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Happiness
'All philosophy is a metaphysics of happiness…or it's not worth an hour of trouble' claims Alain Badiou in this lively intervention into one of the most persistent themes in what is happiness? And what do I need to do to be happy? The desire to be happy is one of our most universal goals and yet there doesn't seem to be any easy answers or formulas for achieving happiness. And the concept has become so commodified and corrupted to be almost unrecognizable as something worth pursuing. In light of this, should we just give up the aspiration to be happy altogether? Alain Badiou thinks not. While eschewing futile procedures for magically becoming 'happy', Badiou does passionately maintain that in order to be truly happy we need philosophy. And, bolder still, that a life lived philosophically is the happiest life of all!
125 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2015
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About the author
Alain Badiou
368 books1,015 followersAlain Badiou, Ph.D., born in Rabat, Morocco in 1937, holds the Rene Descartes Chair at the European Graduate School EGS. Alain Badiou was a student at the École Normale Supérieure in the 1950s. He taught at the University of Paris VIII (Vincennes-Saint Denis) from 1969 until 1999, when he returned to ENS as the Chair of the philosophy department. He continues to teach a popular seminar at the Collège International de Philosophie, on topics ranging from the great 'antiphilosophers' (Saint-Paul, Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, Lacan) to the major conceptual innovations of the twentieth century. Much of Badiou's life has been shaped by his dedication to the consequences of the May 1968 revolt in Paris. Long a leading member of Union des jeunesses communistes de France (marxistes-léninistes), he remains with Sylvain Lazarus and Natacha Michel at the center of L'Organisation Politique, a post-party organization concerned with direct popular intervention in a wide range of issues (including immigration, labor, and housing). He is the author of several successful novels and plays as well as more than a dozen philosophical works.
Trained as a mathematician, Alain Badiou is one of the most original French philosophers today. Influenced by Plato, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Jacques Lacan and Gilles Deleuze, he is an outspoken critic of both the analytic as well as the postmodern schools of thoughts. His philosophy seeks to expose and make sense of the potential of radical innovation (revolution, invention, transfiguration) in every situation.
Trained as a mathematician, Alain Badiou is one of the most original French philosophers today. Influenced by Plato, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Jacques Lacan and Gilles Deleuze, he is an outspoken critic of both the analytic as well as the postmodern schools of thoughts. His philosophy seeks to expose and make sense of the potential of radical innovation (revolution, invention, transfiguration) in every situation.
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March 11, 2021
when badiju said istinska suština slobode, suštinski uslov realne sreće, jeste disciplina (str. 47) i really felt that što bi se reklo - odnosno, bilo mi je jasno zašto retko kad budem srećna: pa naravno jer nisam disciplinovana ni u čemu što radim gospode preblagi ja ne mogu da budem disciplinovana u čitanju jedne knjige at the time (i to se ovde baš vidi) zamislite kako je to kad govorimo o drugim stvarima.
ali krenimo redom.
jedna od prvih stvari koje sam naučila sa predavanja iz filozofije na faksu, kad mi već nije bilo dovoljna sociologija nego hej!! želim ja dodatak diplomi na kojoj piše i nešto nešto nešto filozofije - e tad, to što sam naučila jeste nešto što sam nazvala filozofskom mantrom hahaha jer sam je sebi stalno ponavljanja nakon što sam je čula od profesora babića - ako hoćeš da se baviš filozofijom moraš da imaš u vidu tri stvari: pod a) nema oduševljavanja, nema pretpostsvki, nema predrasuda (☑ važi nije problem?? lako ali i ne baš) pod b) nema pripovedanja (to mi teže pada, ali se u osnovi slažem) i pod c) svako mora da popije svoju dozu kukute (ovo zvuči smešno, i meni je prvo bilo ali jasna je linija kukuta - sokrat jelte; note to self: evo sad sam tek otkrila kako kukuta izgleda to je bre maltene pored svakog puta biljčica (SHOCKED) pa mi ovo ima više smisla sad iskreno tačno zamisli šetaš se pored hotela jugoslavija uveče lepo vreme na keju ubereš tu belu biljku jer ima sitne svetove baš je slatka onda je malo jače pritisneš ona pusti neki sok onda te zasvrbi nešto oko usta jer npr samo što si skinuo/la masku šta će ti maska na otvorenom pipneš uneseš taj sok u sebe umireš to je tvoja doza kukute molim lepo. šalim se, ovo sam samo malo karikirala ali stvarno sam tek sad otkrila kako izgleda a zvučim kao boris vijan iz vadisrca, prelepa knjiga inače (jer je tragična) čitajte je!!). meni su te tri stavke baš super i dok sam i badijua čitala isto sam ih imala na umu najviše ovu nema oduševljavanja jer se ja dosta lako oduševljavam čim neko otkrije neku toplu vodu ili lepo artikuliše u moje ime ono što i ja mislim ili što bi zui u selindžerovo ime rekao dajte mi predstavu petra pana i ja ću se oduševiti i od oduševljenja početi da plačem i pre nego što se zavesa uopšte podigne - e tako i ja inače kad čitam filozofe pa sam u fazonu jaoj vidi kako je to drugačiji nivo apstrakcije od onog na koji sam navikla!! sve u svemu, sem ove definicije realne sreće koju sam gore navela, badiju nudi u knjizi još njih 21 - neke ponudi pa ih opovrgne neke dublje obrazloži neke odbaci odmah ali ih u zaključku sve taksativno pobroji, redom kojim su se pojavljivale u knjizi da bismo videli razvoj od prve radne definicije do poslednje. ova sa disciplinom je 18.- lep broj i taman u drugoj polovini definicija hahaha.
super stvar sa ovom knjigom je što je puna prozivanja akademskog diskursa - ima neki deo gde badiju kaže kako je nepogrešiva odlika akademskog diskursa dosada i kad sam prvi put to pročitala pomislila sam evo ruke badiju brate moj slažem se!!! ali posle sam porazmislila i da, idalje se slažem samo ne znam da li badiju može baš da priča o tome - mislim može čovek naravno, ali pitanje je koliko je dosledan a meni kad neko nije dosledan ipak uvek gubi legitimitet u nekoj meri (zato taj legitimitet ja sama sebi na dnevnom nivou oduzmem više puta, jer se uhvatim u nedoslednosti). ali svakako super zapažanje akademija je dosadna. drugi plus u tefter za badijua (ili je ovo jedan ceo i pola za akademiju) od mene ide samo zato što se poziva na vitgenštajna. prema badijuu, vitgenštajn je antifilozof, najnetolerantniji od vernika, nije skeptik ili relativista. on samo u centar interesovanja stavlja jezičke igre, a badijuu i sam navodi da one spadaju u pravila sveta. to se slažemo - jezik je i za mene skup lego kocki (ili nekih drugih, lego je buržujski dosta) sa neograničenim brojem sklapanja, ne statična vaza za cveće. a filozofija je tu disciplina promišljanja.
ono što mi je sa druge strane dosta smetalo dok sam čitala jeste što mi je ovo u stvari delovalo na mah kao predgovor knjizi koju piše - imanentne istine - jer je stalno ponavljao 🧷u imanentnim istinama ću reći to i to, i to i to. ok druže super je to, ali hajde da je čitamo kad je napišeš? sa druge strane, u isto vreme mi je na mah delovalo kao da je ovo zapravo rekapitukacija dela onoga što je do sad napisao jer se ponavljao 🧷u teoriji subjekta kažem ovo u logici svetova ovo itd. i to bi bilo legitimno da je na nivou pozivanja na samog sebe, ali nije već je pre neka vrsta rekapitukacije koja ne mislim da je bila nužno potrebna. toliko ponavljanja i najavljivanja knjige navelo me je na to da pomislim da je ovo mogao biti i neki predgovor, pamfletić takoreći. u tom smislu mi je drago što sam metafiziku realne sreće tek sad čitala (a ne 2015. godine kad je badiju bio u beogradu a ja klinka od 15 godina išla da ga slušam sa andrejem, i da gledamo godarovu kineskinju i nisam imala para da kupim knjigu što me je tad mnogo rastužilo a sad mi je drago, ko zna kakva bi to tek tad bila depra što ništa ne razumem, teško mi je i sad bilo da pratim a ne sa 15 godina!!! s tim u vezi, ja sam i sad tek na pola razumevanja onoga što je on napisao ovde) i što je tome prethodilo čitanje realnog života, pohvale pozorištu i pohvale ljubavi. sve tri su odlične, i moja preporuka za čitanje. a i metafizika realne sreće je preporuka, ako dobro poznajete filozofske klasike i ako imate strpljenja za badijuova ponavljanja
ali krenimo redom.
jedna od prvih stvari koje sam naučila sa predavanja iz filozofije na faksu, kad mi već nije bilo dovoljna sociologija nego hej!! želim ja dodatak diplomi na kojoj piše i nešto nešto nešto filozofije - e tad, to što sam naučila jeste nešto što sam nazvala filozofskom mantrom hahaha jer sam je sebi stalno ponavljanja nakon što sam je čula od profesora babića - ako hoćeš da se baviš filozofijom moraš da imaš u vidu tri stvari: pod a) nema oduševljavanja, nema pretpostsvki, nema predrasuda (☑ važi nije problem?? lako ali i ne baš) pod b) nema pripovedanja (to mi teže pada, ali se u osnovi slažem) i pod c) svako mora da popije svoju dozu kukute (ovo zvuči smešno, i meni je prvo bilo ali jasna je linija kukuta - sokrat jelte; note to self: evo sad sam tek otkrila kako kukuta izgleda to je bre maltene pored svakog puta biljčica (SHOCKED) pa mi ovo ima više smisla sad iskreno tačno zamisli šetaš se pored hotela jugoslavija uveče lepo vreme na keju ubereš tu belu biljku jer ima sitne svetove baš je slatka onda je malo jače pritisneš ona pusti neki sok onda te zasvrbi nešto oko usta jer npr samo što si skinuo/la masku šta će ti maska na otvorenom pipneš uneseš taj sok u sebe umireš to je tvoja doza kukute molim lepo. šalim se, ovo sam samo malo karikirala ali stvarno sam tek sad otkrila kako izgleda a zvučim kao boris vijan iz vadisrca, prelepa knjiga inače (jer je tragična) čitajte je!!). meni su te tri stavke baš super i dok sam i badijua čitala isto sam ih imala na umu najviše ovu nema oduševljavanja jer se ja dosta lako oduševljavam čim neko otkrije neku toplu vodu ili lepo artikuliše u moje ime ono što i ja mislim ili što bi zui u selindžerovo ime rekao dajte mi predstavu petra pana i ja ću se oduševiti i od oduševljenja početi da plačem i pre nego što se zavesa uopšte podigne - e tako i ja inače kad čitam filozofe pa sam u fazonu jaoj vidi kako je to drugačiji nivo apstrakcije od onog na koji sam navikla!! sve u svemu, sem ove definicije realne sreće koju sam gore navela, badiju nudi u knjizi još njih 21 - neke ponudi pa ih opovrgne neke dublje obrazloži neke odbaci odmah ali ih u zaključku sve taksativno pobroji, redom kojim su se pojavljivale u knjizi da bismo videli razvoj od prve radne definicije do poslednje. ova sa disciplinom je 18.- lep broj i taman u drugoj polovini definicija hahaha.
super stvar sa ovom knjigom je što je puna prozivanja akademskog diskursa - ima neki deo gde badiju kaže kako je nepogrešiva odlika akademskog diskursa dosada i kad sam prvi put to pročitala pomislila sam evo ruke badiju brate moj slažem se!!! ali posle sam porazmislila i da, idalje se slažem samo ne znam da li badiju može baš da priča o tome - mislim može čovek naravno, ali pitanje je koliko je dosledan a meni kad neko nije dosledan ipak uvek gubi legitimitet u nekoj meri (zato taj legitimitet ja sama sebi na dnevnom nivou oduzmem više puta, jer se uhvatim u nedoslednosti). ali svakako super zapažanje akademija je dosadna. drugi plus u tefter za badijua (ili je ovo jedan ceo i pola za akademiju) od mene ide samo zato što se poziva na vitgenštajna. prema badijuu, vitgenštajn je antifilozof, najnetolerantniji od vernika, nije skeptik ili relativista. on samo u centar interesovanja stavlja jezičke igre, a badijuu i sam navodi da one spadaju u pravila sveta. to se slažemo - jezik je i za mene skup lego kocki (ili nekih drugih, lego je buržujski dosta) sa neograničenim brojem sklapanja, ne statična vaza za cveće. a filozofija je tu disciplina promišljanja.
ono što mi je sa druge strane dosta smetalo dok sam čitala jeste što mi je ovo u stvari delovalo na mah kao predgovor knjizi koju piše - imanentne istine - jer je stalno ponavljao 🧷u imanentnim istinama ću reći to i to, i to i to. ok druže super je to, ali hajde da je čitamo kad je napišeš? sa druge strane, u isto vreme mi je na mah delovalo kao da je ovo zapravo rekapitukacija dela onoga što je do sad napisao jer se ponavljao 🧷u teoriji subjekta kažem ovo u logici svetova ovo itd. i to bi bilo legitimno da je na nivou pozivanja na samog sebe, ali nije već je pre neka vrsta rekapitukacije koja ne mislim da je bila nužno potrebna. toliko ponavljanja i najavljivanja knjige navelo me je na to da pomislim da je ovo mogao biti i neki predgovor, pamfletić takoreći. u tom smislu mi je drago što sam metafiziku realne sreće tek sad čitala (a ne 2015. godine kad je badiju bio u beogradu a ja klinka od 15 godina išla da ga slušam sa andrejem, i da gledamo godarovu kineskinju i nisam imala para da kupim knjigu što me je tad mnogo rastužilo a sad mi je drago, ko zna kakva bi to tek tad bila depra što ništa ne razumem, teško mi je i sad bilo da pratim a ne sa 15 godina!!! s tim u vezi, ja sam i sad tek na pola razumevanja onoga što je on napisao ovde) i što je tome prethodilo čitanje realnog života, pohvale pozorištu i pohvale ljubavi. sve tri su odlične, i moja preporuka za čitanje. a i metafizika realne sreće je preporuka, ako dobro poznajete filozofske klasike i ako imate strpljenja za badijuova ponavljanja
October 7, 2022
Από τις πρασινωπές κορφές της Πάρνηθας, μέχρι την αστική πυρετώδη μοναχική φυλακή του covid, είχα παρέα τον γαλλοειδεστατο Badiou. Τι; Τώρα δεν μπορούμε ούτε να εφευρίσκουμε λέξεις; Προσωπικά αυτή η δραστηριότητα με κάνει ευτυχισμινέτερη και δεν σκοπεύω να τη σταματήσω.
"Ο κόσμος μας παραδίδει τη ζωή στον λεπτομερή και υποχρεωτικό υπολογισμό αυτής της αμφίβολης ασφάλειας και διατάσσει τις διαδοχικές σεκάνς της ύπαρξης σύμφωνα με αυτόν τον υπολογισμό. Ποιος όμως δε γνωρίζει ότι η πραγματική ευτυχία δεν υπόκειται σε υπολογισμούς;"
Τα καλά νέα είναι, πως εάν νιώσετε πως η πραγματική ευτυχία δεν μπορεί να σας βρει, μέσα σε έναν βαθύτατα υπολογισμένο, εμπορικό και αδιέξοδο κόσμο, ο Badiou μπορεί να γίνει ελαφρώς απρόβλεπτος και εάν φτάσετε στις τελευταίες σελίδες του ευχάριστου λογισμού του, θα κερδίσετε τη λίστα με τα συμπεράσματα. Εκεί υπάρχουν τα πολυπόθητα αποτελέσματα και εάν το πάμε ανάποδα, ίσως μπορούμε μέσα από αυτά να κατασκευάσουμε την ακατασκεύαστη και μυθική ανθρώπινη κατάσταση που ορίζεται ως μεταφυσική της ευτυχίας.
Ειλικρινά δική σας,
Ρ.Λ.
"Ο κόσμος μας παραδίδει τη ζωή στον λεπτομερή και υποχρεωτικό υπολογισμό αυτής της αμφίβολης ασφάλειας και διατάσσει τις διαδοχικές σεκάνς της ύπαρξης σύμφωνα με αυτόν τον υπολογισμό. Ποιος όμως δε γνωρίζει ότι η πραγματική ευτυχία δεν υπόκειται σε υπολογισμούς;"
Τα καλά νέα είναι, πως εάν νιώσετε πως η πραγματική ευτυχία δεν μπορεί να σας βρει, μέσα σε έναν βαθύτατα υπολογισμένο, εμπορικό και αδιέξοδο κόσμο, ο Badiou μπορεί να γίνει ελαφρώς απρόβλεπτος και εάν φτάσετε στις τελευταίες σελίδες του ευχάριστου λογισμού του, θα κερδίσετε τη λίστα με τα συμπεράσματα. Εκεί υπάρχουν τα πολυπόθητα αποτελέσματα και εάν το πάμε ανάποδα, ίσως μπορούμε μέσα από αυτά να κατασκευάσουμε την ακατασκεύαστη και μυθική ανθρώπινη κατάσταση που ορίζεται ως μεταφυσική της ευτυχίας.
Ειλικρινά δική σας,
Ρ.Λ.
February 15, 2015
In this new book Alain Badiou asserts and attempts to elucidate the relation between happiness and the philosophical life, between the cultivation of a happy life and the search for truth. He tells us from the beginning that for him the link between philosophy and happiness is an existential necessity: "every philosophy, even and above all if it is underpinned by complex scientific knowledge, innovative works of art, revolutionary politics, and intense loves, is a metaphysics of happiness, or else it is not worth an hour of effort" (page 7, my translation).
Badiou in this book expounds his philosophical system without the imposing technical apparatus that he develops in his larger works, and considers what sense philosophy in general, and his own philosophy in particular, can have for our lives in the contemporary world. In his "wisdom of life" formulations he tries to absorb the teachings of the so-called “anti-philosophers”, who are rather for Badiou the philosopher’s educators, and who “teach us that all that has true value is gained … by the effect, existentially experienced, of a rupture with the course of the world” (9).
Antiphilosophy contains a radical critique of modern society and of academic philosophy. It is thus for Badiou an essential step on the intense path of the "materialist dialectic" that he opposes to our atonal world of democratic materialism. It is in this sense that antiphilosophy "educates" us. In particular, antiphilosophy educates us to the value of rupture. However, ultimately what dominates is not rupture but absorption into Truths.
No doubt Badiou is trying to absorb the teachings of Lacan, of Deleuze and Guatttari, of Lyotard and of Derrida as well as those of Pascal, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and Wittgenstein. But his fidelity to the antiphilosophical impulse of singularity and of rupture with dominant opinions and ways of life, is immediately counter-balanced in his system by fidelity to the opposing imperative of universality: “The fundamental desire of philosophy is to think and to realise the universal … because a happiness that is not universal … is not real happiness” (12).
No argument is given in the text to justify the primacy given to universality, it is just imported and asserted at the moment that Badiou talks about Truths. "The fundamental desire of philosophy is to think and to realise the universal" (12). This is where Badiou parts company with Deleuze and with the pluralists. Deleuze emphasises that the universal exists only as product, and is in no case an absolute requirement or desideratum.
One conclusion from Badiou's model is that happiness does not mean being free to do what I want, because "what I want" is part of the world of repetition. Real freedom for Badiou involves accepting the discipline that comes with following the prescriptions of the real (as revealed in the event) against those of the world: "a subject exists at the point where it is impossible to distinguish between discipline and liberty" (52). Badiou gives the examples of artistic creation and of scientific research, but I have always found his pronouncements on "disipline" in relation to politics both obscure and ominous.
One can praise Badiou for his readiness to take these antiphilosophers seriously, despite what remains classical in his own project. The only philosophers that I have ever truly liked have quite a big dose of antiphilosophy, although this term of Badiou’s is biased. One could equally call them the “real” philosophers, but this would amount to just turning the dualism around without changing its structure. Maybe we could put them all together, and talk about who is more or less reified on certain points. However, it is true that Badiou englobes all these influences under the reified belief “I am a philosopher”.
I am reminded of the beginning of RHIZOME, where Deleuze and Guattari say that they signed the text with their own names but that this does not make it an identitarian text – no reified belief in their own identity is implied or required. The analogy that they use is with people saying “The sun is rising” when they know this is just a manner of speaking. Deleuze and Guattari have no such belief, as they replace belief in identities with faith in becomings. Feyerabend published an article called NOT A PHILOSOPHER, and I think it is based on this same de-reifying strategy, as for me he is very obviously a philosopher in the tradition of Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and Wittgenstein.
Badiou is different from the anti-philosophers in that he believes in the identity of the philosopher, despite attempting to democratise it through the notion of the “desire of philosophy” that he deploys in this book. He talks about the need for the philosopher of effectuating a “rupture with the course of the world”, and so implicitly of taking the path through solitude and suffering, but he undoes this step by insisting on the need to “incorporate” oneself into Truths in order to be a Subject and to know happiness.
One could call this the path of individuation, but people tend to talk about individuation as some sort of euphoric process, and in my view they are dis-individuated in doing so. I have sometimes felt obliged to intervene in such discussions to say that real individuation hurts and that sometimes it stinks. It is no euphoric individual or collective promenade in the fields of positivity. This is Jung’s point of view, that in the process of individuation one goes repeatedly through the experiences not just of difficulty and failure but of decomposition i.e. of rotting.
So in the process of individuation (or of subjectivation) the rupture is by far primary over the incorporation. My problem with Badiou is that ultimately for him incorporation has primacy over rupture and individuation. This is one reason why I prefer to read Badiou without the identity that he himself seems to require. Read in that way certain ideas and phrases can be extrapolated out of their limiting context and can be used to stimulate thought.
Badiou continues his implicit polemic against pluralism, maintaining that philosophy must "remove the obstacle that the world opposes to its universality" (21). Badiou puts the stake of philosophy in the opposition between universality and relativism. He seems to have no conception of pluralist realism, yet this is arguably the position of his illustrious predecessors (Deleuze, Lyotard), and of contemporary rival programmes such as Latour's AIME PROJECT.
On the troubling use of the term "universal" by Badiou: the universality that he talks of is not a logical or scientific category, but designates the possibility for a truth arising in a particular world to be understood and put to work in another world. The truth is not transported unchanged, but is adapted, modified, and transformed. In this sense "universal" in Badiou's acception is close to "untimely" in Deleuze's usage.
"Happiness can be defined there as the affirmative experience of an interruption of finitude" (10).
The hypothesis of finitude is that of democratic materialism, the hypothesis of infinity is that of the materialist dialectic. It would seem that democratic materialism is realist only in a limited sense, its realism is the adoption of a normed approach to the real, but that the materialist dialectic introduces a non-normed realism of truths.
"Real happiness is of the order of concentation, of intensification" (14). Badiou as philosopher of intensity resists the "imaginary dispersion" of the society of the spectacle, or the incoherence of communication.
I kept expecting some inspiring revelation from Badiou on the relation between philosophy and happiness, but the book is disappointing from that angle. Badiou talks about the connection between the practice of philosophy and the pursuit of a complex, difficult, set of relations to the sciences, the arts, politics, and love. These truth procedures are the non-philosophical wellsprings of our desire for philosophy and of our philosophical activity, whether we happen to be professional philosophers or not. He could have added religion, or sport, but this is not Badiou's style - he prefers a very limited yet concentrated field of practices.
There are no doubt many concepts and arguments in Badiou's work that are determined by the doxa of his particular world, and that could be criticised for their particularism. But his definition of philosophy means engaging with truths, wherever they are to be found, and struggling against the doxa of every world, even his own. His third volume of BEING AND EVENT will allow him to say from the viewpoint of the doxa of his world: "Philosophy is me" (85). This would be to endorse the triumph of the system over the exception, of the world over the real. Yet Badiou is not in favour of such self-satisfaction (what Laruelle calls the principle of sufficient philosophy). So he concludes that philosophy "is equally, egalitarianly, all you who are reading me, and who are thinking while doing this with me or against me (85).
May 25, 2021
[Probably closer to 3.5 stars if it matters...]
I've been really enjoying my reading of Badiou but there is something about this work that leaves me, for lack of a better word, unconvinced. Maybe I would feel differently if I had read his longer works (Theory of the Subject, Being and Event, Logics of Worlds) as this short work is obviously a short detour from those (although building and relying on what was constructed in those longer works). From Badiou's Ethics book I feel like I have a basic understanding of his concepts of Event, Truth, Subject, etc. I find myself willing to agree with these concepts and see how they speak with, and to, the anti-philosophers he writes and lectures about such as Lacan and Wittgenstein. But that's also where I start to have problems with this book. The chapter on anti-philosophy (which he states in the beginning is something that any current modern philosophy has to deal with and answer to) is by far the shortest of the book. And I couldn't get over the sense that he really hasn't fully accepted their points. He adapted them into his theory of the Event, but in some sense it seems he ignores the main point of what someone like Lacan says about the possibility of ever knowing truths. I suppose it's possible that he covers these points in the longer works, but the absence of truly and honestly facing their consequences for philosophy in this work makes it all the poorer for it.
Badiou is obviously a brilliant thinker. However, for this work to be truly convincing, he needed to critically argue his point in a bit more depth.
I've been really enjoying my reading of Badiou but there is something about this work that leaves me, for lack of a better word, unconvinced. Maybe I would feel differently if I had read his longer works (Theory of the Subject, Being and Event, Logics of Worlds) as this short work is obviously a short detour from those (although building and relying on what was constructed in those longer works). From Badiou's Ethics book I feel like I have a basic understanding of his concepts of Event, Truth, Subject, etc. I find myself willing to agree with these concepts and see how they speak with, and to, the anti-philosophers he writes and lectures about such as Lacan and Wittgenstein. But that's also where I start to have problems with this book. The chapter on anti-philosophy (which he states in the beginning is something that any current modern philosophy has to deal with and answer to) is by far the shortest of the book. And I couldn't get over the sense that he really hasn't fully accepted their points. He adapted them into his theory of the Event, but in some sense it seems he ignores the main point of what someone like Lacan says about the possibility of ever knowing truths. I suppose it's possible that he covers these points in the longer works, but the absence of truly and honestly facing their consequences for philosophy in this work makes it all the poorer for it.
Badiou is obviously a brilliant thinker. However, for this work to be truly convincing, he needed to critically argue his point in a bit more depth.
December 8, 2021
aristoteles'te çok sevdiğim ve seve seve tekrarladığım bir formül vardır: "ölümsüz olarak yaşamak"
bu duygu için başka adlar da vardır. spinoza'da "kutluluk", pascal'da "neşe", nietzsche'de "üstinsan", bergson'da "azizlik", kant'ta "saygı"
bir hakiki yaşam duygusu olduğuna inanıyorum ve ona en basit adı veriyorum: mutluluk duygusu. bu duygunun fedaya, kurban etmeye dayalı bir bileşeni yoktur. olumsuz hiçbir şey talep etmez. dinlerde olduğu gibi, ödülü yarın ve başka yerde olan bir fedakarlık yoktur. bu duygu, bir hakikatin öznesine ortak biçimde ait olduğundan, bireyin genleşmesinin, açılmasının olumlayıcı hissiyatıdır.
alain badiou, felsefi arzunun dört temel engelle, baskıyla karşılaştığını düşünür: metanın hakimiyeti, iletişimin egemenliği, paranın evrenselliği ve üretimde teknikte uzmanlaşma... felsefe böylesi radikal bir meydan okuma ile başa çıkabilir mi?
gerçek mutluluğun metafiziği kitabında, temelde mutlulukla ilgili 21 farklı tanım sunuluyor, yadsınıyor, sınanıyor, reddediliyor, kabul ediliyor. elbette aforizmalar şeklinde değil, gerçek bir felsefe kitabına yakışacak türden bir yaklaşımla.
benim çıkardığım ders, mutluluk, istemenin zoruyla elde edilen bir duygu. eğer bir düşünce varsa kafamda, bir amacım varsa, bu benim sonluluğa karşı zaferimdir. sonsuza dair sonlu bir zevk arayışı, hayatımı adayacağım türden bir arayış olabilir.
January 3, 2016
In his new book, MÉTAPHYSIQUE DU BONHEUR RÉEL (METAPHYSICS OF REAL HAPPPINESS), Badiou recounts his philosophical voyage, beginning with his first major book THEORY OF THE SUBJECT, published in 1982, but presenting the content of his seminar from January 1975 to June 1979. His first "great" book, BEING AND EVENT (1988, 560 pages), was followed 18 years later by its second volume LOGICS OF WORLDS (2006, 630 pages). The voyage continues, and this little book of only 90 pages recounts the path already traveled and sketches out the next step. In effect, Badiou envisages publishing a third volumes L’IMMANENCE DES VÉRITÉS in January 2017, which will complete the system that he has been elaborating over his philosophical voyage and which “will amongst other things bear on everything that happens for a determinate individual when he incorporates himself in a truth-procedure, when he is taken up in the Idea” (57).
Badiou calls “antiphilosophers” thinkers who have a more open and ample thought than in a more classical approach. He reassures and strengthens himself against self-doubt and criticism by others over his own classicism by incorporating them into his system. One can praise Badiou for his readiness to take these “antiphilosophers” seriously, despite what remains classical in his own project. “I will speak about anti-philosophy … Pascal, Rousseau, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, Lacan. My thesis is that these antiphilosophers … are necessary for us, so that our classicism will not be transformed into academicism, which is the principal enemy of philosophy, and so of happiness: In effect, the affect by which academic discourse can infallibly be recognised is boredom”. (Métaphysique du Bonheur Réel, 8-9, my translation).
This passage takes up Badiou’s critique of atonal worlds, those worlds that are without affective tonality, and reiterates Deleuze and Guattari’s critique of reflection as turning its back on intensity. It is interesting to see Badiou hard at work becoming a philosopher of desire, affect, becoming, and intensity, forty years after Deleuze and Lyotard.
Badiou in his wisdom of life formulations tries to absorb the teachings of the so-called “anti-philosophers”, who are the philosopher’s educators, and who “teach us that all that has true value is gained … by the effect, existentially experienced, of a rupture with the course of the world” (9). No doubt he is trying to absorb Deleuze as well. But this antiphilosophical impulse, which Deleuze and Guattari call “stopping the world”, is immediately counter-balanced in Badiou’s system by the imperative of universality: “The fundamental desire of philosophy is to think and to realise the universal … because a happiness that is not universal … is not real happiness”, 12). No argument is given to justify this primacy given to universality, it is just asserted at the moment that Badiou talks about Truths.
“In this commitment of thought, the share of chance remains ineffaceable” (12). Some modern philosophers, for example Paul Feyerabend and Gilles Deleuze, give an even greater role to chance and to accident. In an article ironically called “Not a Philosopher” Feyerabend decries the standard systematic approach and declares: “I did not invent the opinions I have. I accidentally picked them up, from newspapers, plays, novels, political debates, and even from a philosophy book now and then”. Deleuze uses this same idea , and the same term, of “picking up” one’s ideas by chance encounter. Both, however, refuse the primacy of “universality”.
Nonetheless, Badiou is close to Deleuze and Feyerabend on these points, and can also be seen as giving his reply to François Laruelle’s non-philosophy. Badiou is claiming not to be an “academic” philosopher in a fundamental sense. Badiou’s technique is one of non-engagement: he excludes anti-philosophers from philosophy, and then reabsorbs them. Yet he is learning from them. Some philosophers do not even do that.
Continuing in this Deleuzian vein, Badiou presents his philosophy of real happiness as a philosophy of desire. He claims to “take from poetry” the idea that philosophy “as oriented towards the universality of happiness” has four fundamental dimensions: revolt, logic, universality, and risk. According to Badiou, these four components of the desire of the philosopher are also the four components of the desire for revolution.
However, modern society places many obstacles in the way of this desire both repressing it and ideologically undermining it: “the contemporary world … exerts a strong negative pressure on the four dimensions of such a desire” (12).
1) Revolt: no need for revolt as we are already free. But for Badiou this is merely the freedom of the market, the obligation to consume in a world of merchandise.
2) Logic: no need for logic, as we are immersed in a flood of communication. But for Badiou this world is incoherent, a spectacle without memory. What it lacks most essentially is a “logic of time”.
3) Universality: no need for universality as we have money (materialised universality). But for Badiou this world is fragmentary, based on the competition of specialised interests.
4) Risk: no room for chance, we calculate the risks and insure against them. But for Badiou the felicific calculus can never succeed, as “real happiness is incalculable”.
Thus the four components of real desire, of the “philosophical desire for a revolution of existence” (revolt, logic, universality, and risk) encounter four obstacles: the rule of merchandise, communication, money, and specialisation, “the whole bound subjectively by the calculus of personal security” (15).
There is a balance to be found between the components of revolt and risk, which embody chaos, and logic and universality, which incarnate system. Despite the presence of non-academic or chaotic elements Badiou’s “classicism” gives primacy to the system, even if as we shall see his system is non-deterministic.
Badiou links the various anti-philosophical themes of chance, risk, freedom, and change to the notion of negation: “one can say that I am pursuing from one end of my philosophical enterprise to the other … a meditation on negation. I am simply trying to explain the possibility of change, the possibility of passing from a certain regime of laws of that which is to another regime, by the mediation of a protocol of a truth and of its subject. I am thus in dialectical thought, and in a dialectical theory of happiness, which is the paraconsistent negation of finitude by a complete infinite” (82). So Badiou can say that his thought embodies a dialectics without determinism: “as my dialectical thought includes a figure of hasard, it is non determinist” (82).
Hegel’s Absolute is deterministic. Badiou argues that as he incorporates an element of chance in his system, his Absolute is non-deterministic. He tells us that in the futue book THE IMMANENCE OF TRUTHS he will discuss Hegel’s concept of the Absolute, as he agrees with Hegel and Plato that “all real happiness is a sort of provisional access to the Absolute” (82).
Describing the role of negation in the forthcoming book: “with the presence of an aleatory element, I introduce the principle of a cut which is not exactly homogeneous to the classical principles of negation. That is why, finally, I will be using three different and interwoven logics: classical logic, intuitionist logic, and paraconsistent logic” (83).
The book will also comport a renewed approach to his Platonism of the multiple: “At the same time, I will raise to the absolute the ontological system of reference – the thought of the pure multiple – by means of the truly sensational theory of “very big infinities”. Threefold logic and infinity of infinities will be the key of a general theory of happiness, which is the goal of all philosophy” (83).
For Badiou, philosophy is based on the conviction that there are truths and on the experience of participating in them. He believes in the identity of the philosopher, but attempts to democratise it through the notion of the “desire of philosophy” that he deploys. He talks about the need for the philosopher of effectuating a “rupture with the course of the world”, and so implicitly of taking the path through solitude and suffering, but he also insists on the need to “incorporate” oneself into Truths in order to be a Subject and to know happiness.
One could call this the path of individuation (Jung) or of subjectivation (Deleuze), but this is not the sort of euphoric process that many people envisage. From Jung’s point of view, in the process of individuation one goes repeatedly through the experiences not just of difficulty and failure, but of deconstruction and of decomposition. So the “rupture” is by far primary over the incorporation. My problem with Badiou is that ultimately he gives primacy to incorporation and to the abandon of the liberty that has been acquired during the process of rupture, and to becoming a disciplined member of a movement faithful to a Truth over individuation. This is why I prefer to read Badiou without the identity that he himself requires. Read in this way his ideas and formulations can be employed more freely as raw material, extrapolated out of their limiting context, and can be used to stimulate new thought and action.
Badiou calls “antiphilosophers” thinkers who have a more open and ample thought than in a more classical approach. He reassures and strengthens himself against self-doubt and criticism by others over his own classicism by incorporating them into his system. One can praise Badiou for his readiness to take these “antiphilosophers” seriously, despite what remains classical in his own project. “I will speak about anti-philosophy … Pascal, Rousseau, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, Lacan. My thesis is that these antiphilosophers … are necessary for us, so that our classicism will not be transformed into academicism, which is the principal enemy of philosophy, and so of happiness: In effect, the affect by which academic discourse can infallibly be recognised is boredom”. (Métaphysique du Bonheur Réel, 8-9, my translation).
This passage takes up Badiou’s critique of atonal worlds, those worlds that are without affective tonality, and reiterates Deleuze and Guattari’s critique of reflection as turning its back on intensity. It is interesting to see Badiou hard at work becoming a philosopher of desire, affect, becoming, and intensity, forty years after Deleuze and Lyotard.
Badiou in his wisdom of life formulations tries to absorb the teachings of the so-called “anti-philosophers”, who are the philosopher’s educators, and who “teach us that all that has true value is gained … by the effect, existentially experienced, of a rupture with the course of the world” (9). No doubt he is trying to absorb Deleuze as well. But this antiphilosophical impulse, which Deleuze and Guattari call “stopping the world”, is immediately counter-balanced in Badiou’s system by the imperative of universality: “The fundamental desire of philosophy is to think and to realise the universal … because a happiness that is not universal … is not real happiness”, 12). No argument is given to justify this primacy given to universality, it is just asserted at the moment that Badiou talks about Truths.
“In this commitment of thought, the share of chance remains ineffaceable” (12). Some modern philosophers, for example Paul Feyerabend and Gilles Deleuze, give an even greater role to chance and to accident. In an article ironically called “Not a Philosopher” Feyerabend decries the standard systematic approach and declares: “I did not invent the opinions I have. I accidentally picked them up, from newspapers, plays, novels, political debates, and even from a philosophy book now and then”. Deleuze uses this same idea , and the same term, of “picking up” one’s ideas by chance encounter. Both, however, refuse the primacy of “universality”.
Nonetheless, Badiou is close to Deleuze and Feyerabend on these points, and can also be seen as giving his reply to François Laruelle’s non-philosophy. Badiou is claiming not to be an “academic” philosopher in a fundamental sense. Badiou’s technique is one of non-engagement: he excludes anti-philosophers from philosophy, and then reabsorbs them. Yet he is learning from them. Some philosophers do not even do that.
Continuing in this Deleuzian vein, Badiou presents his philosophy of real happiness as a philosophy of desire. He claims to “take from poetry” the idea that philosophy “as oriented towards the universality of happiness” has four fundamental dimensions: revolt, logic, universality, and risk. According to Badiou, these four components of the desire of the philosopher are also the four components of the desire for revolution.
However, modern society places many obstacles in the way of this desire both repressing it and ideologically undermining it: “the contemporary world … exerts a strong negative pressure on the four dimensions of such a desire” (12).
1) Revolt: no need for revolt as we are already free. But for Badiou this is merely the freedom of the market, the obligation to consume in a world of merchandise.
2) Logic: no need for logic, as we are immersed in a flood of communication. But for Badiou this world is incoherent, a spectacle without memory. What it lacks most essentially is a “logic of time”.
3) Universality: no need for universality as we have money (materialised universality). But for Badiou this world is fragmentary, based on the competition of specialised interests.
4) Risk: no room for chance, we calculate the risks and insure against them. But for Badiou the felicific calculus can never succeed, as “real happiness is incalculable”.
Thus the four components of real desire, of the “philosophical desire for a revolution of existence” (revolt, logic, universality, and risk) encounter four obstacles: the rule of merchandise, communication, money, and specialisation, “the whole bound subjectively by the calculus of personal security” (15).
There is a balance to be found between the components of revolt and risk, which embody chaos, and logic and universality, which incarnate system. Despite the presence of non-academic or chaotic elements Badiou’s “classicism” gives primacy to the system, even if as we shall see his system is non-deterministic.
Badiou links the various anti-philosophical themes of chance, risk, freedom, and change to the notion of negation: “one can say that I am pursuing from one end of my philosophical enterprise to the other … a meditation on negation. I am simply trying to explain the possibility of change, the possibility of passing from a certain regime of laws of that which is to another regime, by the mediation of a protocol of a truth and of its subject. I am thus in dialectical thought, and in a dialectical theory of happiness, which is the paraconsistent negation of finitude by a complete infinite” (82). So Badiou can say that his thought embodies a dialectics without determinism: “as my dialectical thought includes a figure of hasard, it is non determinist” (82).
Hegel’s Absolute is deterministic. Badiou argues that as he incorporates an element of chance in his system, his Absolute is non-deterministic. He tells us that in the futue book THE IMMANENCE OF TRUTHS he will discuss Hegel’s concept of the Absolute, as he agrees with Hegel and Plato that “all real happiness is a sort of provisional access to the Absolute” (82).
Describing the role of negation in the forthcoming book: “with the presence of an aleatory element, I introduce the principle of a cut which is not exactly homogeneous to the classical principles of negation. That is why, finally, I will be using three different and interwoven logics: classical logic, intuitionist logic, and paraconsistent logic” (83).
The book will also comport a renewed approach to his Platonism of the multiple: “At the same time, I will raise to the absolute the ontological system of reference – the thought of the pure multiple – by means of the truly sensational theory of “very big infinities”. Threefold logic and infinity of infinities will be the key of a general theory of happiness, which is the goal of all philosophy” (83).
For Badiou, philosophy is based on the conviction that there are truths and on the experience of participating in them. He believes in the identity of the philosopher, but attempts to democratise it through the notion of the “desire of philosophy” that he deploys. He talks about the need for the philosopher of effectuating a “rupture with the course of the world”, and so implicitly of taking the path through solitude and suffering, but he also insists on the need to “incorporate” oneself into Truths in order to be a Subject and to know happiness.
One could call this the path of individuation (Jung) or of subjectivation (Deleuze), but this is not the sort of euphoric process that many people envisage. From Jung’s point of view, in the process of individuation one goes repeatedly through the experiences not just of difficulty and failure, but of deconstruction and of decomposition. So the “rupture” is by far primary over the incorporation. My problem with Badiou is that ultimately he gives primacy to incorporation and to the abandon of the liberty that has been acquired during the process of rupture, and to becoming a disciplined member of a movement faithful to a Truth over individuation. This is why I prefer to read Badiou without the identity that he himself requires. Read in this way his ideas and formulations can be employed more freely as raw material, extrapolated out of their limiting context, and can be used to stimulate new thought and action.
March 11, 2022
One of Badiou’s public oriented works which doesn’t skimp on the power of his thought. Badiou gives a concise critique of contemporary philosophical schools(continental, analytic, and postmodern), showing how they all lapse into a linguistic turn which disregards truth(s). Badiou then goes on to shed some philosophical light on the idea of changing the world by laying out some clearly defined categories. Badiou also shows that satisfaction is distinct from happiness insofar as it aims at individual, finite concerns which are commensurate with the dominant world. The book concludes with Badiou summing up his major works around the big three themes: Being, Truth, Subject. With Immanence of Truths coming soon, this is a great work to read in anticipation.
January 2, 2025
في هذا العمل ال��ضغوط والمكثف فكريًا، ينتقد باديو الفهم المعاصر للسعادة كحالة ذاتية مرتبطة بالمتعة الشخصية أو الرضا أو المكاسب المادية. وبدلًا من ذلك، يعيد تعريف السعادة باعتبارها مسعى أخلاقيًا وجماعيًا مرتبطًا بعمق بالحقائق الكونية والأحداث التحويلية.
تبدأ حجة باديو بنقد المفهوم الفردي والاستهلاكي للسعادة الذي يهيمن على المجتمع الحديث. وهو يرى هذا التفسير الضحل على أنه تسليع لتجربة إنسانية عميقة، يختزل السعادة إلى شعور عابر بالراحة يتحقق من خلال الاستهلاك أو أيديولوجيات المساعدة الذاتية أو التدخلات العلاجية. ووفقًا لباديو، فإن هذا النهج يحول الانتباه عن الأبعاد الأعمق للسعادة التي تظهر عندما ينخرط الأفراد في تجارب ذات مغزى وقائمة على الحقيقة.
ومن الأمور المحورية في فلسفة باديو مفهوم إجراءات الحقيقة. وهي عمليات تولد من الأحداث التحويلية في مجالات مثل الحب والسياسة والفن والعلم. هذه الأحداث تعطل الوضع الراهن وتكشف عن إمكانيات جديدة للفكر والعمل. بالنسبة لباديو، لا تتعلق السعادة بالرضا السلبي، بل بالتزام نشط وغالبًا ما يتطلب التزامًا بهذه الحقائق. هذا الالتزام - الذي يسميه الإخلاص - يتطلب من الأفراد المثابرة في السعي وراء الحقيقة حتى عندما ينطوي ذلك على صراع أو عدم يقين أو تضحية. تنشأ السعادة الحقيقية، من وجهة نظره، من هذا الالتزام بالقيم العالمية والمسعى الإنساني الأوسع لخلق عالم أفضل.
ويؤكد باديو أيضًا على الطبيعة الجماعية للسعادة. وخلافًا للتركيز الفردي للتفسيرات الحديثة، يجادل باديو بأن السعادة لا يمكن اختزالها في الرضا الشخصي، بل يجب فهمها في علاقتها بالخير الجماعي. وبالاعتماد على التأثيرات الماركسية والوجودية، يسلط الضوء على أهمية المجتمع والتضامن والمثل العليا المشتركة في تحقيق السعادة الحقيقية. ويعيد هذا المنظور توجيه القارئ نحو المسؤولية الأخلاقية وإمكانية التحول المجتمعي من خلال الالتزام العالمي.
وعلى الرغم من أن الكتاب موجز نسبيًا، إلا أنه يتطلب جهدًا كبيرًا لفهم أفكاره بالكامل، مما يجعله كتابًا صعب القراءة، خاصةً لمن ليس على دراية بالإطار الفلسفي لباديو.
تبدأ حجة باديو بنقد المفهوم الفردي والاستهلاكي للسعادة الذي يهيمن على المجتمع الحديث. وهو يرى هذا التفسير الضحل على أنه تسليع لتجربة إنسانية عميقة، يختزل السعادة إلى شعور عابر بالراحة يتحقق من خلال الاستهلاك أو أيديولوجيات المساعدة الذاتية أو التدخلات العلاجية. ووفقًا لباديو، فإن هذا النهج يحول الانتباه عن الأبعاد الأعمق للسعادة التي تظهر عندما ينخرط الأفراد في تجارب ذات مغزى وقائمة على الحقيقة.
ومن الأمور المحورية في فلسفة باديو مفهوم إجراءات الحقيقة. وهي عمليات تولد من الأحداث التحويلية في مجالات مثل الحب والسياسة والفن والعلم. هذه الأحداث تعطل الوضع الراهن وتكشف عن إمكانيات جديدة للفكر والعمل. بالنسبة لباديو، لا تتعلق السعادة بالرضا السلبي، بل بالتزام نشط وغالبًا ما يتطلب التزامًا بهذه الحقائق. هذا الالتزام - الذي يسميه الإخلاص - يتطلب من الأفراد المثابرة في السعي وراء الحقيقة حتى عندما ينطوي ذلك على صراع أو عدم يقين أو تضحية. تنشأ السعادة الحقيقية، من وجهة نظره، من هذا الالتزام بالقيم العالمية والمسعى الإنساني الأوسع لخلق عالم أفضل.
ويؤكد باديو أيضًا على الطبيعة الجماعية للسعادة. وخلافًا للتركيز الفردي للتفسيرات الحديثة، يجادل باديو بأن السعادة لا يمكن اختزالها في الرضا الشخصي، بل يجب فهمها في علاقتها بالخير الجماعي. وبالاعتماد على التأثيرات الماركسية والوجودية، يسلط الضوء على أهمية المجتمع والتضامن والمثل العليا المشتركة في تحقيق السعادة الحقيقية. ويعيد هذا المنظور توجيه القارئ نحو المسؤولية الأخلاقية وإمكانية التحول المجتمعي من خلال الالتزام العالمي.
وعلى الرغم من أن الكتاب موجز نسبيًا، إلا أنه يتطلب جهدًا كبيرًا لفهم أفكاره بالكامل، مما يجعله كتابًا صعب القراءة، خاصةً لمن ليس على دراية بالإطار الفلسفي لباديو.
June 19, 2024
Kolaylaştırılmış, ticarileştirilmiş, basit bir hapa dönüştürülmüş bir mutluluk satılmıyor burada. Felsefi bir metin. Yani felsefi terimleri bilmeden, felsefi yönteme bir süre kafa patlatmış olmadan okunursa zor gelir. Dayanamayıp, araya sokuşturduğu siyasi mevzularla ve aşırı sistemliliğiyle kafa açsa da eser değerli içgörülerle dolu.
December 16, 2015
"Κάθε ευτυχία είναι μια πεπερασμένη απόλαυση του απείρου."
March 9, 2023
Quite a readable translation of Alain Badiou's "little books", with a bonus prologue from the translators who admirably lay out Badiouan thought leading up to and despite this petite volume, itself a prologue to Badiou's plan to complete his triptych of "big books" that began with Being and Event, then Logics of Worlds, and now The Immanence of Truths, of course all in translation.
If our epoch still is into jousting, I'd say Badiou allows us to be happy to live under that Idea of being decked-out in armor, on horseback, rushing in with lances, should we throw them as javelins into infinite space and time so argued the Epicureans, as credited to Lucretius. Only that we, all matter and form entire, armor, horse and lance, may just be the javelins thrown at that infinite multiplicity and happy at that thrownness, to parlay Heidegger.
I like the aleatory materialist argument that Badiou makes near the end of this little book, distinguishing it from the classical deterministic materialism of Hegel-Marx-Mao, something that helps me to intuit, and thus capture the felicity of that intuition as some kind of bliss for me, how closely my own thoughts play in that jousting, as dice may be thrown to yield to chance chance's own yielding, though that joy of play might just be the promise of youth when the epigenetic pathway is still wide open, unhardened to the habits of age and certainly age's own forbearance of finitude, its own foibles, its own timidities.
Badiou structures the revolutionary ethic of a cosmos of possibility when one becomes subject to it, fully participant, perhaps in synderesis, but especially when encountering the difficulties of returning to Plato's cave to go beyond the rhetoric of shadow-boxing, but to show, and then in the Wittgensteinian throwing away the ladder, but really no, to demonstrate instead as a high calling to another the how and where and why of that ladder at her own disposal. And this to throw it again, like a lance, a javelin, because we are infinite to it, at us, philosophy's challenge to us, in any epoch, to return in revolution, in love, in science, and all, to the cavern of fear, or if not fear then refuges of satisfaction or superstition or plain old habit, to show a happy prospect elsewhere, though not necessarily "elsewhere" because really "corrupting youth", whereof Socrates had been charged and sentenced to death, is to give provender for their old age.
But of course I should admit that there is much to capture of Badiou's opus, from its taxonomy and evolution so far, and then of course there will be the interpreters/footnoters of his work in the iterativeness of understanding/misunderstanding, flowering, revolutionizing, paradigming, and so on. To any young student of philosophy today, you should be so lucky in your efforts at reading.
If our epoch still is into jousting, I'd say Badiou allows us to be happy to live under that Idea of being decked-out in armor, on horseback, rushing in with lances, should we throw them as javelins into infinite space and time so argued the Epicureans, as credited to Lucretius. Only that we, all matter and form entire, armor, horse and lance, may just be the javelins thrown at that infinite multiplicity and happy at that thrownness, to parlay Heidegger.
I like the aleatory materialist argument that Badiou makes near the end of this little book, distinguishing it from the classical deterministic materialism of Hegel-Marx-Mao, something that helps me to intuit, and thus capture the felicity of that intuition as some kind of bliss for me, how closely my own thoughts play in that jousting, as dice may be thrown to yield to chance chance's own yielding, though that joy of play might just be the promise of youth when the epigenetic pathway is still wide open, unhardened to the habits of age and certainly age's own forbearance of finitude, its own foibles, its own timidities.
Badiou structures the revolutionary ethic of a cosmos of possibility when one becomes subject to it, fully participant, perhaps in synderesis, but especially when encountering the difficulties of returning to Plato's cave to go beyond the rhetoric of shadow-boxing, but to show, and then in the Wittgensteinian throwing away the ladder, but really no, to demonstrate instead as a high calling to another the how and where and why of that ladder at her own disposal. And this to throw it again, like a lance, a javelin, because we are infinite to it, at us, philosophy's challenge to us, in any epoch, to return in revolution, in love, in science, and all, to the cavern of fear, or if not fear then refuges of satisfaction or superstition or plain old habit, to show a happy prospect elsewhere, though not necessarily "elsewhere" because really "corrupting youth", whereof Socrates had been charged and sentenced to death, is to give provender for their old age.
But of course I should admit that there is much to capture of Badiou's opus, from its taxonomy and evolution so far, and then of course there will be the interpreters/footnoters of his work in the iterativeness of understanding/misunderstanding, flowering, revolutionizing, paradigming, and so on. To any young student of philosophy today, you should be so lucky in your efforts at reading.
March 2, 2022
Geçmişteki filazoflardan çok fazla bahseden yazar daha çok çıkarımlar üzerine sohbet etmiş.
*"Dünya'yı nasıl değiştirmeli? Yanıt aslında zevk verici.
-Mutlu olarak"
1. Mutluluk, hâkikatlere ulaşmanın güvenilir işaretidir.
2. Mutluluk erdemin ödülü değildir. O bizzat erdemin kendisidir.
3. Mutluluk sonluluğun kesintiye uğramasının olumlayıcı deneyimidir.
4. Mutluluk hâkiki yaşamın olumlamasıdır.
5. Ve gerçek mutluluk da açıklığın öznel figürüdür.
6. Gerçek mutluluk da demokrasi duygusudur.
7. Gerçek mutluluk yeni yaşam biçimlerinin zevkidir.
8. Her gerçek mutluluk zamanın özgürleşmesini gerektirir.
9. Ancak bir özne için, bir bireyden özne hâline gelmeyi kabul eden için gerçek mutluluk vardır.
10. Hâkiki bir fikrin buyruğunu izleyerek yürümek bizi mutluluğa yazgılar, götürür.
11. Her gerçek mutluluk olumsal, tesadüfi bir karşılaşmada gerçekleşir. Mutlu olmak için hiçbir zorunluluk yoktur.
12. Bir tutam umutsuzluk, gerçek mutluluğun tuzu, biberidir.
13. Öznenin etkisinin duygusu ister politik heyecan, ister bilimsel güzellik, ister estetik haz, ister hazzın sevinci olsun, ihtiyaçların tatmini ötesinde her zaman mutluluk adına layık olan şeydir.
14. Mutluluk her zaman olanaksızın zevkidir.
15. Her gerçek mutluluk bir sadakattir.
16. Mutluluk bir bireyde dönüşecileceğini keşfettiği öznenin zuhur etmesidir.
17. Mutluluk içkin istisna olarak öznenin duygusudur.
18. Özgürlüğün hâkiki özü, gerçek mutluluğun özsel koşulu disiplindir.
19. Her mutluluk sonluluğa karşı bir zaferdir.
20. Her mutluluk sonsuza dair sonlu bir zevktir.
21. Her mutluluk bir anlamda istemenin zoruyla elde edilir.
*"Dünya'yı nasıl değiştirmeli? Yanıt aslında zevk verici.
-Mutlu olarak"
1. Mutluluk, hâkikatlere ulaşmanın güvenilir işaretidir.
2. Mutluluk erdemin ödülü değildir. O bizzat erdemin kendisidir.
3. Mutluluk sonluluğun kesintiye uğramasının olumlayıcı deneyimidir.
4. Mutluluk hâkiki yaşamın olumlamasıdır.
5. Ve gerçek mutluluk da açıklığın öznel figürüdür.
6. Gerçek mutluluk da demokrasi duygusudur.
7. Gerçek mutluluk yeni yaşam biçimlerinin zevkidir.
8. Her gerçek mutluluk zamanın özgürleşmesini gerektirir.
9. Ancak bir özne için, bir bireyden özne hâline gelmeyi kabul eden için gerçek mutluluk vardır.
10. Hâkiki bir fikrin buyruğunu izleyerek yürümek bizi mutluluğa yazgılar, götürür.
11. Her gerçek mutluluk olumsal, tesadüfi bir karşılaşmada gerçekleşir. Mutlu olmak için hiçbir zorunluluk yoktur.
12. Bir tutam umutsuzluk, gerçek mutluluğun tuzu, biberidir.
13. Öznenin etkisinin duygusu ister politik heyecan, ister bilimsel güzellik, ister estetik haz, ister hazzın sevinci olsun, ihtiyaçların tatmini ötesinde her zaman mutluluk adına layık olan şeydir.
14. Mutluluk her zaman olanaksızın zevkidir.
15. Her gerçek mutluluk bir sadakattir.
16. Mutluluk bir bireyde dönüşecileceğini keşfettiği öznenin zuhur etmesidir.
17. Mutluluk içkin istisna olarak öznenin duygusudur.
18. Özgürlüğün hâkiki özü, gerçek mutluluğun özsel koşulu disiplindir.
19. Her mutluluk sonluluğa karşı bir zaferdir.
20. Her mutluluk sonsuza dair sonlu bir zevktir.
21. Her mutluluk bir anlamda istemenin zoruyla elde edilir.
October 3, 2021
شادمانی یک ایدهٔ انتزاعی از یک جامعهٔ خوب که در آن همگان راضی و خوشنود باشند نیست. شادمان، سوبژکتیویتهٔ یک کار دشوار است: رودررویی با پیامدهای یک رخداد و کشف امکانات درخشان در بطن وجود تهی و افسردة جهان ما؛ امکاناتی که امر واقعی تصدیقی آن را ارزانی داشته و قانون این جهان، نفی پنهان آن است. شادمانی، متلذذشدن از وجود نیرومند و آفرینشگر چیزی است که از منظر جهان، غیرممکن مینمود. جهان را چطور تغییر دهیم؟ پاسخ به این پرسش به راحتی برانگیزنده است: با شاد بودن. اما باید بهای این شاد بودن را بپردازیم؛ یعنی گهگاه واقعاً ناراضی باشیم. این یک انتخاب راستین است، انتخاب راستین زندگیهای ما. این انتخاب راستین معطوف به زندگی راستین است.
May 23, 2022
Mutluluk teması asıl olsa da genel manada akıcı ve anlaşılır felsefi bir deneyim sunuyor kitap. Badiou felsefi akımlara açıklayıcı, eleştirel ve yapıcı bir yaklaşım sergilerken, kendi görüşlerini de doğrudan bir şekilde dile getirmekten kaçınmıyor. Gereksiz ve sıkıcı söz oyunları, teoriler, tarihçe vs insanları felsefeye mesafeli tutuyorsa Badiou’nun diline bir şans verilmeli mutlaka.
January 17, 2018
"Her mutluluk sonluluğa karşı bir zaferdir."
November 30, 2020
Alain Badiou, bu kitabında mutluluk ve felsefi yaşam arasındaki ilişkiyi, yaşamın yetiştirilmesi ve hakikat arayışını açıklamaya çalışıyor.
March 14, 2021
There's been talk of a little metaphysics, a little happiness, a little dialectic but none of them are complete.
November 6, 2022
كلام لا معنى له وترجمة سيئة و أفكار لا تعدو كونها محض تخيلات في رأس الكاتب.
April 8, 2025
الترجمة بدون سياق وحرفية جدًا
April 28, 2025
Une reprise de la sagesse antique : la vraie vie, la vérité et la philosophie sont les recherches de l'exceptionnel.
July 5, 2025
薄薄的一本书，法语没看懂，换到中文还是半知半懂，看来困住我的不只是语言，可能要看两遍会好一些
September 2, 2025
İlk üç bölümüne diyecek yok, ama dördüncü ve son bölümü daha çok yazarın kaleme almayı tasarladığı bir kitabıyla ilgili plan ve düşüncelerini kapsıyor ve bu haliyle sıkıcı ve kopuk. Çeviri başarılı.
November 10, 2015
Μία κριτική μου για το βιβλίο σε ελληνική μετάφραση εκδόσεων Πατάκη http://kulturosupa.gr/index.php/art-b...
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