Being And Event

Description

A work on set theory - the cornerstone of the author's whole philosophy. This book includes a series of analyses of such key figures as Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Hegel, Rousseau, and Lacan. It develops the basis for a history of philosophy rivalling those of Heidegger and Deleuze in its depth.

Reviews

"'A significant book, one which one cannot fail to find staggering.' - Jean Francois-Lyotard 'One of the most important philosophers writing today.' - Joan Copjec 'A book of exceptional scope and rare courage of thought that tackles the whole of Philosophy, from Parmenides to Heidegger.' - Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe"

Author description

Alain Badiou teaches at the Ecole Normale Superieure and at the College International de Philosophie in Paris, France. In addition to several novels, plays and political essays, he has published a number of major philosophical works.

Table of contents

New Author's Preface; Translator's Preface; Introduction. Book I Being: Multiple and Void. Plato/Cantor; 1. The One and the Multiple: a priori conditions of any possible ontology; 2. Plato; 3. Theory of the Pure Multiple: paradoxes and critical decision Technical Note: the conventions of writing; 4. The Void: Proper name of being; 5. The Mark AE; 6. Aristotle; Book II Being: Excess, State of the Situation, One/Multiple, Whole/Parts, or I/i?; 7. The Point of Excess; 8. The State, or Metastructure, and the Typology of Being (normality, singularity, excrescence); 9. The State of the Historico-social Situation; 10. Spinoza; Book III Being: Nature and Infinity. Heidegger/Galileo; 11. Nature: Poem or matheme?; 12. The Ontological schema of Natural Multiples and the Non-existence of Nature; 13. Infinity: the other, the rule and the Other; 14. The Ontological Decision: 'There is some infinity in natural multiples'; 15. Hegel; Book IV The Event: History and Ultra-one; 16. Evental Sites and Historical Situations; 17. The Matheme of the Event; 18. Being's Prohibition of the Event; 19. Mallarme; Book V The Event: Intervention and Fidelity. Pascal/Choice; Holderlin/Deduction; 20. The Intervention: Illegal choice of a name for the event, logic of the two, temporal foundation; 21. Pascal; 22. The Form-multiple of Intervention: is there a being of choice?; 23. Fidelity, Connection; 24. Deduction as operator of ontological fidelity; 25. Holderlin; Book VI Quantity and Knowledge. The discernable (or constructible): Leibniz/Godel; 26. The concept of quantity and the impasse of ontology; 27. Ontological destiny of orientation within thought; 28. Constructivist thought and the knowledge of being; 29. The folding of being and the sovereignty of language; 30. Leibniz; Book VII The Generic: indiscernible and truth.; The event - P.J.Cohen; 31. The Thought of the Generic and Being in Truth; 32. Rousseau; 33. The Matheme of the Indiscernible: P.J.Cohen's strategy; 34. The existence of the indiscernible: the power of the names; Book VIII Forcing: Truth and the Subject. Beyond Lacan; 35. Theory of the subject; 36. Forcing: from the indiscernible to the undecidable; 37. Descartes / Lacan; Annexes; Appendixes; Notes; Dictionary.