1Dime Radio The Radical Philosophy of Alain Badiou
Nov 10, 2023
Alain Badiou, a contemporary communist French philosopher, discusses his theory of being and events, truth procedures, ethics, love, and the subject. He compares Marxist theory, Maoism, and political Marxism. Topics include politics as sequences, truth and the three subjects, and history, agency, and Platonism. St. Paul's significance in Badiou's philosophy is also explored. This episode is a must-listen for philosophy and radical egalitarian politics enthusiasts.
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Philosophy’s Three Core Questions
- Badiou frames philosophy as answering three core questions: being, truth, and the subject.
- He offers a systemic apparatus to understand how change becomes possible within situations.
Being As Inconsistent Multiplicity
- Badiou treats being as 'pure inconsistent multiplicity' rather than some unified One.
- He models situations as counted multiplicities using set-theoretic language to explain structure and representation.
State, Counting, And Unrepresented People
- The 'state of the situation' counts and represents elements and blocks what Badiou calls excess.
- People can be present in a situation yet unrepresented, creating the conditions for events.