The Immanence of Truths

Being and Event III

Alain Badiou, Kenneth Reinhard, Susan Spitzer

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9781350115309
• eBook ISBN: 9781350115316
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Existentialism in Philosophy

The Being and Event trilogy is the philosophical basis of Alain Badiou's entire oeuvre. It is formed of three major texts, which constitute a kind of metaphysical saga: Being and Event (1988). ), Logics of the Worlds ( 2006) and finally The Immanence of Truths, which he has been working on for 15 years. The new volume reverses the perspective adopted in Logics of Worlds. Where in that book, Badiou saw fit to analyze how truths, qua events, appear from the perspective of particular worlds that by definition exclude them, in The Immanence of Truths Badiou asks instead how the irruption of truths transforms the worlds within which they by necessity must arise. An emphasis on regularity and continuity has given way to an attempt, one unquestionable in its philosophical power and implications, to formalize rupture and reconfiguration. The Being and Event trilogy is a unique and ambitious work that reveals how truths can be at once context-specific and universal, situational and eternal.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title Page
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Contents
• List of Symbols
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction by Kenneth Reinhard
• General Introduction
• I The Speculative Strategy
• II Immanence, Finitude, Infinity
• III The Absolute Ontological Referent
• IV The Two Possible Ways of Reading this Book
• Prologue
• Formal Exposition of the Absolute Place
• SECTION I The Classic Forms of Finitude
• C1 The Destinies of Finitude
• S1 Modern Finitude’s Trial by Poetry: René Char
• C2 The Four Types of Finitude
• S2 The Localization of the Infinite in Hugo’s Poetry
• C3 The Operators of Finitude: 1. Identity
• S3 Impersonality According to Emily Dickinson
• C4 The Operators of Finitude: 2. Repetition
• S4 Paul Celan: The Work Put to the Test of Concealed Repetitions
• C5 The Operators of Finitude: 3. Evil
• S5 Mandelstam in Voronezh: Make No Concession to Evil. Neither Complaint nor Fear.
• C6 The Operators of Finitude: 4. Necessity and God
• S6 Bare Being: Neither God nor Interpretation nor Necessity. The Poems of Alberto Caeiro
• C7 The Operators of Finitude: 5. Death
• S7 A Poem by Brecht. The Unknown Man: Death and Identity, or Life and Universality
• SECTION II The Modernity of Finitude: Covering-Over
• C8 The Phenomenology of Covering-Over
• S8 Beckett: The Uncovering of the Covering-Over of an Infinity
• C9 The Ontology of Covering-Over
• S9 The Formal Exposition of the Constructible Universe
• C10 A Crucial Choice: Constructible or Generic?
• S10 Gödel and Cohen
• SECTION III The Supremacy of Infinity
• C11 The Four Approaches to Infinity
• C12 Inaccessible Infinities
• S12 The Matheme of the Inaccessible
• C13 Infinities of Resistance to Division
• S13 The Matheme of Partitions: Compact and Ramsey Cardinals
• C14 The Infinity by Way of the Immanent Size of the Subsets
• SECTION IV Approaching the Absolute
• C15 Under What Conditions Can Classes Express the Absolute Place?
• S15 Technical Conditions Necessary for Classes to “Resemble” V
• C16 “Closer and Closer” to the Absolute?
• S16 Elementary Embedding, Critical Point, Complete Cardinal
• C17 The Explicit Relation Between the Absolute Place and One of Its Immanent Attributes
• S17 The Construction of an Inner Model of V by Ultrapower
• SECTION V Conditions for Defeating Covering-Over
• C18 The Limiting of Modern Finitude Contingent on an Infinity. Scott’s Theorem
• S18 Infinities in the Finite, Infinities Beyond Any Finite. Proof of Scott’s Theorem
• C19 The Ontological Conditions for Any Creative Initiative. Jensen’s Theorem
• S19 The Apparent Simplicity and Actual Confusion of Finitude. Jensen’s Theorem
• SECTION VI Parmenides’ Revenge
• C20 The Hierarchy of Infinities
• S20 Differences, Orders, and Limits in the Realm of the Infinities
• C21 An End Without an End. Kunen’s Theorem
• S21 Kunen’s Theorem and Beyond
• SECTION VII The General Theory of Works-in-Truth
• C22 The Index of the Absoluteness of a Work
• S22 The Index of Absoluteness in Plato
• SECTION VIII Works Based on the Object: Art, Science
• C23 The Power of Form: The Arts
• S23 Hegel, the Arts, and Cinema
• C24 The Power of Mathematical Formalization: The Sciences
• S24 Husserl, the “Crisis,” and Science
• SECTION IX Works Based on Becoming: Love, Politics
• C25 The Work of Love: The Scene of the Two
• S25 Auguste Comte and Love
• C26 Finite Politics, Infinite Politics
• S26 A Real Political Text
• General Conclusion
• Appendix 1
• Appendix 2
• Notes
• Copyright