Kant

Alain badiou, the hebb-event, and materialism split from within

“…98 Not only, as Tarby observes, is it the case that Badiou has yet to demonstrate any compatibility between his mathematized ontology and the natural-material field covered by biology 99 -Hallward speculates that biology might be constitutively irreducible to or incompatible with the realm of pure set theory identified by Badiou as the thinkable point of intersection between thought and being. 100 Remarks by Badiou about the relations between mathematics, physics, and biology (remarks quoted earlier here) appear to confirm this suspicion. If Hallward is indeed correct, then, once again, a fundamental decision, a choice or wager, presents itself between a mathematical or material ontology.…”

“…12 iii having one's cake and eating it too^pure mathematics and rigorous materialism Given its mathematical nature, there are doubts about whether Badiou's ontology is indeed properly materialist. 13 How on earth can one claim to be any stripe of materialist, let alone the most extreme and consequent materialist in the two thousand years since Lucretius, if one equates being as such with intangibly abstract numerical structures (speaking of Lucretius, Lenin Bandres, in the concluding paragraphs of his essay on Badiou's engagement with Lucretius and ancient atomism, hints that Badiou, unlike the atomists and their philosophical progeny, refuses to grant a central place to corporeal bodies in his philosophy 14 )? What becomes of the conception of matter when the inconsistent, infinite multitudes of the sets and sub-sets of trans-finite set theory are the exclusive revelatory windows opening out onto the very ''stuff '' of the Real of l'être en tant qu'être?…”

“…Overall, his mathematical materialist ontology results in a refusal to grant a properly ontological status to material contingencies, to the states of the universe studied by the natural sciences. 37 Tarby claims (quite strangely) that it is precisely Badiou's desire to formulate a materialist ontology that leads him to view physics (and, by implication, all of the natural sciences taken together) as insufficient, as not up to the task of ontology; he explains that Badiouian philosophy, as focused on the ''anti-essential'' rather than the essential, must turn away from physics and toward pure mathematics. 38 Undoubtedly, Tarby accepts as well founded Badiou's contentious claims regarding the notion of nature as entailing a substantial plentitude enjoying a full, seamless coherence/unity.…”

“…Hallward notes that, especially when compared with Deleuze's philosophy, Badiouian ontology appears to be very limited, even excessively minimalist. 96 He indicates that Badiou's austere formalism impedes the urgent task of moving forward with the articulation of the links between a mathematical ontology and ''material or historical existence'' 97 (although, arguably, this is what Logiques des mondes, the officially published version of which didn't appear until three years after Hallward's book on Badiou, sets out to accomplish -whether it succeeds is another matter). Specifically as regards materiality, Hallward critically comments, ''Badiou will need to develop a logic of material or organic situations that demonstrates how their structurings are indeed consistent with the basic axioms of set theory'' and that, in the absence of such a development, ''Badiou cannot flesh out the material, endlessly ramified identity of thought and being.''…”

Christ‐Event in Tracy and Badiou: Towards A Critical Conversation

“…Contemporary fields of academic philosophy (as diverse as the analytic, hermeneutic, and postmodern traditions) share at least one feature, namely 'a profound suspicion of the very word "truth".' 170 What differentiates Badiou from the majority of philosophers today, in this regard, is his zealous commitment to truth as a universal singularity. 171 But is Badiou's interpretation of the truth-event of Christ's resurrection legitimate?…”