Philosophy in the Present
Alain Badiou
Language: English
Pages: 80
ISBN: 0745640974
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
Two controversial thinkers discuss a timeless but nonetheless urgent question: should philosophy interfere in the world?
Nothing less than philosophy is at stake because, according to Badiou, philosophy is nothing but interference and commitment and will not be restrained by academic discipline. Philosophy is strange and new, and yet speaks in the name of all - as Badiou shows with his theory of universality.
Similarly, Zizek believes that the philosopher must intervene, contrary to all expectations, in the key issues of the time. He can offer no direction, but this only shows that the question has been posed incorrectly: it is valid to change the terms of the debate and settle on philosophy as abnormality and excess.
At once an invitation to philosophy and an introduction to the thinking of two of the most topical and controversial philosophers writing today, this concise volume will be of great interest to students and general readers alike.
picture: irrespective of their philosophical positions, they are all a little to the left of the democratic middle. On with democracy, perhaps even a little more, is Rorty’s typical pragmatic conclusion. That shows that philosophy is inconsequential. Is that really the case? Let’s consider the political agreement of Habermas and Derrida as a paradigmatic case: could that not be an indication of the fact that their philosophical positions are also not really incommensurable? That even their
Asia with the development of commodity production. I don’t want to draw here the vulgar-Marxist parallel that commodity production means abstraction and that his abstraction of the commodity lies at the foundation of philosophical abstraction; where I want to steer out interest is towards this moment of foreignness that emerges through displacement; that philosophy – this is what Heidegger wants to tell us – was from the very beginning not the discourse of those who feel the certainty of being at
character. But all the same, the lovers are denounced, captured, and taken to their torture. There follow the film's final images, which constitute a new instance of the philosophical situation. The two lovers are tied back-to-back on a mule. The shot frames this image of the two bound lovers going to their atrocious death; both seem enraptured, but devoid of pathos: on their faces there is simply the hint of a smile, a kind of withdrawal into the smile. The word 'smile' here is only an
breadth. Third, you have a distance from power: the popular demonstrations against the war create an important subjective gap with regard to the hegemonic power of the United States. Finally, you have, perhaps, the opening of a new situation marked, among other things, by the importance of these demonstrations, but also by new possibilities of common understanding and action between France and Germany. Finally, with regard to what is happening, you must first of all ask: 'Is there a relation that
absolute difference takes place. It is well known that, where the interplay between the sexes is concerned, people are invariably fascinated by love stories; and this fascination is directly proportional to the various specific obstacles through which social transformations try to thwart love. In this instance, it is perfectly clear that the attraction exerted by the universal lies precisely in the fact that it subtracts itself (or tries to subtract itself) as an asocial singularity from the