Being and Event

A difficult and ambitious book, Being and Event will be nearly impossible to comprehend without some prior understanding of set theory and logic, and also without familiarity with some of the key figures of the Western philosophical tradition (Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Leibniz, Spinoza, Hegel, Heidegger; some familiarity with Russell and Godel helps too). Even then, Badiou's arguments are not always clear, and are often rephrased in language that obscures rather than clarifies.

Nevertheless, it is a "great book" of the sort that is increasingly uncommon, self-consciously written in the shadow of Heidegger's Being and Time, and similarly offering a comprehensive and coherent re-interpretation of philosophy as such. It's worth the effort, show more and is essential reading if you want to really "get" what's going on in Badiou's later work, like Ethics or Metapolitics.

For an actual overview of what's going on in the book, have a look at Peter Dews' review: http://ndpr.nd.edu/review.cfm?id=12406, which I think gets pretty much everything right, except towards the end with the discussion of Wittgenstein where I think it is revealed both that Dews isn't quite right about Badiou's concept of the event (specifically, the notion of unpresented multiple and the generic are not applicable to the Wittgenstein example as Dews presents it), and also he proceeds a bit too quickly through the criticism of Badiou's privileging of certain events (i.e. without mentioning the importance of the generic and the universal); finally, he somehow interprets Badiou as claiming that events are irreversible. Other than a few things like this, though (which are partially excusable due to the fact that it's a short book review), the piece by Dews is great and lucid. show less

Applying set theory to continental philosophy, more specifically equating ontology with mathematics. I was just able to skim it since it needs at least a good primer on Heidegger. I wish I would come back to it someday when I am really prepared to call it gripping.

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