Date: Sun, 04 Nov 2001 23:13:14 +1000
From: hbone <hbone-AT-optonline.net>
Subject: Re: Does Man Exist?


Eric/All,

> Badiou proposes three alternative theses to this ethics of the victim.
>
> 1. Man is to be identified by his affirmative thought, by the singular
> truths of which he is capable, by the Immortal which makes him the most
> resilient and most paradoxical of animals.

Some philosophers seem to deny their identity as subjects, whether or not
they
affirm their identity as animals.  All philosphers seem to enjoy playing
"God" who
religiously invented immortality along with affirmations, truths and
resilencies.

> 2. It is from our positive capability for Good that we are able to
> identify Evil.

Good and Evil are the event, the here-and-now which are escapable only by
mortality which leads to Immortality (accepting God's rules) or a
philospher-decreed Immortality (accepting philospher rules),.

> 3. All humanity has its root in the identification in thought of  singular
> situations.
> There is no ethics in general.  There are only -  eventually - ethics of
> processes by which we treat the possibilities of a situation.

Assuming "humanity" prefers Good to Evil,  which only occurs in singular
situations,
its access to the Immortal (not Heaven) is:
 1) The act of reflection on singular truths, resiliencies, paradoxes, etc.
lived by past generations, and transmitted person-to-person, or
artifactually, to the Living.
2) The act of contemplating future possible occurences, repetitions of  such
reflections in future possible generations.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

> This concludes the summary of Chapter 1.
>
> Eric
>
> (the book uses traditional masculine gendering and I have maintained it
> here for the purposes of discussion.)
>