File spoon-archives/lyotard.archive/lyotard_2004/lyotard.0401, message 21


Date: Fri, 02 Jan 2004 19:16:21 +0000
From: "steve.devos" <steve.devos-AT-krokodile.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Why Badiou?


Eric

I was not intending to sound patronizing (perhaps overdetermined to 
scrutinise and refuse readings) and the point is taken that I am usually 
willing to engage in a discussion which can be read in the sense of 
foreclosing. But in defence I would always argue that silence is never a 
substitute for engagement and discussion.

I do remember having a related discussion about Badiou in the early 
moments of the readings of the Ethics.  I'm really not convinced by your 
attempts to establish positive connections between philosophers as 
disparate as Lyotard and Badiou.  Unlike you I have always regarded the 
postmodern refusal of the universal, at least in the rejection of the 
grand narrative of emancipation as being problematic but the return of 
the universal cannot discard the specific and the particular. What I 
find particularly interesting is that  you have always consistently 
avoided the clash between the universal and the postmodern (which you 
mention but once again do not address!) - and I think it simply won't do 
to try to stich them  together into a unified or non-oppositional 
philosophical structure on the basis of  the 'event'  which may or may 
not be the same object.  With regard to the reason(s) why we might 
discuss Badiou here - there are a number of expliticly anti-Lyotard 
statements that are made in his work which could be addressed,  for his 
philosophy is an anti-postmodern philosophy an orientation which he 
believes is "...too strongly committed to the polyvalence of meaning and 
the plurality of languages..." but this is not why we should think about 
addressing the Badiou work - rather it should be discussed and 
interrogated because he is an important and interesting philosopher 
whose systematic approach directly challenges us to think again.

I'm not sure why you find Badiou's use of mathematics/set theory as 
acceptable, or anyway as uncommented on as you do, given that as far as 
I understand his ontology it relies upon the set as its founding moment. 
I suspect this is necessary because of the requirement to deal with the 
obvious problem that his philosophy has in that it requires the placing 
a problematic ethical power  above the truth itself.  "The ethics of a 
truth amounts entirely to a sort of restraint with respect to its 
powers..."  Badiou requires something to be that restraint and finally 
it's can only be the basic axiomatics of the set.  Let me repeat myself 
- the set and set theory is part of 'development' and to accept it as 
the founding and justifying moment of your ontology surely places you in 
the universalist frame of development and the nasty side of the inhuman.

Notwithstanding this - could you clarify and expand on how you theorise 
Badiou and the Sublime ?

And actually I rather like political correctness - the fact that it 
allows me to sneer openly at racist and sexist reactionaries, even to 
oppress them is rather a good thing. 


regards
steve


Eric wrote:

>Steve, 
>
>I was disappointed, after you made the sweeping (and somewhat
>patronizing) statement that you thought the issues surrounding Badiou
>were bigger than I did, you made a posting that damns Badiou primarily
>for his political incorrectness.   
>
>You fault him for not addressing properly the concerns you have about
>issues such as technocratic scientism, the political role of the state,
>the relative nature of good and evil, a concern with difference,
>feminism, and animal rights. 
>
>If I have a critique to make of your overall approach in this forum, it
>is that you seem to prematurely foreclose discussion of the
>philosophical and theoretical issues in favor of too quickly moving into
>an explicitly political stance.  You did this with the discussion of
>Zizek's "Organs Without Bodies" and now you are doing it again with
>Badiou.
>
>I think both "Organs Without Bodies" and "The Clamour of Being" are far
>from perfect books, but I also think the problematic they raise is an
>important one; perhaps even the central one confronting us today, if
>thought is to move forward.  I therefore think the philosophical issues
>need to be considered in their own right without making an immediate
>rush to political judgments.    
>
>This remains a Lyotard forum and even though it remains very open with
>regard to the topics we discuss here, I still think it is necessary to
>raise the question why we should discuss Badiou here.  
>
>Obviously, there are differences between Lyotard and Badiou. Lyotard
>accused Badiou of decisionism and Badiou tended to regard Lyotard as a
>sophist; one of those who proclaim the end of philosophy under the guise
>of a postmodern end of metanarratives.  
>
>Despite these obvious differences there are also strong affinities
>between them, however, and this is one of the things I am particularly
>interested in exploring. One of the reasons our reception of Badiou
>differs so markedly perhaps is that we also differ in our reception of
>Lyotard.  For you Lyotard has always been a philosopher of difference;
>for me Lyotard has always been a philosopher of the sublime.  
>
>Stated succinctly, the sublime is that which cannot be presented within
>a situation, but to which we must bear witness or testify.  Art and
>philosophy both involve experimentation, but this experimentation is
>grounded in the fidelity to something that does not present itself - the
>inhuman, the infans, the intractable. 
>
>What draws me to Badiou is the recognition that the truth event he
>describes with the emergent subject and its attendant ethics bears
>something in common with Lyotard's project.  
>
>Obviously, the question of universality versus the diffend generates a
>certain tension here, which is not easily resolved, but it is this very
>problematic that makes it worthwhile to discuss Lyotard and Badiou
>together here.
>
>eric     
> 
>
>---
>Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.
>Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
>Version: 6.0.524 / Virus Database: 321 - Release Date: 10/6/2003
> 
>
>  
>


   

Driftline Main Page

 

Display software: ArchTracker © Malgosia Askanas, 2000-2005