Alain Badiou: A Critical Introduction

by Jason Barker

'[Badiou's theory] enacts a return to full-blown philosophy that strikes as a thunder into the morass of postmodernist sophisms and platitudes. . . . [Badiou] aims at the very heart of politically correct 'radical' intellectuals, undermining the foundations of their mode of life!' Slavoj Zizek, Professor at the Institute of Sociology, University of Ljubljana Alain Badiou is rapidly emerging as one of the most radical and influential philosophers of our time. Badiou opposes the contemporary reduction of philosophy to nothing but a matter of language and premature announcements of the end of philosophy and thus sets himself against both analytic and continental modes of philosophy. Setting the traditional platonic concerns of philosophy, truth and being, against the modern sophists of postmodernism, Badiou has articulated a powerful systematic philosophy with profound ethical and political consequences. This is the first introduction to Alain Badiou in English and is especially timely as the number of Badiou's works in translation is rapidly increasing and his star continues to rise. Giving a clear overview of Badiou's work and the intellectual and political context from which it emerges, Jason Barker's book is set to become the standard work on Badiou for many years to come.

Genres: Philosophy

200 pages, Paperback

First published December 7, 2001

Reviews

[Friedrich · Rating 5 out of 5]

A slightly unsettling feeling gripped me whilst I read this: "The subject is the anchorage of subversion." The book reads like an introduction should. Where the book needs to be hand-holding it is, elsewhere it's impressionistic and challenging; sometimes, dare I say, entertaining even.

[A L]

His beef with Deleuze doesn't seem so bad, the way this book presents it.