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?

Comments

[Infinite Thought]

Ans as if by magic, an article turns up in today's Guardian that discusses both feminism and Peter Osborne!

[nominalist]

I refute it thus

[nominalist]

What would Marx think of Badiou's "mathematics (set theory) as ontology"???

“In the social production of their existence, men inevitably enter into definite relations, which are independent of their will, namely relations of production appropriate to a given stage in the development of their material forces of production. The totality of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which arises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The mode of production of material life conditions the general process of social, political and intellectual life. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness.”

Social existence is not a matter of inclusion in an abstract set. I wager, tho,' they would have allowed Badiou to live-- with his cliffsnotes to Cantor and perhaps an accordian to entertain the rest of the fellahs in his sector of the gulag...........

[squibb]

Daniel –

You write:

“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.”

There are two things at issue – one, the existence of said feminisms making such claims, and two, the logic of the claim itself.

With regards the first issue: I intended merely to point out that there is, within the theoretical history of feminism, a school of thought that would in fact take issue with Badiou’s presumed indifference to issues of sex and gender. And that they would further contest your claim that such thinking

“ …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.”

As being remarkably shortsighted and simplistic – at the very least for the reason that sex, if not gender, does register genetically in a way that race does not, and more still for the attempt to assert that these discussions were somehow settled with – what – the civil rights movement?

But, assuming your confusion is genuine, I don’t see the claim to be all that complicated.

Badiou sets forth a theory of subject. This theory does not provide room enough for an account of sexual difference – or for that matter, the history of political and social struggles organized along those lines. This lack amounts to a heterosexist, or anti-feminist position. We can characterize this position as impervious as its central mechanism is one whose functioning proceeds via an indifference to the feminist claim of the nature and importance of sexual difference, as opposed to say – a theory of the subject which proceeds by defining subjectivity as explicitly opposed to feminine – which would not be impervious, but hostile, or some other word.

Personally, I think this argument is reactionary and in bad faith – I think there is a great deal of room within Badiou’s work for a certain feminism – albeit not one that holds, as it were, that ‘any theory of the subject has always been appropriated by the masculine.’ But that’s what the claim is, it’s the one I think Osborne was making, and - the only point I was really trying to make with regards this issue – it proceeds by using one strain of feminism to represent what is, in truth, a more diverse set of ideas.

With regards the second issue: It may be the case that we don’t like that strain of feminism, that we feel, as IT writes, that such strains ‘end up stuck in circular, resentful debates about essentialism.’ My point, again, was that to debate the validity of Osborne’s claim without re-pluralizing feminism risks arriving at a meaningless conclusion regarding the interaction of Badiou and feminism, due to a departure from false premises.

I am still curious regarding Badiou’s justification/account/logos of the employment of mathematics as fundamental ontology, should anyone be interested in discussing that.

[Amish Lovelock]

Late in the day, would it be fair to say that this has been a non-thread? Jared has been right on the mathematics, IT filled us in on the background to the piece, what more to say? I'm not sure feminists go to him for feminism. The things I like about Badiou have been Ethics, essays he has written on Mao - which are perhaps slightly more important in my part of the world than his - and no-doubt the book on the 20th Century when it comes out. As for set theory, I would love to try and work some maths, but for the moment I'm happy in the naive thought that it all works a little like when you stop on a busy Tokyo high-street and look up at the sky. Sooner or later other people start to stop and look at the sky too and before you know it you have a big group of people all looking up in communion.

Two things that bugged me though about the comments above. The designations "the cultural left" and "sociological" used to refer to anything not rigorous philosophy.