Libérée de l’injonction métaphysicienne de fonder la scientificité des sciences, l’entreprise criticiste prendrait chez Bachelard un nouvel éclat. En substituant à la question de l’Inconnaissable celle de la contingence de tout savoir, Bachelard renouvelle le concept de « transcendantalité ». Originairement sans pourquoi et sans but, la transcendantalité, dont l’autre nom est à présent la symbolisation mathématique, apparaît pourtant comme seule garante de toute objectivité possible. D’où la nécessité pour l’épistémologue de se faire psychanalyste du savoir.

Bergson est aujourd'hui considéré comme une sorte de doux rêveur avec sa théorie de l'énergie spirituelle et de l'autoconservation des souvenirs.

In Cinema I, and II, Deleuze does an astonishing commentary of the first chapter of Matter and Memory. He perceives in Bergson an innovative theory of the intrinsic dynamism of images that could establish not only a philosophy of cinema but also a new ontology. It is as if Deleuze, in the wake of Bergson, had seen in the 7th art not the opportunity for an aesthetic reflection but rather the occasion of a renewed thought of the immanence. We try (...) here to figure out the range and limits of this Deleuzian interpretation. (shrink)

La notion d'esprit pourrait-elle occuper à nouveau la scène philosophique contemporaine? Oui, répond l'auteur de cet ouvrage, mais à trois conditions. Tout d'abord, revenir au moment de sa genèse car il y va alors d'un refoulement conjoint, et par la médecine hippocratique, et par la métaphysique grecque, d'une énigmatique vitalité dénommée pneuma (souffle). Ensuite, s'enquérir des principales reconfigurations du concept d'esprit au fil de l'histoire de la philosophie, en scrutant le retour du refoulé d'une vitalité qui ne pouvait qu'excéder tous (...) les systèmes prétendant déduire l'esprit d'un Esprit majuscule. Les déplacements conceptuels opérés par Descartes ou Kant, les nombreuses réactions qui s'en sont ensuivies, de Hegel à Bachelard en passant par Nietzsche et Bergson, sont autant de tentatives de définir à nouveaux frais l'esprit. Enfin, tirer parti de cet examen pour éclairer certains enjeux des débats actuels, par exemple dans le champ de l'éducation et de l'inclusion, sur le respect de toutes les formes de vie et de subjectivité. (shrink)

Dans un passage de L’évolution créatrice, Bergson ne réfute pas purement et simplement Kant, mais le présente comme le précurseur d’une philosophie nouvelle, voire comme un précurseur probable mais manqué de sa propre philosophie. Si la philosophie transcendantale, pourtant prometteuse, s’avère finalement décevante, c’est parce qu’elle ne propose qu’une déduction des catégories et non une genèse de l’intelligence. Mais comment Bergson ose-t-il comparer deux démarches que tout semble opposer? Y a-t-il, chez Kant lui-même, quelque chose qui justifie ce rapprochement apparemment (...) incongru entre une déduction transcendantale et une genèse de l’intelligence?In a passage of Creative Evolution, Bergson does not refute Kant, but presents him as a precursor of a new philosophy, and even as a liable but failed precursor of his own philosophy. If the transcendental philosophy, really promising, seems finally disappointing, it is because it only gives us a deduction of the categories and not a genesis of intelligence. How can Bergson say that? How can he compare two perspectives which seem diverging completely? Is there anything in Kant’s texts which evidences this connexion between a transcendental deduction and a genesis of intelligence? (shrink)

Passant d’une conception quasi solipsiste ou monadique de la sensation, présente dans l’ Essai sur les données immédiates de la conscience, à l’idée d’une sensibilité universelle mais impersonnelle dans Matière et mémoire, Bergson se heurte à plusieurs difficultés, dont celle d’une dissolution de la notion de Sujet. Dans L’évolution créatrice puis dans Les deux sources de la morale et de la religion, son approche évolutionniste lui permet d’envisager la perspective d’une sensibilité indéfiniment extensible, inséparable désormais de celle d’un Vivant par (...) définition métastable qui va de l’amibe jusqu’à Dieu. (shrink)

Le dualisme de Matière et mémoire, qui institue une différence de nature entre la matière et l’esprit, sans pour autant conclure à l’éternité de l’esprit et à la survie de l’âme, demeure difficile à penser. Nous montrons ici que le sophisme de l’éphémère de Fontenelle, qui vaut comme une sorte de modèle, ou plutôt d’anti-modèle, nous aide à clarifier le spiritualisme totalement original de Bergson.

Bergson Professeur rassemble les actes d'un colloque international qui s'est tenu a Paris, a l'Ecole Normale Superieure, en novembre 2010. On y trouve les contributions des meilleurs bergsoniens contemporains sur un theme habituellement peu traite : le role exact des cours de Bergson et des notes de cours relativement a ses ouvrages publies. Ce volume vient ainsi combler un manque dans les publications academiques sur Bergson, puisqu'il permet de restituer, dans le sillage des travaux engages il y a deux decennies (...) par Henri Hude, ce qui est trop souvent considere comme la part la moins importante de sa philosophie. En tentant de faire entendre de nouveau la voix vivante du professeur Bergson, ce travail ne rend donc pas seulement un hommage au maitre admire par tous ses auditeurs, il nous fait entrer, comme par effraction, dans l'atelier ou, a n'en pas douter, furent mises au point plusieurs des grandes trouvailles d'un genie philosophique. (shrink)

Since the beginning of the War on Terror, Israel has become increasingly salient to imperial strategy and ever more aggressive in its policies toward the Palestinians. In this context, a key ideological weapon is the cynical accusation of "anti-Semitism." For historical reasons, this has been deployed most forcefully in France, and Alain Badiou and Eric Hazan caustically demolish the "anti-Semitism is everywhere" allegation, used to bludgeon opponents of the Israeli state and those who stand in solidarity with the banlieue (...) youth. Ivan Segre undertakes a meticulous deconstruction of a rampant "reactionary philo-Semitism" that identifies Jewish interests with the "democratic West.". (shrink)

Against the backdrop of an alarming rise in authoritarianism and the crisis of liberal democracy, few would consider extoling the virtues of politics today. Yet in this lively dialogue with journalist Aude Lancelin, leading French thinker Alain Badiou argues that it is precisely through politics that humanity can still achieve its most ambitious aims. As power becomes ever more concentrated in the hands of the state and global corporations, the role of the citizen is reduced to little more than (...) ritual. But Badiou emphasizes that politics is concerned not just with power and the state, but also with justice. So the central question of politics is “What is a just power?”, and the debate over politics is fundamentally about the norms to which power is subject and its relationship to a community – a community that is able to take control of its own destiny and provide its own direction, based on a shared standard of justice. This engaging dialogue, in which Badiou articulates his view of politics with exceptional clarity, will be of great value to anyone interested in radical politics today. (shrink)

Didacticism, romanticism, and classicism are the possible schemata for the knotting of art and philosophy, the third term in this knot being the education of subjects, youth in particular. What characterizes the century that has just come to a close is that, while it underwent the saturation of these three schemata, it failed to introduce a new one. Today, this predicament tends to produce a kind of unknotting of terms, a desperate dis-relation between art and philosophy, together with the pure (...) and simple collapse of what circulated between them: the theme of education. Whence the thesis of which this book is nothing but a series of variations: faced with such a situation of saturation and closure, we must attempt to propose a new schema, a fourth type of knot between philosophy and art. Among these “inaesthetic” variations, the reader will encounter a sustained debate with contemporary philosophical uses of the poem, bold articulations of the specificity and prospects of theater, cinema, and dance, along with subtle and provocative readings of Fernando Pessoa, Ste;phane Mallarme;, and Samuel Beckett. (shrink)

Good actors appear to become their characters, making them come alive, as if they were real. Is this because they have succeeded in merging themselves with their character? Are there any positive or negative psychological effects of this experience? We examined the role of three characteristics that may make this kind of merging possible: dissociation, flow, and empathy. We also examined the relation of these characteristics to acting quality. Acting students and non-acting students completed a dissociation measure, and then performed (...) a monologue that was recorded and rated on the dimensions of acting. Participants were then reassessed on dissociation to determine whether it increased as a function of performance. They were also then assessed on flow and empathy. Actors did not differ from non-actors on dissociation, but did score significantly higher than non-actors on some flow and empathy subscales, indicating a positive psychological experience and outcome. While non-actors’ dissociation marginally increased post-performance, actors’ dissociation rose significantly, which could indicate a negative psychological experience. Surprisingly, acting ratings were unrelated to the levels of dissociation, flow, or empathy. We concluded that, while these are tools used by actors to immerse themselves fully in their characters, they may not be necessary to create the illusion of an imaginary character come to life on stage. (shrink)

Uses the thoughts of such great minds as Kierkegaard, Plato, and Beckett to examine the concept of love and redefine it in the face of twenty-first century modernity.

Infinite Thought brings together a representative selection of the range of Alain Badiou's work, illustrating the power and diversity of his thought.

The subtractive : preface by Francois Wahl -- Philosophy itself -- The (re)turn of philosophy itself -- Definition of philosophy -- What is a philosophical institution? -- Philosophy and poetry -- The philosophical recourse to the poem -- Mallarm's method : subtraction and isolation -- Rimbaud's method : interruption -- Philosophy and mathematics -- Conference on subtraction -- Truth : forcing and unnameable -- Philosophy and politics -- Philosophy and love -- What is love? -- Philosophy and psychoanalysis -- Subject (...) and infinite -- Antiphilosophy : Lacan and Plato -- Writing of the generic -- Writing of the generic : Samuel beckett. (shrink)

Overture -- Jacques Lacan -- Georges Canguilhem and Jean Cavaillès -- Jean-Paul Sartre -- Jean Hyppolite -- Louis Althusser -- Jean-François Lyotard -- Gilles Deleuze -- Michel Foucault -- Jacques Derrida -- Jean Borreil -- Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe -- Gilles Châtelet -- Françoise Proust -- A note on the texts.

In this book a noted physiologist and neuroscientist introduces the concept of simplexity, the set of solutions living organisms find that enable them to deal with information and situations, while taking into account past experiences and anticipating future ones. Such solutions are new ways of addressing problems so that actions may be taken more quickly, more elegantly, and more efficiently. In a sense, the history of living organisms may be summed up by their remarkable ability to find solutions that avoid (...) the world's complexity by imposing on it their own rules and functions. Evolution has resolved the problem of complexity not by simplifying but by finding solutions whose processes--though they can sometimes be complex--allow us to act in the midst of complexity and of uncertainty. Nature can inspire us by making us realize that simplification is never simple and requires instead that we choose, refuse, connect, and imagine, in order to act in the best possible manner. Such solutions are already being applied in design and engineering and are significant in biology, medicine, economics, and the behavioral sciences. (shrink)

Le savoir circule, se transmet, s'échange. Soit! Toutefois, répété désormais à outrance, cela ne nous éclaire en rien sur son contenu. Comme s'il s'agissait de ne jamais s'interroger sur la valeur ou sur la vérité du savoir, pour éviter par là même de faire place à la conviction et à la controverse. C'est pourtant une question à laquelle ne peut se dérober une société démocratique qui, au titre de l'égalité de tous, prescrit le droit à l'éducation. Dans un dialogue souvent (...) passionné, philosophes et scientifiques nous aident ici à dissiper la confusion qui est aujourd'hui la nôtre. (shrink)

Alain Badiou is arguably the most significant philosopher in Europe today. Badiou’s seminars, given annually on major conceptual and historical topics, constitute an enormously important part of his work. They served as laboratories for his thought and public illuminations of his complex ideas yet remain little known. This book, the transcript of Badiou’s year-long seminar on the psychoanalytic theory of Jacques Lacan, is the first volume of his seminars to be published in English, opening up a new and vital (...) aspect of his thinking. In a highly original and compelling account of Lacan’s theory and therapeutic practice, Badiou considers the challenge that Lacan poses to fundamental philosophical topics such as being, the subject, and truth. Badiou argues that Lacan is a singular figure of the “anti-philosopher,” a series of thinkers stretching back to Saint Paul and including Kierkegaard and Nietzsche, with Lacan as the last great anti-philosopher of modernity. The book offers a forceful reading of an enigmatic yet foundational thinker and sheds light on the crucial role that Lacan plays in Badiou’s own thought. This seminar, more accessible than some of Badiou’s more difficult works, will be profoundly valuable for the many readers across academic disciplines, art and literature, and political activism who find his thought essential. (shrink)

This volume, assembled with the collaboration of the author, presents for the first time in English a comprehensive outline of Badiou's ambitious system.

Discusses Locke's life and views and their impact on American philosophy, as well as his role in the Harlem Renaissance.

For Alain Badiou, films think, and it is the task of the philosopher to transcribe that thinking. What is the subject to which the film gives expressive form? This is the question that lies at the heart of Badiouʹs account of cinema. He contends that cinema is an art form that bears witness to the Other and renders human presence visible, thus testifying to the universal value of human existence and human freedom. Through the experience of viewing, the movement (...) of thought that constitutes the film is passed on to the viewer, who thereby encounters an aspect of the world and its exaltation and vitality as well as its difficulty and complexity. Cinema is an impure art cannibalizing its times, the other arts, and people -- a major art precisely because it is the locus of the indiscernibility between art and non-art. It is this, argues Badiou, that makes cinema the social and political art par excellence, the best indicator of our civilization, in the way that Greek tragedy, the coming-of-age novel and the operetta were in their respective eras. -- Publisher description. (shrink)

Les idées ici proposées ne dépendent point de quelque idée supérieure d'abord posée, et ne conduisent même point à quelque notion commune qui puisse définir tous les arts en peu de mots. Au contraire je me suis attaché à marquer les différences, les séparations, les oppositions, me réglant ainsi, autant que peut faire la critique, sur les oeuvres elles-mêmes, dont chacune s'affirme si bien et n'affirme qu'elle.

Daniele Hervieu-Léger and Marcel Gauchet explain that today the hold that the religious dimension has always exerted over human societies is, of very recent date but definitely, slackening; that it is becoming ‘hollow’ and ceases to inspire collective action, leaving henceforth wide open the question of knowing in which name we should attempt to take our destiny in our hands and base the norms of collective being. This question at once summons up another, implicitly contained in the latter: is every (...) ethical norm (or moral norm, for we are not making a distinction between the two concepts here) ultimately religious in origin, as is most often supposed, or can one in fact conceive of sketching the outlines of a moral code that is immanent within the social relationship, a moral code that is sufficiently coherent and self-consistent to do without, at least in theory, a religious-type transcendence? Here, I should like to make a case for the second response by emphasizing that religion - whatever meaning one bestows on this notion, still undefined today - does not constitute the primary, irreducible social and historical fact that is most often supposed, but that it should itself be interpreted as the formulation of a more original and more universal formulation: the threefold obligation of giving, receiving, and repaying distinguished by Marcel Mauss in his famous Essay on the Gift. Of course, I shall not claim here to do more than sketch a few possible lines of argument. But even before formulating them, I must call to mind two prejudicial objections that my argument has encountered. (shrink)

The sociology of knowledge is faced with a problem of historical temporality that it has carefully avoided up until now. The subject has been avoided or ignored because a discussion of it in depth would run the risk of questioning all modern scientific thought. The problem is that of the concept of absolute time as it is used in evolutionist theory. In this category of theory I include not only social evolutionism, abused for a long time and recently reanimated by (...) the “socio-biologists,” but also biological, paleontological, geological and other types of evolutionism, that is, those qualified as “scientific.”. (shrink)

(2006). Democratic Deliberation in a Multinational Federation. Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy: Vol. 9, No. 3, pp. 419-444.

Published in 1973, "L'Etourdit" was one of the French philosopher Jacques Lacan's most important works. The book posed questions that traversed the entire body of Lacan's psychoanalytical explorations, including his famous idea that "there is no such thing as a sexual relationship," which seeks to undermine our certainties about intimacy and reality. In There's No Such Thing as a Sexual Relationship, Alain Badiou and Barbara Cassin take possession of Lacan's short text, thinking "with" Lacan about his propositions and what (...) kinds of questions they raise in relation to knowledge. Cassin considers the relationship of the real to language through a Sophist lens, while the Platonist Badiou unpacks philosophical claims about truth. Each of their contributions echoes back to one another, offering new ways of thinking about Lacan, his seminal ideas, and his role in advancing philosophical thought. (shrink)