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THE ADVENTURE OF FRENCH PHILOSOPHY THE ADVENTURE OF FRENCH PHILOSOPHY ALAIN BADIOU Edited and translated with an introduction by Bruno Bosteels VERSO London • New York This edition first published by Verso 2012 ©Alain Badiou 2012 Introduction and translation© Bruno Bosteels 2012 Verso would like to thank the following publications and publishers who published earlier versions of the essays collected here: Albin Michel, The Bihlea ndC ritiTchaelo ryL,e· CelihaGtolaumibriae U,n iversity Press, Critique, Duke University Press, &onomandy SocieEtydi,tio ns Horlieu, Elucidations, Les Empecheurs de penser en rand, Fran�ois Maspero, GalileLeeM, o nde, NewL eftR eviePwo,& siPeo,ly graphr,e. press, Seuil, LesT empmso demes. All rights reserved The moral rights of the author have been asserted 13579108642 Veno UK: 6 Meard Street, London WlF OEG US: 20 Jay Street, Suite 1010, Brooklyn, NY 11201 www.versobooks.com Verso is the imprint of New Left Books ISBN-13: 978-1-84467-793-1 British Library CatalogWng in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Badiou, Alain. [Selections. English. 2012] The adventure of French philosophy I Alain Badiou ; edited and translated with an introduction by Bruno Bosteels. p.cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-84467-793-1 (alk. paper) I. Philosophy, French--20th century. I. Bosteels, Bruno. II. Title. B2430.B272E52 012 194--dc23 2012001110 Typeset in Fournier by Hewer UK Ltd, Edinburgh Printed in the US by Maple Vail Contents Translator's Introduction vii /'reface: The Adventure of French Philosophy Ii l'ART I. ESSAYS AND TALKS I. The Current Situation on the Philosophical Front 1 2. Hegel in France 19 l Commitment, Detachment, Fidelity 27 4. Is There a Theory of the Subject in the Work of Georges Canguilhem? 39 5. The Caesura of Nihilism 53 6. The Reserved Offering 67 7. Foucault: Continuity and Discontinuity 83 8. Jacques Ranciere's Lessons: Knowledge and Power After the Storm 101 l'ART II. BOOK REVIEWS 9. The (Re)commencement of Dialectical Materialism 133 10. The Flux and the Party: In the Margins of Anti-Oedipus 171 11. The Fascism oft he Potato 191 12. An Angel Has Passed 203 13. Custos, quid noctis? 223 14. Gilles Deleuze, The Fold: Leilmi{ and the Baroque 241 15. Objectivity and Objectality 269 16. On Fran�oise Proust, Kant: The Tone of History 281 17. The Imperative of Negation 295 18. Logology Against Ontology 309 19. The Subject Supposed to be a Christian 321 PART III. NOTICES 20. For a Tomb of Gilles Deleuze 339 21. J ullien the Apostate 343 A Note on the Texts 347 Index 353 Translators Introduction Alain Badiou certainly needs no introduction. Having risen sharply from the anonymity in which he tirelessly worked for decades, Badiou is now a central figure in that strange and shifting constella­ t inn called French theory or philosophy. The idea of gathering the texts in this volume, however, and the reasons behind their selec­ t ion will merit a few words of explanation - not least because no such collection exists in French, and because Badiou himself never l'nvisioned these pieces as providing a systematic overview of recent French philosophy. Rather, composed over a period of l'Xactly forty years - between 1967 and 2007 - the texts collected here were written in response to the currents and events that made up the philosophical moments in which they then, most often polemically, sought to intervene. First and foremost, The Adventure of French Philosophy stems from a dt•sire to make available a series of texts that, while crucial for under­ 'lt anding Badiou's place and role in the tradition of French thought, have not been included in any of the available volumes of his miscella­ neous writings. In some cases, these essays are very hard or even Impossible to find in French-such as, for instance, the piece here on Michel Foucault or the previously unpublished articles on Monique I >avid-Menard and Guy Lardreau. The closest relative to and perfect viii Translator's Introduction companion for the present collection, in terms of a cross-generational portrait of French philosophy, is Badiou's recent Pocket Pantheon, which includes commemorative essays prompted by the death, or the anniversary of the passing, of some of the thinkers who are discussed here.1 Figures who appear in both these volumes, though regarded from different angles and therefore without a substantive overlap in treatment, include Louis Althusser, Jean-Paul Sartre, Georges Canguilhem, Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze, Jean-Frans:ois Lyotard and Frans:oise Proust. Other French thinkers less commonly associated with Badiou, but who are no less significant for his personal, profes­ sional, and institutional formation - as he discusses here - include Barbara Cassin, Paul Ricoeur and Frans:ois Jullien. In addition, The Adventure of French Pkilosopky will allow the reader to appreciate Badiou's artistry and skill in two underappreciated subgen­ res. Here we see not only a grand system-builder (as in Being and Event or Logics of Worlds), esoteric seminar leader (as in Theoryofthe Suhject), seasoned pedagogue (as in Ethics or Manifesto for Philosophy), unforgiv­ ing and widely unforgiven polemicist (as in Gilles Deleuz.e: The Clamor of Being), or satirist of the political moment (most notoriously in The Meaning of SarkorY)· Here we see Badiou as a master of the philosophical lecture and the review essay. And these - the public lecture and the accomplished review-are the privileged formats in Parts I and II of this collection, followed in Part III by two short, circumstantial notices on Gilles Deleuze and Frans:ois Jullien respectively. To these subgenres, I could certainly have added that of the preface, 1 Alain Badiou, Pocket Pantheon: Figures of Postwar Pliilosopliy, trans. David Macey (London: Verso, 2009). In 'A Note on the Texts' contained in this last volume, Badiou himself recommends the parallel reading of Elisabeth Roudinesco, Pliilosopliy in Turbulent Times: Canguilliem, Sartre, Foucault, Altliusser, Deleuie, Derrida, trans. Willliam McCuaig (New York: Columbia University Press, 2008). Badiou borrows the notion of 'moments' in French philosophy (specifically, the moment around 1900, the moment around World War II, and the moment of the 1960s to the present) from Frederic Worms, La Pliilosopliie en France au XXe siecle: Moments (Paris: Gallimard, 2009).