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The Immanence of Truths: Being and Event III
The Being and Event trilogy is the philosophical basis of Alain Badiou's entire oeuvre. It is formed of three major texts, which constitute a kind of metaphysical Being and Event (1988). ), Logics of the Worlds ( 2006) and finally The Immanence of Truths , which he has been working on for 15 years.
The new volume reverses the perspective adopted in Logics of Worlds. Where in that book, Badiou saw fit to analyze how truths, qua events, appear from the perspective of particular worlds that by definition exclude them, in The Immanence of Truths Badiou asks instead how the irruption of truth transforms the worlds within which they by necessity must arise. An emphasis on regularity and continuity has given way to an attempt, one unquestionable in its philosophical power and implications, to formalize rupture and reconfiguration.
The Being and Event trilogy is a unique and ambitious work that reveals how truths can be at once context-specific and universal, situational and eternal.
The new volume reverses the perspective adopted in Logics of Worlds. Where in that book, Badiou saw fit to analyze how truths, qua events, appear from the perspective of particular worlds that by definition exclude them, in The Immanence of Truths Badiou asks instead how the irruption of truth transforms the worlds within which they by necessity must arise. An emphasis on regularity and continuity has given way to an attempt, one unquestionable in its philosophical power and implications, to formalize rupture and reconfiguration.
The Being and Event trilogy is a unique and ambitious work that reveals how truths can be at once context-specific and universal, situational and eternal.
- GenresPhilosophy
624 pages, Hardcover
Published July 28, 2022
27 people are currently reading
140 people want to read
About the author
Alain Badiou
370 books1,021 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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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
June 19, 2022
The aim of Badiou’s book THE IMMANENCE OF TRUTHS is to provide a fully worked out critique of and alternative to contemporary relativism. The line of argument is to convince us that we live in L, the "constructible universe" of set theory (a universe that is "finite" because constructed out of assemblages of already known predicates), without being aware that this is the case, to guide us progressively from L to V (the class of all sets - the universe containing the large non-constructible infinities), and to elevate us to the « Absolute » (the philosophical name for V), and finally to take us down again into the finitude of L equipped with perceptions drawn from V, thus permitting us to "re-index" the world according to absoluteness and no longer in terms of relativity. This conceptual path may seem daunting, but it is well worth the effort. It is conjoined with a more accessible a "poetic" path comparable to Dante's DIVINE COMEDY, centred on the four movements of descent into the hell of our market-dominated finitude (of the commodity or the "waste product" cut off from infinity), of purgation of our finite-oriented ideological presuppositions, and of ascension to Paradise (the paradise of the Absolute, or "Cantor’s paradise"), and finally the re-descent into the finitude of the work (of art, science, love or politics) no longer closed off inside pre-programmed ideological schemas but opened to the Absolute and "touched" by the infinite. Many works (including Dante's) deal with the ascent to the Absolute but remain silent on the return (or what I propose call the "Ritorno"), Badiou devotes the last quarter of his 600 page book to the return to finitude and its practices re-fashioned by the traversal of the Absolute. It is a true masterpiece.
January 2, 2023
What is at stake in Alain Badiou's highly anticipated finale to the Being and Event trilogy? At the core of The Immanence of Truths, Badiou aims to show how Truths are possible, yet this time, from the approach to the Absolute. Badiou's central question asked, "does V = L?", which is to say, is V — the place of all possible being, equatable to L — the constructible universe where everything is named?
If V is L, as the modern architects of global Capitalism would have it, then we are confined to a perpetual life of finitude as a 'waste product'. But if there is something more, which is possible for Badiou as an 'immanent exception' produced from within a situation, bearing universal consequences in the fields of art, politics, science, and love, then humanity can actively reshape and change the world we exist in. How does Badiou sort this out with The Immanence of Truths?
If one recalls from Being and Event (1988), Badiou took up the question of the infinite, introduced the idea of large cardinals as a means to untangle the infinite from the One, but then left the topic open to move on with the generic for the remainder of that book. Badiou resumes the question of the infinite here.
What Badiou offers in a large section of the book is a meditation of the ways in which our lives are subjected to finitude: through religion, through economies, through States, even ideological-philosophical (going so far as to criticize his top 3 philosophers — Plato, Descartes, and Hegel, for their complicity with their respective regimes of finitude).
Badiou tracks four types of finitude (accessible, divisible, bounded, denial of absoluteness). In order to deal with these types of finitude, Badiou will work through a corresponding infinite(inaccessible, resistance to division, immanent size of subsets) effectively cleansing it though formalism of its metaphysical baggage to show its application for resisting what he calls 'covering-over'(recouvrement). The ultimate goal of the constructible universe is to perpetuate itself by covering-over any potential infinity which appears and threatens the established order of things. There are also operators of finitude which Badiou explores, which are: identity, repetition, evil, necessity and god, death. Each of these are meant to reinforce the destiny of humanity as a waste product for the existing order.
The methodology here is strictly Platonic. In order to engage higher levels of thinking, one must shift from the world as it is in appearance into a world of ideas guided towards the infinite, always ascending higher and larger(think the Divided Line). The stake of The Immanence of Truths is that some critical point exists which resists the covering-over operations, which can only be derived from a very special kind of infinity. Badiou names 0# as that one degree of difference in the situation that makes or breaks the possibility of real change. One is going to have to get comfortable with all the symbolic notions employed in the text, as well as the new ideas presented such as embedding, ultrafilters, etc. The math gets thick, but readers should be expected to work through the book multiple times to get the full payoff.
As always, with Baidou, the Event is no miracle which saves the situation deus ex machina. It requires work. It requires some Subject. In Chapter 22, Badiou affirms that the work is primary. A work is always indexed to an evental trace and require meticulous patience to unfold its consequences. The finale of the book takes the reader through the four truth conditions. Much as Badiou did in the preface to Logics of Worlds, working through each one with a very robust discussion of the new theoretical implications of the book and corresponding chapter which hones in on a real world example. The chapter on politics, specifically communist politics, works through Lenin's April Theses and Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution offer some vital lessons for those organizing amongst the masses today. The strong point made is that communists must think through the organization structures of the mass movements during the GPCR in the same way that Lenin thought through the failures of the Paris Commune. The very idea of politics for Badiou centers on the question of two opposing ways of life and the decisions made resolve the contradiction.
As far as the book itself goes, Badiou has offered something really nice in terms of a philosophical work. The first 200 pages are really easy to follow. Badiou will introduce in idea, explain it, follow it up with a sequel chapter which thinks about that idea through a poet (such as Brecht, Char, Dickinson, Caiero(Pessoa), Mandelstam, Celan). When you get to Chapter 9, Badiou quits handholding the reader and effectively says that you need to understand prologue in order to advance through the next slog of the book. The poetical breaks are replaced by mathematical formalism, often times Badiou leaving the reader to go do their own homework on a formulae he has no interest in summarizing.
There is so much to easily gloss over in a "book review". The discussion of Hegel and Cinema, the numerous and explicit political implications for Communists, the turn to Spinoza, the references to Plato. This is a master work of philosophy, by a master. It demands from its reader and rewards in kind. There is a simplicity to the design of the book, yet a vastness to the thinking that went into it. Humanity must be willing to embrace truths (that are rigorously distinguished from opinions) instead of the ordinary finitude conjured by the ruling class to perpetuate a banal existence of servitude. Badiou offers us a chance to think of something more and something other than.
The translators of this text, or the editors, or whomever did a disservice by getting sloppy with the formulas between the French and the English. As a for example, on page 311 they leave the French 'E' in a formula next to the English 'S'. As another for example, on page 262, there is a 'φ' simply missing in a formulae the English from the French. On Badiou's part, the previous entries included a nice glossary section at the end of the books. No such convenience here. Even the full color paintings in the appendix of Logics of Worlds are replaced with a stale black and white reprint of the Bruegel painting. These are nitpicks on my part. I remember vividly closing the cover of Logics of Worlds more than a decade ago, being left with nothing more than a name for the next big book. While the substance of the book satisfies the long wait, the presentation of the product deserves a lot more effort from future editions.
If V is L, as the modern architects of global Capitalism would have it, then we are confined to a perpetual life of finitude as a 'waste product'. But if there is something more, which is possible for Badiou as an 'immanent exception' produced from within a situation, bearing universal consequences in the fields of art, politics, science, and love, then humanity can actively reshape and change the world we exist in. How does Badiou sort this out with The Immanence of Truths?
If one recalls from Being and Event (1988), Badiou took up the question of the infinite, introduced the idea of large cardinals as a means to untangle the infinite from the One, but then left the topic open to move on with the generic for the remainder of that book. Badiou resumes the question of the infinite here.
What Badiou offers in a large section of the book is a meditation of the ways in which our lives are subjected to finitude: through religion, through economies, through States, even ideological-philosophical (going so far as to criticize his top 3 philosophers — Plato, Descartes, and Hegel, for their complicity with their respective regimes of finitude).
Badiou tracks four types of finitude (accessible, divisible, bounded, denial of absoluteness). In order to deal with these types of finitude, Badiou will work through a corresponding infinite(inaccessible, resistance to division, immanent size of subsets) effectively cleansing it though formalism of its metaphysical baggage to show its application for resisting what he calls 'covering-over'(recouvrement). The ultimate goal of the constructible universe is to perpetuate itself by covering-over any potential infinity which appears and threatens the established order of things. There are also operators of finitude which Badiou explores, which are: identity, repetition, evil, necessity and god, death. Each of these are meant to reinforce the destiny of humanity as a waste product for the existing order.
The methodology here is strictly Platonic. In order to engage higher levels of thinking, one must shift from the world as it is in appearance into a world of ideas guided towards the infinite, always ascending higher and larger(think the Divided Line). The stake of The Immanence of Truths is that some critical point exists which resists the covering-over operations, which can only be derived from a very special kind of infinity. Badiou names 0# as that one degree of difference in the situation that makes or breaks the possibility of real change. One is going to have to get comfortable with all the symbolic notions employed in the text, as well as the new ideas presented such as embedding, ultrafilters, etc. The math gets thick, but readers should be expected to work through the book multiple times to get the full payoff.
As always, with Baidou, the Event is no miracle which saves the situation deus ex machina. It requires work. It requires some Subject. In Chapter 22, Badiou affirms that the work is primary. A work is always indexed to an evental trace and require meticulous patience to unfold its consequences. The finale of the book takes the reader through the four truth conditions. Much as Badiou did in the preface to Logics of Worlds, working through each one with a very robust discussion of the new theoretical implications of the book and corresponding chapter which hones in on a real world example. The chapter on politics, specifically communist politics, works through Lenin's April Theses and Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution offer some vital lessons for those organizing amongst the masses today. The strong point made is that communists must think through the organization structures of the mass movements during the GPCR in the same way that Lenin thought through the failures of the Paris Commune. The very idea of politics for Badiou centers on the question of two opposing ways of life and the decisions made resolve the contradiction.
As far as the book itself goes, Badiou has offered something really nice in terms of a philosophical work. The first 200 pages are really easy to follow. Badiou will introduce in idea, explain it, follow it up with a sequel chapter which thinks about that idea through a poet (such as Brecht, Char, Dickinson, Caiero(Pessoa), Mandelstam, Celan). When you get to Chapter 9, Badiou quits handholding the reader and effectively says that you need to understand prologue in order to advance through the next slog of the book. The poetical breaks are replaced by mathematical formalism, often times Badiou leaving the reader to go do their own homework on a formulae he has no interest in summarizing.
There is so much to easily gloss over in a "book review". The discussion of Hegel and Cinema, the numerous and explicit political implications for Communists, the turn to Spinoza, the references to Plato. This is a master work of philosophy, by a master. It demands from its reader and rewards in kind. There is a simplicity to the design of the book, yet a vastness to the thinking that went into it. Humanity must be willing to embrace truths (that are rigorously distinguished from opinions) instead of the ordinary finitude conjured by the ruling class to perpetuate a banal existence of servitude. Badiou offers us a chance to think of something more and something other than.
The translators of this text, or the editors, or whomever did a disservice by getting sloppy with the formulas between the French and the English. As a for example, on page 311 they leave the French 'E' in a formula next to the English 'S'. As another for example, on page 262, there is a 'φ' simply missing in a formulae the English from the French. On Badiou's part, the previous entries included a nice glossary section at the end of the books. No such convenience here. Even the full color paintings in the appendix of Logics of Worlds are replaced with a stale black and white reprint of the Bruegel painting. These are nitpicks on my part. I remember vividly closing the cover of Logics of Worlds more than a decade ago, being left with nothing more than a name for the next big book. While the substance of the book satisfies the long wait, the presentation of the product deserves a lot more effort from future editions.
July 22, 2022
Alongside Being and Event (I), the most significant philosophical event of my lifetime.
July 19, 2022
The Immanence of Truths, the third and final instalment of the Being and Event trilogy, focuses on establishing the absoluteness of truths. Badiou achieves this through a rigorous engament with mathematics which he argues is the best way to describe ontology and is the language of being-qua-being. The tome is politically driven and is simultaneously a work of ontology and ideology critique, exemplified in the journey it takes which mirrors that of exiting Plato’s cave and returning back to it. This discovery of the absoluteness and immanence of truths is the fruitful bounty which one must return with and apply to the four conditions of truth available to the human animal: love, science, politics, and art. A thorough and beautiful ontological system that is unparalleled today.
November 21, 2025
Interesting, as usual with Badious, but, to use a mathematical concept he's fond of: "forced."
July 17, 2022
L’objectif du grand livre de Alain Badiou L’IMMANENCE DES VÉRITÉS est de fournir une critique systématique, fondée sur alternative pleinement élaborée, du relativisme contemporain.
L’argument peut utilement être présenté comme un movement en quatre moments. Il vise à
1) nous convaincre que nous vivons dans L, « l’univers constructible » de la théorie des ensembles (un univers « fini » car par définition il est construit à partir d’assemblages de prédicats déjà connus), sans spontanément en avoir conscience, pour
2) nous guider progressivement dans l’ascension, à travers des ensembles infinis de plus en plus grands, de L à V (la classe de tous les ensembles, càd. l’univers contenant les grands infinis non constructibles), et ainsi
3) nous élever jusqu’à « l’Absolu » (le nom philosophique de V), et enfin
4) nous faire redescendre dans la finitude de L, munis des perceptions tirées de V, nous permettant ainsi de « ré-indexer » le monde selon l’absolu et non plus selon la relativité.
Ce chemin conceptuel peut sembler intimidant, étant donné la part importante consacrée à l’exposition mathématique, mais il en vaut la peine.
Il s’accompagne d’un cheminement poétique plus accessible puisqu’on peut le comparer aux grandes étapes qui se trouvent dans LA COMÉDIE DIVINE de Dante, centré sur les quatre mouvements
1) la descente aux enfers (Inferno) de notre finitude dominée par le marché et par la marchandise définie comme le « déchet » retranché de l’infini
2) la purge progressive de nos présupposés idéologiques orientés vers le fini (Purgatorio)
3) l’ascension au Paradis, le paradis de l’Absolu, ou « paradis du Cantor » des infinis multiples, (Paradiso)
4) la redescente dans le finitude de l’œuvre (de l’art, de la science, de l’amour ou de la politique) non plus enfermée dans des schémas idéologiques préprogrammés mais ouverte sur l’Absolu et « touchée » par l’infini (Ritorno)
De nombreuses oeuvres (dont celui de Dante) traitent de la montée à l’Absolu mais restent muets sur le retour (ou ce que je propose d’appeler le « Ritorno »), Badiou consacre le dernier quart de son livre de 600 pages au retour à la finitude et à ses pratiques re-façonnées par notre traversée de l’Absolu.
Un vrai chef d’oeuvre.
L’argument peut utilement être présenté comme un movement en quatre moments. Il vise à
1) nous convaincre que nous vivons dans L, « l’univers constructible » de la théorie des ensembles (un univers « fini » car par définition il est construit à partir d’assemblages de prédicats déjà connus), sans spontanément en avoir conscience, pour
2) nous guider progressivement dans l’ascension, à travers des ensembles infinis de plus en plus grands, de L à V (la classe de tous les ensembles, càd. l’univers contenant les grands infinis non constructibles), et ainsi
3) nous élever jusqu’à « l’Absolu » (le nom philosophique de V), et enfin
4) nous faire redescendre dans la finitude de L, munis des perceptions tirées de V, nous permettant ainsi de « ré-indexer » le monde selon l’absolu et non plus selon la relativité.
Ce chemin conceptuel peut sembler intimidant, étant donné la part importante consacrée à l’exposition mathématique, mais il en vaut la peine.
Il s’accompagne d’un cheminement poétique plus accessible puisqu’on peut le comparer aux grandes étapes qui se trouvent dans LA COMÉDIE DIVINE de Dante, centré sur les quatre mouvements
1) la descente aux enfers (Inferno) de notre finitude dominée par le marché et par la marchandise définie comme le « déchet » retranché de l’infini
2) la purge progressive de nos présupposés idéologiques orientés vers le fini (Purgatorio)
3) l’ascension au Paradis, le paradis de l’Absolu, ou « paradis du Cantor » des infinis multiples, (Paradiso)
4) la redescente dans le finitude de l’œuvre (de l’art, de la science, de l’amour ou de la politique) non plus enfermée dans des schémas idéologiques préprogrammés mais ouverte sur l’Absolu et « touchée » par l’infini (Ritorno)
De nombreuses oeuvres (dont celui de Dante) traitent de la montée à l’Absolu mais restent muets sur le retour (ou ce que je propose d’appeler le « Ritorno »), Badiou consacre le dernier quart de son livre de 600 pages au retour à la finitude et à ses pratiques re-façonnées par notre traversée de l’Absolu.
Un vrai chef d’oeuvre.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews