Alain Badiou
Список книг автора Alain BadiouManifiesto por la filosofía
No hay muchos filósofos vivos en Francia hoy en día, aunque haya más que en otros países, por cierto. Digamos que alcanzan los dedos de ambas manos para contarlos. Tan solo una decena de filósofos, en efecto, si entendemos por tales a los que proponen para nuestra época enunciados singulares, identificables, y si, en consecuencia, ignoramos a los comentadores, a los indispensables eruditos y a los vanos ensayistas. ¿Diez filósofos? ¿O más bien «filósofos»? Pues lo extraño es que en su mayoría dicen que la filosofía es imposible, que está acabada, delegada a una cosa distinta de ella misma. En 1989, Alain Badiou publicaba su primer manifiesto, mediante el cual se alzaba contra el anuncio, por todas partes propagado, del «fin» de la filosofía. Pero esta es posible en la plenitud de su ambición. La filosofía misma, tal como la entendía Platón. Las matemáticas, la poesía, la política como invención y el amor como pensamiento son sin duda sus cuatro condiciones necesarias, pero la filosofía es el único lugar posible para un pensamiento que ampare y vincule estos acontecimientos de verdad. El programa que Badiou plantea en Manifiesto por la filosofía es, en consecuencia, una restitución del pensamiento filosófico al espacio entero de las verdades que lo condicionan. Treinta años después vuelve a estar en circulación un libro ya clásico, indispensable para analizar los límites y alcances de la filosofía en este nuevo siglo.
Philosophy and the Idea of Communism. Alain Badiou in conversation with Peter Engelmann
In a well-known text called ‘The Communist Hypothesis’, first published in 2007, the renowned philosopher Alain Badiou breathed fresh life into the idea of communism as an intellectual representation that provides a critical perspective on existing politics and offers a systemic alternative to capitalism. Now, in the course of this wide-ranging conversation with Peter Engelmann, Alain Badiou explains why he continues to value the idea of communism against the background of current social crises and despite negative historical experiences. From the anticipation of a communism without a state to the problem of the concept of democracy and an analysis of capitalism as a system, the two thinkers discuss the key political issues of our time. Whilst explaining his political philosophy, Badiou also reflects on current socio-political developments such as the turmoil in the Middle East and the situation in China. This compelling dialogue is both a highly topical contribution to the question of how we might organize our societies differently and an accessible introduction to Badiou's philosophical thinking.
In Praise of Theatre
In Praise of Theatre is Alain Badiou’s latest work on the ‘most complete of the arts,’ the theatrical stage. This book, certain to be of great interest to scholars and theatre practitioners alike, elaborates the theory of the theatre developed by Badiou in works such as Rhapsody for the Theatre and the ‘Theses on Theatre’ and enquires into the status of a theatre that would be adequate to our ‘contemporary, market-oriented chaos.’ In a departure from his usual emphasis upon canonical figures of the stage such as Bertolt Brecht and Samuel Beckett, Badiou devotes In Praise of Theatre largely to a consideration of contemporary practitioners, including Jan Fabre, Brigitte Jacques and Romeo Castellucci. In addition, the book features an incisive analysis of the precarious status of the theatre today, in which Badiou describes not only the current threats to the theatre from the right, but the far more insidious threat from the left.
Plato's Republic
Plato's Republic is one of the most well-known and widely discussed texts in the history of philosophy, but how might we get to the heart of this work today, 2500 years after it was originally composed? Alain Badiou invents a new genre in order to breathe fresh life into Plato's text and restore its universality. Rather than producing yet another critical commentary, he has retranslated the work from the original Greek and, by making various changes, adapted it for our times. In this innovative reimagining of a classic text, Badiou has removed all references specific to ancient Greek society, from the endless exchanges about the moral courage of poets to those political considerations that were only of interest to the aristocratic elite. On the other hand, Badiou has expanded the range of cultural references: here philosophy is firing on all cylinders, and Socrates and his companions are joined by Beckett, Pessoa, Freud and Hegel. They demonstrate the enduring nature of true philosophy, always ready to move with the times. Moreover, Badiou the dramatist has made the Socratic dialogue a true oratorial contest: in his version of the Republic, the interlocutors have more in mind than merely agreeing with the Master. They stand up to him, put him on the spot and thereby show thought in motion. Through this work of writing, scholarship and philosophy, we are able, for the first time, to read a version of Plato's text which is alive, stimulating and directly relevant to our world today.