Anti-Badiou

This compelling and highly original book represents a confrontation between two of the most radical thinkers at work in France today: Alain Badiou and the author, François Laruelle.

At face value, the two have much in common: both espouse a position of absolute immanence; both argue that philosophy is conditioned by science; and both command a pluralism of thought. Anti-Badiou relates the parallel stories of Badiou's Maoist 'ontology of the void' and Laruelle's own performative practice of 'non-philosophy' and explains why the two are in fact radically different. Badiou's entire project aims to re-educate philosophy through one science: mathematics. Laruelle carefully examines Badiou's Being and Event and shows how Badiou has created a new aristocracy that crowns his own philosophy as the master of an entire theoretical universe. In turn, Laruelle explains the contrast with his own non-philosophy as a true democracy of thought that breaks philosophy's continual enthrall with mathematics and instead opens up a myriad of 'non-standard' places where thinking can be found and practised.

Auteur

François Laruelle is a French philosopher formerly Professor of Contemporary Philosophy at the Université de Paris X (Nanterre) and the Collège International de Philosophie, France. He is the creator of the concept of 'non-philosophy' and author of over twenty works of philosophy.

Contenu

Preface: The Re-education of Philosophy by Mathematics: Purification and Terror \ Introduction \ 1. A Short Synoptic Parallel \ 2. Modern Party Positions in Philosophy \ 3. The Old and New Relationship Between Science and Philosophy \ 4. Matrices and Principles \ 5. Subtraction and Superposition \ 6. Philosophy and Mathematics in the Mirror \ 7. Ontology and Materiality \ 8. Philo-Fiction \ Notes \ Index