Books by 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.

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’.

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 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.

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.

Pocket Pantheon is an invitation to engage with the greats of postwar Western thought, such as Lacan, Sartre and Foucault, in the company of one of today's leading political and philosophical minds. Alain Badiou draws on his encounters with this pantheonhis teachers, opponents and alliesto offer unique insights into both the authors and their work. These studies form an accessible, authoritative distillation of continental theory and a capsule history of a period in Western thought.

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.

English-speaking readers might be surprised to learn that Alain Badiou writes fiction and plays along with his philosophical works and that they are just as important to understanding his larger intellectual project. In Ahmed the Philosopher, Badiou's most entertaining and accessible play, translated into English here for the first time, readers are introduced to Badiou's philosophy through a theatrical tour de force that has met with much success in France. Ahmed the Philosopher presents its comic hero, the "e;treacherous servant"e; Ahmed, as a seductively trenchant philosopher even as it casts philosophy itself as a comic performance. The comedy unfolds as a series of lessons, with each "e;short play"e; or sketch illuminating a different Badiousian concept. Yet Ahmed does more than illustrate philosophical abstractions; he embodies and vivifies the theatrical and performative aspects of philosophy, mobilizing a comic energy that exposes the emptiness and pomp of the world. Through his example, the audience is moved to a living engagement with philosophy, discovering in it the power to break through the limits of everyday life.