Alain Badiou Books

The Being and Event trilogy is the philosophical basis of Alain Badiou's entire oeuvre. It is formed of three major texts, which constitute a kind of metaphysical saga: Being and Event (1988). ), Logics of the Worlds (2006) and finally The Immanence of Truths, which he has been working on for 15 years. The new volume reverses the perspective adopted in Logics of Worlds. Where in that book, Badiou saw fit to analyze how truths, qua events, appear from the perspective of particular worlds that by definition exclude them, in The Immanence of Truths Badiou asks instead how the irruption of truth transforms the worlds within which they by necessity must arise. An emphasis on regularity and continuity has given way to an attempt, one unquestionable in its philosophical power and implications, to formalize rupture and reconfiguration. The Being and Event trilogy is a unique and ambitious work that reveals how truths can be at once context-specific and universal, situational and eternal.

What 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.

"French philosopher Alain Badiou (b. 1937) introduces the concept of democratic materialism to refer to the belief that there are only bodies and languages, then employs a fair amount of science in what he calls a somewhat fastidious examine of it. He covers formal theory on the subject (meta-physics); the greater logics: the transcendental, the object, and relation; the four forms of change; the theory of points; what a body is; and what it is to live."--Provided by publisher.

In Praise of Theatre is Alain Badiou’s latest work on the ‘most complete of the arts,’ the theatrical stage. This book, certain to be of great interest to scholars and theatre practitioners alike, elaborates the theory of the theatre developed by Badiou in works such as Rhapsody for the Theatre and the ‘Theses on Theatre’ and enquires into the status of a theatre that would be adequate to our ‘contemporary, market-oriented chaos.’ In a departure from his usual emphasis upon canonical figures of the stage such as Bertolt Brecht and Samuel Beckett, Badiou devotes In Praise of Theatre largely to a consideration of contemporary practitioners, including Jan Fabre, Brigitte Jacques and Romeo Castellucci. In addition, the book features an incisive analysis of the precarious status of the theatre today, in which Badiou describes not only the current threats to the theatre from the right, but the far more insidious threat from the left.

Exploring the interplay between philosophy and contemporary concepts, this collection features Alain Badiou's seminars from 2001 to 2004. It delves into how philosophical thought engages with the present moment, offering insights into Badiou's unique perspective on time, existence, and the implications for understanding contemporary issues. Through rigorous analysis, the work invites readers to reflect on the significance of the present in philosophical discourse.

The transcript of Alain Badiou's year-long seminar on the psychoanalytic theory of Jacques Lacan, this book offers a forceful reading of an enigmatic yet foundational thinker and sheds light on the crucial role that Lacan plays in Badiou's own thought. It is the first volume of Badiou's seminars to be published in English.

Alain Badiou offers a tour de force encounter with a lesser-known seventeenth- century philosopher and theologian, Nicolas Malebranche, a contemporary and peer of Spinoza and Leibniz. The seminar is at once a record of Badiou's thought at a key moment and a lively interrogation of Malebranche's key text, the Treatise on Nature and Grace.

A translation of one of the single most important works of recent French philosophy, Badiou's magnum opus. Being and Event is the greatest work of Alain Badiou, France's most important living philosopher. Long-awaited in translation, Being and Event makes available to an English-speaking readership Badiou's groundbreaking work on set theory - the cornerstone of his whole philosophy. The book makes the scope and aim of Badiou's whole philosophical project clear, enabling full comprehension of Badiou's significance for contemporary philosophy. Badiou draws upon and is fully engaged with the European philosophical tradition from Plato onwards; Being and Event deals with such key figures as Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Hegel, Rousseau, Heidegger and Lacan.

The 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.