Overview

In Badiou, Infinity, and Subjectivity: Reading Hegel and Lacan after Badiou, Mohammad Reza Naderi elaborates on the trajectory of Alain Badiou’s philosophy by following a leading thread: the dominance of axiomatic thought and the category of mathematical infinity. According to this primary proposition, axiomatic thought is the only form of thinking adequate to the infinity of being. Using both primary and secondary literature from Badiou, the author demonstrates two other major propositions: 1) The coherence of Badiou’s intellectual development from the early interventions to the publication of Being and Event, and 2) The formation of a theory Naderi calls “discipline.” By working through three dimensions of disciplinary thinking—interiority, novelty, and beginning—Naderi provides a new framework for understanding the inner structure of what Badiou calls “procedures of truths” and develops a new interpretation that ultimately reveals the inner logic of Badiou’s method.

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9781666931044

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Badiou, Infinity, and Subjectivity offers a highly original and compelling interrogation of Badiou's thought, arguing that his ceaseless compulsion to tarry with the infinite as an axiom of thought addresses three intertwined problems: those of beginning, interiority, and novelty. Presenting probing readings on three of Badiou's key texts―Mark and Lack, Theory of the Subject, and Being and Event―Reza Naderi's erudition and insight invites us to think the infinite with Badiou as the elaboration of a discipline, as nothing less than the initiation of a new era in thought. --Nick Nesbitt, Princeton University Badiou, Infinity, and Subjectivity: Reading Hegel and Lacan after Badiou offers an illuminating and insightful account of Badiou's thought that will be appealing and accessible not only to readers unfamiliar with Badiou's work, but also to all those interested in exploring the unexpected paths that Badiou's writing traces across philosophy, mathematics, politics and psychoanalysis in search of an innovative theory and practice of axiomatic thinking. --Jelica Sumic Riha, ZRC SAZU, Institute of Philosophy In Badiou, Infinity, and Subjectivity: Reading Hegel and Lacan after Badiou, Mohammad Reza Naderi offers a new and comprehensive reading of the unity of Badiou's thought, from some of his first philosophical writings prior to the events of May '68 right up to Being and Event and beyond, in the context of his ongoing and decisive critical and dialectical engagements with Lacan and Hegel. Clearly written and insightful, Naderi's book witnesses the dramatic and relevant consequences of Badiou's insistence on the actuality of the infinite for the contemporary possibilities of thought across the domains of politics, science, logic and ethics, among others. Recommended for all those interested in the wide-ranging implications of the axiomatics of infinity for the possibilities of real novelty and fundamental transformation today. --Paul Livingston, University of New Mexico Naderi's Badiou, Infinity, and Subjectivity is a remarkable achievement. Though its main accomplishment is to discuss and further elaborate Badiou's theory of the subject, through a masterful interplay of its philosophical, political, psychoanalytic and scientific sources, it also provides another, more subtle, result by re-establishing two continuities that are usually broken in the available literature on Badiou's work. These include the connection between the formal and the conceptual, and the connection between his early work and his later project. The two are revealed to be in fact interdependent. It is only when one is not afraid to think through the mathematical underpinning of Badiou's ideas that the conceptual connections between his first and later books and texts become clearer. Overall, this book is a great contribution that will prove itself very useful in redirecting the flow of Badiouian scholarship. --Gabriel Tupinambá, Alameda Institute

Badiou, Infinity, and Subjectivity offers a highly original and compelling interrogation of Badiou's thought, arguing that his ceaseless compulsion to tarry with the infinite as an axiom of thought addresses three intertwined problems: those of beginning, interiority, and novelty. Presenting probing readings on three of Badiou's key texts―Mark and Lack, Theory of the Subject, and Being and Event―Reza Naderi's erudition and insight invites us to think the infinite with Badiou as the elaboration of a discipline, as nothing less than the initiation of a new era in thought. Badiou, Infinity, and Subjectivity: Reading Hegel and Lacan after Badiou offers an illuminating and insightful account of Badiou's thought that will be appealing and accessible not only to readers unfamiliar with Badiou's work, but also to all those interested in exploring the unexpected paths that Badiou's writing traces across philosophy, mathematics, politics and psychoanalysis in search of an innovative theory and practice of axiomatic thinking. In Badiou, Infinity, and Subjectivity: Reading Hegel and Lacan after Badiou, Mohammad Reza Naderi offers a new and comprehensive reading of the unity of Badiou's thought, from some of his first philosophical writings prior to the events of May '68 right up to Being and Event and beyond, in the context of his ongoing and decisive critical and dialectical engagements with Lacan and Hegel. Clearly written and insightful, Naderi's book witnesses the dramatic and relevant consequences of Badiou's insistence on the actuality of the infinite for the contemporary possibilities of thought across the domains of politics, science, logic and ethics, among others. Recommended for all those interested in the wide-ranging implications of the axiomatics of infinity for the possibilities of real novelty and fundamental transformation today. Naderi's Badiou, Infinity, and Subjectivity is a remarkable achievement. Though its main accomplishment is to discuss and further elaborate Badiou's theory of the subject, through a masterful interplay of its philosophical, political, psychoanalytic and scientific sources, it also provides another, more subtle, result by re-establishing two continuities that are usually broken in the available literature on Badiou's work. These include the connection between the formal and the conceptual, and the connection between his early work and his later project. The two are revealed to be in fact interdependent. It is only when one is not afraid to think through the mathematical underpinning of Badiou's ideas that the conceptual connections between his first and later books and texts become clearer. Overall, this book is a great contribution that will prove itself very useful in redirecting the flow of Badiouian scholarship.

Author Information

Mohammad Reza Naderi, PhD, is a member of the research collective Subset of Theoretical Practice.

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