PM
Ethics states, amongst other things, as far as I recall, that there can be no ethics of the other, grounded on difference, since difference is simply what there is, and hence represents no kind of principle for thinking what is other than simply being qua being. I fail to see why this notion should be considered "hetrosexist" since no kind of normative sexual politics - gay, straight or whatever, is even tacitly suggested by it. Indeed, Badiou on several occasions - including the text of Being and Event, which I know for a fact that Osborne has read, and therefore suppose him to have no excuse - has *explicitly* asserted that his conception of an amorous subject goes beyond any kind of gendered-object choice. According to Badiou, the event of love is strictly indifferent to gender. Once again, I fail to see how this axiom, authoritatian apparently, or so we are led to believe, is hetrosexist.
Posted by: daniel | Mar 1, 2007 1:41:44 PM
Long Sunday: where theists discuss something resembling set theory.
Posted by: nominalist | Mar 1, 2007 1:48:33 PM
I have so much to say on this...but for the time being I will merely note a couple of things.
Peter O read Being and Event (and perhaps a couple of other Badiou texts) partly on the back of having to supervise my PhD in which the book was discussed - and also because Middlesex now has several people there who work in quite some depth on Badiou. He was never going to be a big fan - his background is a certain kind of Marxism filtered rather heavily through the Frankfurt school plus Heideggarian problematics surrounding the notion of temporality. Peter is absolutely brilliant on several things: time, Marx, culture, conceptual art, notions (and practice!) of critique, avant-gardes, Kant and Hegel. He was also the best possible supervisor I could have had.
He is, however, deeply uninterested in the philosophy of science or mathematics and simply refuses to engage in a fair way with these aspects of Badiou's work in particular. He also has a general antipathy towards French philosophy.
His claims re Badiou's apparent 'sexism' which I have discussed on several occasions with him stem partly from Peter's utter hatred of Lacan, from whom he assumes Badiou gets everything on sexuation (whereas I would argue that there's also quite a lot of Beckett and others in Badiou's discussions of love). Peter has a rather limited sociological critique of Lacan that understands Lacan's claims about 'women' in a literal way: woman does not exist...What a bastard!
I have to agree with Jared when he writes 'But I fail to see how discussions about the universal and existential quantifiers have anything to do with feminism, unless we're willing to trivialize and make vacuous the latter term.' To my mind, it is far less Badiou's discussions of generic humanity that undermine a commitment to equality than various forms of hypocritical feminism that end up stuck in circular, resentful debates about essentialism.
Posted by: Infinite Thought | Mar 1, 2007 2:05:01 PM
whose feminism?
I think there are certain feminisms that hold that indifference to gender is a performance amounting to heterosexism - and there are others that would probably argue that gender itself is performed subsequent to the sort of work Badiou is doing.
My instinct is that Osborne is referring to the french feminsims which, historically, belong to the former persuasion - and would indeed find Badiou's work problematic. I think the choice of impervious is sound for all the reasons APS elucidated.
In addition though the claim that "Badiou certainly gives no defense or justification for that uneasy marriage on which he builds so much" doesn't jive with my memory.
Doesn't he at some point make the case that the decision to employ math as ontology is a radical one - in the sense of being unjustifiable - and that only the subsequent work following that decision can set up the rubric by which that initial decision can be judged? And in this sense his own foundational-choice rehearses the work of the subject acting (to constitute itself) in fidelity to the event? (And that he makes a similar decision accepting the non-being of the one from the end of the parmenides?)
Its been awhile for me on this so I could be wrong - but I definately remember some recokoning being made with regards his employ of math as ontology - beyond the obvious advantages he ascribes to formal language avoiding differance etc. etc.
Posted by: squibb | Mar 1, 2007 2:12:34 PM
"I think the choice of impervious is sound for all the reasons APS elucidated"
Not sure I understand...
Posted by: daniel | Mar 1, 2007 2:40:09 PM
sorry- mea culpa
it was Kenneth who elucidated the logic of the word choice re: impervious not Anthony -
sorry Anthony, sorry Kenneth.
Posted by: squibb | Mar 1, 2007 4:52:31 PM
That's alright, I can certainly do worse than be mistaken for APS. :)
Posted by: Kenneth Rufo | Mar 1, 2007 5:03:30 PM
In this case, I second Jared, reiterate my confusion and now turn it back towards Ken Rufo's bad tempered contribution.
Furthermore, if indeed there are, "certain feminisms that hold that indifference to gender is a performance amounting to heterosexism," and is granted that we can take this wager for the one governing Osborne's own critical trajectory, then I can only assert my confusion once again, since, for the moment at least, I cannot understand the logic of such a claim, and await elucidation on it from somebody who does.
Finally, it seems to me that the idea that indifference to gender is inherently hetrosexist can only terminate, as IT suggests, in "circular, resentful debates about essentialism," since what else can be at play here, against the idea of an indifference to gender, besides a certain moral claim about sensitivity, taken for an imperative, with respect to a determinant supposed to be essential.
Whether calling itself feminist or otherwise, nobody here needs me to state, I hope, how profoundly conservative this gesture really is. It bears witness, unmistakably, to the exactly the same logic as the claim that an essential genetic difference pertains between genders - or indeed, pertains between "races" for that matter - and thus takes its place together with all the hell following from that.
Posted by: daniel | Mar 1, 2007 5:37:28 PM
Hmm, I wonder if my bad tempered contribution will respond? I should apologize for the tone, though; I should have let that sort of animosity end with Jared's contribution rather than having continued it.
Still, I'm not sure what it is you're having difficulty understanding. Osborne says Badiou is impervious to feminism. Jared disagrees by saying, in effect, that it's impervious to feminism. I point this out. My claim was about the definition of impervious, yours seems to be about the valence or politics of feminism. If you find certain types of feminism to be conservative in some instances, or secondary concerns in other instances, great. Then the response to Osborne is: yeah, so what? But that wasn't Jared's response. In a comment that mocked continental philosophy's rhetorical stylings, he made claims that seemed simultaneously illogical and hypocritically laced with the same flourishes he decried in the excerpt that started the discussion. Had he paused a bit more before writing, I'm sure he would have offered the reply you're offering now, Daniel, in that you find claims regarding the need for that sort of feminism or anti-heteronormativity to be unnecessary or conservative. I assume that clears up the confusion, yes?
Posted by: Kenneth Rufo | Mar 1, 2007 6:46:45 PM
Anthony,
It's just a case of real life, esp. $ issues, intervening. My academic sympathies have changed; my friends haven't, as far as I'm concerned.
Kenneth,
Don't make it personal. If somebody makes a bad argument, it doesn't mean they're a bad person.
Rhetoric and communications has its place, like everything else. It is also not the same thing as philosophy, and all I asked is that philosophers engage Badiou on the philosophical merits of his work. A substantive philosophical response is long overdue, really. That's partly why I made what I thought was a generous concession - attack the hubris and pomposity etc. all you want; I'm interested in the metaphysical and mathematical claims that are left over.
IT and daniel have done a better job of defending my "insipid" paragraph on feminism better than I could. Modus tollens still doesn't have any special relationship to feminism or any sociopolitical struggles that I am aware of. Just to be sure, I asked one of my feminist friends in the department; she concurred. Do Tarski and Godel and Frege also need to be critiqued for being "impervious to feminism"?
I said that Badiou should be responding to contemporary analytic metaphysicians because I think that's the school his work is most responsive to when he's at his best. I wonder how much of his preoccupation with typical French and German figures is just historical accident. The fact that no Continental people writing today have responded to the real core of Badiou's project strengthens my point, I think. [I haven't read IT's work, dunno.] Criticism of Badiou's politics, "heterosexism," etc. is all very interesting, but peripheral as far as his project is concerned. Everybody's AOS can't be heteronormativity or whatever it's called now.
In short, if Continental people won't respond to the key aspects of his work, maybe that's because his work is more similar in its most essential features to traditional metaphysics. That's where my criticisms, albeit pathetically gestured at, come in. I really ought to quit complaining and just do what I've been demanding of others. But after six years of giving fairly close attention, I still get the feeling that I have no flipping clue what B is saying half the time, and that's a serious problem, either for him or for me.
I probably won't be back for awhile; anybody who wants to discuss at me is more than welcome: jaredwoodard at gmail dot com.
Posted by: Jared Woodard | Mar 1, 2007 7:49:11 PM
"I assume that clears up the confusion, yes?"
Mostly, and I sincerely thank you for efforts. However, I still remain confused as to the idea of the "impervious", such as it is mobilized in this context.
Osborne writes:
"[Badiou's philosophy]...appears impervious to feminism. It takes a roguish self-satisfaction in its heterosexism."
The debate, such as it is, is presently turning on the point of this paragraph, and so it seems worth elucidating as fully as possible.
The central question here concerns the use of this word impervious. Deployed in this passage, immediately before the underhand slander of "a roguish self-satisfaction in its hetrosexism" it strikes me as obviously rhetorical. This, as I understood it, was one of Jared's criticisms, and I second it here. You took issue with his criticisms, somewhat invectively, and thus made yourself, amongst others, my debating partner as well. This is now where we stand.
To this, I would only like to add the following: that it seems to me that the fundamental issue here, which he addressed, and which I am attempting to address as well, is not, as you seem to construe it, merely the matter of the semantic definition of "impervious" and the secondary question of whether or not the philosophy of Alain Badiou might then be understood as "impervious to feminism." Rather, it is the issue of what the claim that one is impervious to feminism, vis-a-vis allegations of hetrosexism, even means.
For my part, I here lay my cards on the table, if I have not already done so, and state plainly that I think it means nothing - that it is a rhetorical swerve, a nullity, a genuflection before a confused liberal galley performed beneath the banner of progressivism leftism. There is rhetoric in this description too, of course, but you get the idea. In any case, I have outlined above, I hope, the reasons why I think the force of this argument holds. You may still disagree with it, and if so, I am happy to hear your complaints. But I reject the ring-fencing that your previous comment attempts, whereby you suggest that semantic issues can be decided simply indifferently, as I also reject your far too quick and ungenerous conflation:
"Osborne says Badiou is impervious to feminism. Jared disagrees by saying, in effect, that it's impervious to feminism. I point this out."
Their two arguments are obviously not the same, and it seems to me unproductive to treat them as such. In the meantime, regarding the confrontation between feminism, hetrosexism, and universalism, I challenge anybody who cares to take up the issue to argue, rather than merely state, that I am wrong.
Posted by: daniel | Mar 1, 2007 7:52:19 PM
Jared, I'm sorry, I'm not trying to make this personal. But your argument stills seems nonsensical to me, for reasons laid out in the various threads on incommensurability. Functionally you're saying it's not right to challenge Badiou on terrain that's not his own, and hence he should get what amounts to a free pass: "He's concerned with X, stop harassing him with Y and Z!" If we applied that standard to everyone, there would be no way to challenge or caution against a certain reading or advocacy of Deleuze (you're resisting Deleuze, we must intensify him!), Lacan (that you hold to alternate views shows the work of the objet petit a!), Heidegger (you want to argue metaphysics good, when metaphysics offers nothing but the closure and forgetting of Being!), Baudrillard (the theoretical model that defines your response is a simulation!), and so on and so on.
The line you continue to draw, where "substantive philosophical response" is on one side and "rhetoric and communication" is on the other, is already a bit of theatre, a bit of rhetorical posturing, which is why it seems silly to me to continue to be told that no one is responding to his "real core" arguments since you're beginning from the presupposition that what Badiou defines as the core is the end all be all of what is worthy of discussing when it comes to Badiou.
Posted by: Kenneth Rufo | Mar 1, 2007 8:04:22 PM
That's not what I said. Challenge Badiou on any terrain you like.
But if Badiou makes 1000 pages of claims about metaphysics, to ignore all that in favor of 20 pages of offhand comments in other essays about sexuality is bizarre. Presumably it is important to talk about what Heidegger says about ontology, and not just about Nazis and environmentalism? Presumably a healthy discussion of Kant has something to say about ethics and about the relationship between perception and reality, and not just his remarks about suicide?
Same courtesy applies here. Nobody is discussing the bulk of what Badiou spends his time working on.
I'm late for work now, and really do have to go. Cheers-
Posted by: Jared Woodard | Mar 1, 2007 8:34:27 PM
I can provide some "set theory" for all of you "nominalists", if someone would advise if I should email, (how to) mirror, or just post (Im feeling very noncopyright) the damn thing...
Posted by: jb | Mar 1, 2007 9:58:50 PM
"Nobody is discussing the bulk of what Badiou spends his time working on."
Being and Event isn't a philosophy of math book though. To be perfectly honest I think you are focusing on one sentence in this article (the feminism) which is, as daniel says, a rhetorical flourish. I'm sure there is much in the article itself that is wrong on Badiou's philosophy, but it is an interesting view from a certain perspective. God! Radical Rhetorical Studies because of a Frankfurt School reading?
The other issues (i.e. whether or not modus tollens has anything to do with racism) is pretty much not at the heart of the debate about Badiou as such. I know I'm not a real philosopher because I don't do my logic problems facing west five times a day, but I'm good enough at other things to know that logic doesn't exist in a vacuum. I don't think logic is authoritarian (somewhat ridiculous to say this), but I also don't think it is some innocent thing subtracted from the rest of life. It's not like you suddenly start doing logic instead of metaphysics (ok ok I know what I do isn't really metaphysics, it's obscusifatory mysticism, fine) and then you get a get out of the capitalist axiomatic free card.
Daniel,
I can only say fair enough to all your points. I don’t have any stake in proving that Badiou is something like a big cock waving man, just the impression I get reading his books. I also don’t have a stake in saying this is bad, just seems to me that Osborne is making a case from a Frankfurt perspective about the nature of Badiou’s work that would hint such a reading is possible.
Posted by: Anthony Paul Smith | Mar 2, 2007 4:05:16 AM
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