Bøger af Alain Badiou

Etik er i dag blevet nihilismens figur. Det er ikke mere kampen for det gode og det gode liv, men er blevet til ren overlevelse. Etikken har spaltet sig ud og klynger sig blot til det, der tilfældigvis sker i videnskaberne, medierne og samfundet. Enhver virksomhed har i dag sin egen etik. Selv krigen har sin egen etik i form af menneskerettighederne. Men disse rettigheder er kun mindsterettigheder, hvis underliggende præmis er, at det eneste, der kan ske for mennesket er døden. Disse nøgterne konklusioner drager en af tidens vigtigste stemmer, filosoffen Alain Badiou, i Etikken. Badiou viser i denne bog hvordan de højt besungne "menneskerettigheder", men også sådan noget som "anerkendelse" og "demokrati" er tomme floskler, der dækker over en underkuelse af menneskets potentiale.Etikken er noget så sjældent som en polemisk genistreg og et letlæst filosofisk hovedværk på samme tid. Alain Badiou nøjes nemlig ikke med at kritisere, men udvikler selv en ny etik. Han mener, at mennesket er et udødeligt væsen, der er i stand til at skabe og opleve sandheder. Disse sandheder er dog ikke givet på forhånd, men opstår gennem enestående nyskabelser eller begivenheder. Det kan være den franske revolution, studenteroprøret i 1968, en forelskelse, et digt eller et matematisk bevis. Sandheden er noget, der er til for alle: høj som lav, sort som hvid, østlig som vestlig. Og den etiske opgave er netop at søge sandheden. Som Badiou på engageret vis formulerer det: "Elsk det, som du aldrig vil kunne tro to gange!".Alain Badiou er født i Rabat, 1937. Han underviser på École Normale Supérieur i Paris og besætter René Descartes Chair ved the European Graduate School. Etikken er fra 1993 og hans mest solgte bog til dato. Den er oversat til norsk, tysk, hollandsk, spansk, græsk og engelsk.Bogen er oversat af Holger Ross Lauritsen, den indeholder et nyskrevet forord af Alain Badiou og et efterskrift af Brian Benjamin Hansen.

”Lykke er en risiko, som vi er nødt til at tage.” Den franske filosof Alain Badiou angriber i denne lille bog den forestilling, at lykke er et spørgsmål om at skabe overensstemmelse mellem sine personlige behov og det, som verden tilbyder os og kategoriserer som ”det gode liv”. Han opponerer mod den positive psykologi og “lykkeindustrien”, der fortæller os, at det gælder det om at planlægge livet efter forskrifterne for, hvad der giver den største sikkerhed for at opnå lykke. Men ifølge Badiou er lykke præcis det modsatte af sikkerhed og planlægning. Lykke involverer altid en risiko, som fx når vi i kærlighedsmødet vælger at overgive os til dets uforudsigelighed. For at det, Badiou kalder ”reel lykke”, kan blive mulig, kræves også et opgør med den (forbruger-)tilfredshed, der ifølge Badiou præsenteres som lykke i dag. Opgaven med at skabe lykke finder dermed sted både på det individuelle og på det kollektive, politiske plan. Og den går ud på at blive noget, vi ikke troede, vi var i stand til at blive og at skabe en fælles verden, som vi ikke troede var mulig.

The author takes on contemporary 'dating agency' conceptions of love that come complete with zero-risk insurance. He develops a new take on love that sees it as an adventure, and an opportunity for re-invention, in a constant exploration of otherness and difference that leads the individual out of an obsession with identity and self.

»Den overbevisning, at enhver udelukkende forfølger sin egen interesse, er ... vidt udbredt i verden idag. Kærligheden er et modbevis« - Alain Badiou.Alain Badiou er en af de mest markante nyere filosoffer i Frankrig. Hans værker har opnået international anerkendelse og opmærksomhed. Badiou har en central plads i den danske forskning og debat vedrørende mange emner, såsom etik, politik, metafysik og matematik.Lovprisning af Kærligheden er en let redigeret samtale mellem Alain Badiou og Nicolas Truong. Denne samtale fandt sted på bastilledagen i 2008 og omhandlede ikke Staten, Hæren eller Nationen, men derimod kærligheden som en kosmopolitisk kraft.

Alain Badiou's 1985 seminar on Parmenides initiated his ongoing dialogue with the pre-Socratic philosopher and set out some of the foundational ideas of his own major philosophical works, including Being and Event.

Images of the Present Time presents nearly three years of Alain Badiou's seminars, held from 2001 to 2004, which consider the relationship between philosophy and notions of "the present."

Plato's Republic is one of the best-known and most widely-discussed texts in the history of philosophy. But how might we get to the heart of this work today, 2,500 years after its original composition? Alain Badiou breathes life into Plato's landmark text and revives its universality. Rather than producing yet another critical commentary, he has instead worked closely on the original Greek and, through spectacular changes, adapted it to our times. In this innovative reimagining of Plato's work, Badiou has removed all references specific to ancient Greek society--from lengthy exchanges about moral courage in archaic poetry to political considerations mainly of interest to the aristocratic elite--and has expanded the range of cultural references. Here, philosophy is firing on all cylinders: Socrates and his companions are joined by Beckett, Pessoa, Freud, and Hegel, among others. Together these thinkers demonstrate that true philosophy endures, ready to absorb new horizons without changing its essence. Moreover, Badiou--who is also a dramatist--has transformed the Socratic dialogue into a genuine oratorial contest. In his version of the Republic, the interlocutors do much more than simply agree with Socrates. They argue, stand up to him, put him on the spot, and show thought in motion. In this work of dramatic scholarship and philosophy, we encounter a modern version of Plato's text that is alive, stimulating, and directly relevant to our own world.

Alain Badiou began the twenty-first century by considering the relationship between philosophy and notions of "e;the present."e; In this period of his ongoing annual lecture series, the acclaimed philosopher took up the existential problem of how to be contemporary with one's own time-that is, how to not simply inhabit a passing moment but bring a real present into existence.Images of the Present Time presents nearly three years of Badiou's seminars, held from 2001 to 2004, partly against the backdrop of the war in Iraq. Given while Badiou was writing Logics of Worlds, the second of the three volumes of Being and Event, these lectures address some of the same questions of existence in a particular world in a more personal and conversational tone, with reference to literature, philosophy, and contemporary politics and culture. He proposes a new concept of living in a real present as the twisting together of something from the past and something of the future.Featuring some of the philosopher's most inspiring and approachable work, Images of the Present Time is an important book for all readers interested in the practical as well as conceptual possibilities of Badiou's thought.

Hvem var Paulus, og hvad er hans relevans i dag? Den franske filosof Alain Badiou cementerer Paulus som en central og vedkommende figur, ikke kun for kristne og ikke kun i bibelsk tid, men for enhver i ”moderne politisk refleksion”.Paulus er relevant i dag netop på grund af hans budskab om universalisme, som Badiou fremhæver som det, der kan skabe fælles grund i vor tids polariserede debat. Paulus siger: ”Tænk ikke hver især på jeres eget, men tænk alle lige præcis på de andres el” (Filipperbrevet 2,4), og med det som udgangspunkt muliggør han eksistensen af både særidentitet og universalisme, i én og samme verden. Vi eksisterer i fællesskab, på grund af, og ikke på trods af, vores forskelle. Det er Kristusbegivenhedens radikale budskab ifølge ateisten Badious Paulus – og det henvender sig til os alle, med et universelt og aktivistisk budskab.Bogen er forsynet med en kyndigt efterskrift af Troels Engberg-Pedersen, professor i teologi og forfatter til bogen ‘Paulus og identitet’.

For Alain Badiou, theatreunlike cinemais the place for the staging of a truly emancipatory collective subject. In this sense theatre is, of all the arts, the one strictly homologous to politics: both theatre and politics depend on a limited set of texts or statements, collectively enacted by a group of actors or militants, which put a limit on the excessive power of the state. This explains why the history of theatre has always been inseparable from a history of state repression and censorship.This definitive collection includes not only Badious pamphlet Rhapsody for the Theatre but also essays on Jean-Paul Sartre, on the political destiny of contemporary theatre, and on Badious own work as a playwright, as author of the Ahmed Tetralogy.

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.

The eminent French philosopher "dialecticizes” five of the artist Jean-Luc Moulène's objects with five conceptual formations from the history of Western philosophy.In this unique essay, first delivered as a lecture during a panel discussion with the artist and philosopher Reza Negarestani, Alain Badiou identifies and "dialecticizes” five of the artist Jean-Luc Moulène's objects with five conceptual formations from the history of Western philosophy. Aristotle's complex of matter and form is called to mind to describe the inner logic of a hard foam sculpture. A bronze statue with holes activates Plato's notion of participation of the concrete world in the "injured Idea of the Beautiful.” A small metallic and incomplete "angel” engages Leibniz's affirmation that "everything that exists is composed of an infinity of things.” Badiou's musings go on to pair a broken and repaired plastic chair with Victor Hugo; a terrible hand made of concrete with the Freudian unconscious; and a large-scale "red and blue monster” with rudimentary mechanisms of the Cartesian cogito, the famous "I think, therefore I am,” with unexpected inversions and variations.Badiou refrains, of course, from claiming that Moulène thinks about any of these philosophers when making his specific works. What he points to, however, in this richly illustrated bilingual volume, is that the artist and his art are "on the side of philosophy.”

Following on from Alain Badiou's acclaimed works Ethics and Metapolitics, Polemics is a series of brilliant metapolitical reflections, demolishing established opinion and dominant propaganda, and reorienting our understanding of events from the Kosovo and Iraq wars to the Paris Commune and the Cultural Revolution.With the critical insight and polemical bravura for which he is renowned, Badiou considers the relationships between language, judgment and propagandaand shows how propaganda has become the dominant force. Both wittily and profoundly, Badiou presents a series of radical philosophical engagements with politics, and questions what constitutes political truth.

Alain Badiou har er i en sen alder opnået fornyet popularitet. Hans politiske tænkning har sprængkraft og aktualitet i en tid, der præges af popularisme og neoliberalisme. Denne bog samler to meget kritiske tekster om Donald Trump og samtidens politiske landskab - herunder ikke blot USAs men også Europas. Badiou advarer om, at vi bruger for meget krudt på Trumps mediecirkus og opfordrer i stedet til at se populisternes fremmarch som et symptom, der kalder på noget radikalt nyt. Badiou understreger i den forbindelse nødvendigheden af et reelt alternativ til ‘the establishment’ på venstrefløjen, og her er det naturligvis Bernie Sanders snarere end Hilary Clinton, der peges på.

In Can Politics Be Thought?-published in French in 1985 and appearing here in English for the first time-Alain Badiou offers his most forceful and systematic analysis of the crisis of Marxism in which he argues for the continuation of Marxist politics.

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.

This book revisits and revises some of the most basic concepts of time in the Judeo-Christian tradition, drawing on St. Paul's writings to rethink a new kind of radical faith in truth as an event, as the advent of the incalculable, a modality that remakes the pairing religious/secular.

Alain Badious klassiske tekst om kærlighedens væsen. Teksten følges op af fire artikler der belyser kærlighedens filosofi; i forhold til både Badious samlede forfatterskab og kærligheden som et tema i hele filosofihistorien

The Rational Kernel of the Hegelian Dialectic is the last in a trilogy of political-philosophical essays, preceded by Theory of Contradiction and On Ideology, written during the dark days at the end of the decade after May '68. With the late 1970's "triumphant restoration" in Europe, China and the United States, Badiou and his collaborators return to Hegel with a Chinese twist. By translating, annotating and providing commentary to a contemporaneous text by Chinese Hegelian Zhang Shi Ying, Badiou and his collaborators attempt to diagnose the status of the dialectic in their common political and philosophical horizon. Readers of Badiou's more recent work will find a crucial developmental step in his work in ontology and find echoes of his current project of a 'communist hypothesis'. This translation is accompanied by a recent interview that questions Badiou on the discrepancies between this text and his current thought, on the nature of dialectics, negativity, modality and his understanding of the historical, political and geographical distance that his text introduces into the present.

"Alain Badiou's first major work, Le Concept de modele, originally published in 1969 and long out of print, establishes a solid mathematical basis for a rational materialism, which undermines the implicit assumptions of a predominating 'bourgeois epistemology'. Readers familiar with Badiou will no doubt find within this early text the lineaments of his later radical developments. The translation will be published with an accompanying interview with Badiou wherein he elaborates on the connections between this early work, the subsequent developments and his most recent position"--Provided by publisher.

Published in 1973, "e;L'Etourdit"e; was one of the French philosopher Jacques Lacan's most important works. The book posed questions that traversed the entire body of Lacan's psychoanalytical explorations, including his famous idea that "e;there is no such thing as a sexual relationship,"e; which seeks to undermine our certainties about intimacy and reality. In There's No Such Thing as a Sexual Relationship, Alain Badiou and Barbara Cassin take possession of Lacan's short text, thinking "e;with"e; Lacan about his propositions and what kinds of questions they raise in relation to knowledge. Cassin considers the relationship of the real to language through a Sophist lens, while the Platonist Badiou unpacks philosophical claims about truth. Each of their contributions echoes back to one another, offering new ways of thinking about Lacan, his seminal ideas, and his role in advancing philosophical thought.

Martin Heidegger was an ordinary Nazi and a loyal member of the provincial petty bourgeoisie. He was also a seminal thinker of the Continental tradition and one of the twentieth century's most important philosophers. How are we to make sense of this dual life? Should we factor Heidegger's domestic and political associations into our understanding of his thought, or should we treat his intellectual work independently of his abhorrent politics? How does any thinker reconcile the mundane with the ideal or the pursuit of philosophical inquiry with the demands of civic engagement?In Heidegger, Alain Badiou and Barbara Cassin immerse themselves in the philosopher's correspondence with his wife Elfride to answer these questions as they relate to Heidegger and all thinkers vulnerable to the politics of their times. They focus on Heidegger's tormented relationship with his wife, with Hannah Arendt, and with numerous other women, bringing an unusual level of intimacy to his personal and intellectual worlds.

What Is a People? seeks to reclaim "e;people"e; as an effective political concept by revisiting its uses and abuses over time. Alain Badiou surveys the idea of a people as a productive force of solidarity and emancipation and as a negative tool of categorization and suppression. Pierre Bourdieu follows with a sociolinguistic analysis of "e;popular"e; and its transformation of democracy, beliefs, songs, and even soups into phenomena with outsized importance. Judith Butler calls out those who use freedom of assembly to create an exclusionary "e;we,"e; while Georges Didi-Huberman addresses the problem of summing up a people with totalizing narratives. Sadri Khiari applies an activist's perspective to the racial hierarchies inherent in ethnic and national categories, and Jacques Ranciere comments on the futility of isolating theories of populism when, as these thinkers have shown, the idea of a "e;people"e; is too diffuse to support them. By engaging this topic linguistically, ethnically, culturally, and ontologically, the voices in this volume help separate "e;people"e; from its fraught associations to pursue more vital formulations.Together with Democracy in What State?, in which Giorgio Agamben, Alain Badiou, Daniel Bensaid, Wendy Brown, Jean-Luc Nancy, Jacques Ranciere, Kristin Ross, and Slavoj iek discuss the nature and purpose of democracy today, What Is a People? expands an essential exploration of political action and being in our time.

';We know that communism is the right hypothesis. All those who abandon this hypothesis immediately resign themselves to the market economy, to parliamentary democracythe form of state suited to capitalismand to the inevitable and ';natural'character of the most monstrous inequalities.'Alain BadiouAlain Badiou's ';communist hypothesis,'first stated in 2008, cut through the cant and compromises of the past twenty years to reconceptualize the Left. The hypothesis is a fresh demand for universal emancipation and a galvanizing call to arms. Anyone concerned with the future of the planet needs to reckon with the ideas outlined within this book.

An urgent and provocative account of the modern ';militant', a transformative figure at the front line of emancipatory politics. Around the world, recent events have seen the creation of a radical phalanx comprising students, the young, workers and immigrants. It is Badiou's contention that the politics of such militants should condition the tasks of philosophy, even as philosophy clarifies the truth of our political condition.To resolve the conflicts between politics, philosophy and democracy, Badiou argues for a resurgent communism returning to the original call for universal emancipation and organizing for militant struggle.