The Adventure of French Philosophy

434 Pages·2012·7.15 MB·English

by  Alain Badiou

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SLAVOJ ZIZEK
The
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Philosophy
Philosophy
Hardback• $29.95/£20/$37.SOCAN
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THE ADVENTURE OF
FRENCH PHILOSOPHY

THE ADVENTURE OF
FRENCH PHILOSOPHY
ALAIN BADIOU
Edited and translated with an introduction by Bruno Bosteels
VERSO
London • New York
This edition first published by Verso 2012
©Alain Badiou 2012
Introduction and translation© Bruno Bosteels 2012
Verso would like to thank the following publications and publishers who
published earlier versions of the essays collected here: Albin Michel, The
Bihlea ndC ritiTchaelo ryL,e· CelihaGtolaumibriae U,n iversity Press, Critique,
Duke University Press, &onomandy SocieEtydi,tio ns Horlieu, Elucidations,
Les Empecheurs de penser en rand, Fran�ois Maspero, GalileLeeM, o nde,
NewL eftR eviePwo,& siPeo,ly graphr,e. press, Seuil, LesT empmso demes.
All rights reserved
The moral rights of the author have been asserted
13579108642
Veno
UK: 6 Meard Street, London WlF OEG
US: 20 Jay Street, Suite 1010, Brooklyn, NY 11201
www.versobooks.com
Verso is the imprint of New Left Books
ISBN-13: 978-1-84467-793-1
British Library CatalogWng in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Badiou, Alain.
[Selections. English. 2012]
The adventure of French philosophy I Alain Badiou ; edited and translated
with an introduction by Bruno Bosteels.
p.cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-84467-793-1 (alk. paper)
I. Philosophy, French--20th century. I. Bosteels, Bruno. II. Title.
B2430.B272E52 012
194--dc23
2012001110
Typeset in Fournier by Hewer UK Ltd, Edinburgh
Printed in the US by Maple Vail
Contents
Translator's Introduction vii
/'reface: The Adventure of French Philosophy Ii
l'ART I. ESSAYS AND TALKS
I. The Current Situation on the Philosophical Front 1
2. Hegel in France 19
l Commitment, Detachment, Fidelity 27
4. Is There a Theory of the Subject in the Work
of Georges Canguilhem? 39
5. The Caesura of Nihilism 53
6. The Reserved Offering 67
7. Foucault: Continuity and Discontinuity 83
8. Jacques Ranciere's Lessons: Knowledge and
Power After the Storm 101
l'ART II. BOOK REVIEWS
9. The (Re)commencement of Dialectical Materialism 133
10. The Flux and the Party: In the Margins of Anti-Oedipus 171
11. The Fascism oft he Potato 191
12. An Angel Has Passed 203
13. Custos, quid noctis? 223
14. Gilles Deleuze, The Fold: Leilmi{ and the Baroque 241
15. Objectivity and Objectality 269
16. On Fran�oise Proust, Kant: The Tone of History 281
17. The Imperative of Negation 295
18. Logology Against Ontology 309
19. The Subject Supposed to be a Christian 321
PART III. NOTICES
20. For a Tomb of Gilles Deleuze 339
21. J ullien the Apostate 343
A Note on the Texts 347
Index 353
Translators Introduction
Alain Badiou certainly needs no introduction. Having risen sharply
from the anonymity in which he tirelessly worked for decades,
Badiou is now a central figure in that strange and shifting constella­
t inn called French theory or philosophy. The idea of gathering the
texts in this volume, however, and the reasons behind their selec­
t ion will merit a few words of explanation - not least because no
such collection exists in French, and because Badiou himself never
l'nvisioned these pieces as providing a systematic overview of
recent French philosophy. Rather, composed over a period of
l'Xactly forty years - between 1967 and 2007 - the texts collected
here were written in response to the currents and events that made
up the philosophical moments in which they then, most often
polemically, sought to intervene.
First and foremost, The Adventure of French Philosophy stems from a
dt•sire to make available a series of texts that, while crucial for under­
'lt anding Badiou's place and role in the tradition of French thought,
have not been included in any of the available volumes of his miscella­
neous writings. In some cases, these essays are very hard or even
Impossible to find in French-such as, for instance, the piece here on
Michel Foucault or the previously unpublished articles on Monique
I >avid-Menard and Guy Lardreau. The closest relative to and perfect
viii Translator's Introduction
companion for the present collection, in terms of a cross-generational
portrait of French philosophy, is Badiou's recent Pocket Pantheon,
which includes commemorative essays prompted by the death, or the
anniversary of the passing, of some of the thinkers who are discussed
here.1 Figures who appear in both these volumes, though regarded
from different angles and therefore without a substantive overlap
in treatment, include Louis Althusser, Jean-Paul Sartre, Georges
Canguilhem, Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze, Jean-Frans:ois Lyotard
and Frans:oise Proust. Other French thinkers less commonly associated
with Badiou, but who are no less significant for his personal, profes­
sional, and institutional formation - as he discusses here - include
Barbara Cassin, Paul Ricoeur and Frans:ois Jullien.
In addition, The Adventure of French Pkilosopky will allow the reader
to appreciate Badiou's artistry and skill in two underappreciated subgen­
res. Here we see not only a grand system-builder (as in Being and Event
or Logics of Worlds), esoteric seminar leader (as in Theoryofthe Suhject),
seasoned pedagogue (as in Ethics or Manifesto for Philosophy), unforgiv­
ing and widely unforgiven polemicist (as in Gilles Deleuz.e: The Clamor
of Being), or satirist of the political moment (most notoriously in The
Meaning of SarkorY)· Here we see Badiou as a master of the philosophical
lecture and the review essay. And these - the public lecture and the
accomplished review-are the privileged formats in Parts I and II of this
collection, followed in Part III by two short, circumstantial notices on
Gilles Deleuze and Frans:ois Jullien respectively.
To these subgenres, I could certainly have added that of the preface,
1 Alain Badiou, Pocket Pantheon: Figures of Postwar Pliilosopliy, trans. David
Macey (London: Verso, 2009). In 'A Note on the Texts' contained in this last
volume, Badiou himself recommends the parallel reading of Elisabeth
Roudinesco, Pliilosopliy in Turbulent Times: Canguilliem, Sartre, Foucault,
Altliusser, Deleuie, Derrida, trans. Willliam McCuaig (New York: Columbia
University Press, 2008). Badiou borrows the notion of 'moments' in French
philosophy (specifically, the moment around 1900, the moment around World
War II, and the moment of the 1960s to the present) from Frederic Worms, La
Pliilosopliie en France au XXe siecle: Moments (Paris: Gallimard, 2009).