Mariborchan

Polity | Amazon
Upcoming in July, 2010

Twenty years ago, Alain Badiou’s first Manifesto for Philosophy rose up against the all-pervasive proclamation of the “end” of philosophy. In lieu of this problematic of the end, he put forward the watchword: “one more step”.
The situation has considerably changed since then. Philosophy was threatened with obliteration at the time, whereas today it finds itself under threat for the diametrically opposed reason: it is endowed with an excessive, artificial existence. “Philosophy” is everywhere. It serves as a trademark for various media pundits. It livens up cafés and health clubs. It has its magazines and its gurus. It is universally called upon, by everything from banks to major state commissions, to pronounce on ethics, law and duty. In essence, “philosophy” has now come to stand for nothing other than its most ancient enemy: conservative ethics.

Badiou’s second manifesto therefore seeks to demoralize philosophy and to separate it from all those “philosophies” that are as servile as they are ubiquitous. It demonstrates the power of certain eternal truths to illuminate action and, as such, to transport philosophy far beyond the figure of “the human” and its “rights”. There, well beyond all moralism, in the clear expanse of the idea, life becomes something radically other than survival.

Product Details
Hardcover: 176 pages
Publisher: Polity (July 7 2010)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0745648614
ISBN-13: 978-0745648613

See also:
Alain Badiou – Manifesto for Philosophy

Français | English

For almost thirty years, the present, in our country, has been a disoriented time. I mean a time that does not offer its youth, especially the youth of the popular classes, any principle to orient existence. What is the precise character of this disorientation? One of its foremost operations consists in always making illegible the previous sequence, that sequence which was well and truly oriented. This operation is characteristic of all reactive, counter-revolutionary periods, like the one we’ve been living through ever since the end of the seventies. We can for example note that the key feature of the Thermidorean reaction, after the plot of 9 Thermidor and the execution without trial of the Jacobin leaders, was to make illegible the previous Robespierrean sequence: its reduction to the pathology of some blood-thirsty criminals impeded any political understanding. This view of things lasted for decades, and it aimed lastingly to disorient the people, which was considered to be, as it always is, potentially revolutionary…

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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.

Editions Lignes | Amazon

L’Idée du communisme réunit les textes prononcés au colloque « On The Idea of Communism », organisé à l’initiative d’Alain Badiou et de Slavoj Zizek à Londres, en mars 2009. Avec les interventions des philosophes : Alain Badiou, Judith Balso, Bruno Bosteels, Susan Buck-Morss, Terry Eagleton, Peter Hallward, Michael Hardt, Minqi Li, Jean-Luc Nancy, Toni Negri, Jacques Rancière, Alessandro Russo, Roberto Toscano, Gianni Vattimo, Wang Hui, Slavoj Zizek.

Voir aussi:
Slavoj Žižek, André Glucksmann, Guy Sorman & Cynthia Fleury – Ce Soir
Slavoj Žižek – Les matins de France Culture
Slavoj Žižek – Puissances du Communisme
Bernard-Henri Lévy et Slavoj Žižek: le débat

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In het algemeen zijn het de politici die problemen maken en niet mensen van een andere cultuur. In elk geval de culturen mixen, transformeren, er is een historische dynamiek.

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What is a Philosophical Institution?
Address, Transmission, Inscription
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It is always perilous to approach Lacan from a philosophical point of view. For he is an anti-philosopher, and no one is entitled to take this designation lightly.

Considering him in relation to the Pre-Socratics is a still more risky undertaking. References to these thinkers in Lacan’s work are rare, scattered, and above all mediated by something other than themselves. There is, moreover, the risk of losing one’s thought in a latent confrontation between Lacan and Heidegger, which has all the attractions of a rhetorical impasse.

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I shall begin by referring to one of my masters, the great Marxist philosopher, Louis Althusser. For Althusser, the birth of Marxism was not a simple thing. It was composed of two revolutions, two major intellectual events. First, a scientific one. This event was Marx’s creation of a science of history, the name of which is “historical materialism.” The second event was of a philosophical nature. It was the creation, by Marx and others, of a new trend, the name of which is “dialectical materialism.” We can say that a new philosophy is required to clarify and assist the birth of a new science. Plato’s philosophy was likewise required by the beginning of mathematics, or Kant’s philosophy by the Newtonian physics. There is after all no difficulty in all of this. In this framework it is possible to say two things about the development of philosophy.

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El filósofo francés sostiene que las propuestas y los deseos de los ciudadanos son fundamentales para buscar caminos pol’ticos distintos al de la hegemonía norteamericana y que ser de izquierda, actualmente, consiste en manejarse con convicciones, resolver problemas concretos y saber dejar preguntas abiertas

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Translated by Steve Corcoran