Date: Thu, 13 Dec 2001 06:49:52 -0600
Subject: Re: Critique of Badiou


steve.devos wrote:

> But Eric.. the issue hasn't changed for me - the Other always returns 
>to some form of  ethical construction in your discussions - its not the
> material construction of the other which might be human, non-human or
> indeed anything outside of your skin. All of the reference points for
> the Other are 'human' within the ethical constructions you are making -
> it is this which is the core problem - the only form of the Other in
> human terms I find close to intellectually accurate is in the
> psychoanalytical/schzioanalytical formation. But this is not the form
> from which the majority of the ethicical work derives

Steve, you need to go into more detail here to explain the distinction
you are attempting to make.  I'm not following you (what is this
psychoanalytical formulation?).  Even with Levinas, the Other is not
merely a humanist construct. He always sees it as constituting a break,
so again this has to be expanded.

I stand by my critique of Badiou.  If we remain inside the context of
the book, this derivation from theology argument is the only one he is
really making and my contention as I have said is that this argument is
false because it is incomplete.

I actually find a good deal of Badiou autonomist ethics stimulating.  My
point is something that ethics at some point needs to confront the other
as well. The attempt to veil the other under the banner of an ethics of
truth merely remains in denial of its own origins.  How does one come to
know the truth, if not through the other?  Badiou never really confronts
this question.

eruc