Causal finitism, the view that the causal history of any event must be finite, has garnered much philosophical interest recently—especially because of its applicability to the Kalām cosmological argument. The most prominent argument for causal finitism is the Grim Reaper argument, which attempts to show that, if infinite causal histories are possible, then other paradoxical states of affairs must also be possible. However, this style of argument has been criticized on the grounds of (i) relying on controversial modal principles, and (...) (ii) providing a false diagnosis of the paradoxes involved. In this paper, I develop a new kind of Grim Reaper argument immune to these criticisms. I show that, by using insights from the literature on time travel, causal finitists should instead argue that infinite causal histories are problematically inexplicable, as they entail the possibility of unexplained foiling mechanisms. The fruits of this paper are that (i) a novel supporting argument for the Kalām is developed, and (ii) along the way of building this argument, it is shown that the literatures on time travel and causal finitism are deeply and intimately connected. (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)

The Successive Addition Argument (SAA) is one of the key arguments espoused by William Lane Craig for the thesis that the universe began to exist. Recently, Malpass, Mind, 131(523), 786–804 (2021) has developed a challenge to the SAA by way of constructing a counterexample that originates in the work of Fred Dretske. In this paper, I show that the Malpass-Dretske counterexample is in fact no counterexample to the argument. Utilizing a distinction between properties of members and properties of collections, I (...) argue that Malpass’ counterexample has no bearing on the soundness of the SAA. I also develop a novel parity argument against Malpass’ argument that I demonstrate can only be resolved by way of the aforementioned analysis. (shrink)

One of William Lane Craig's key arguments for the finitude of the past is the Successive Addition Argument (SAA). Malpass (2021) has recently developed a novel challenge to the SAA, utilising a thought experiment from the work of Fred Dretske, which is meant to show that it is possible to count to infinity, to argue that there is a counterexample to the SAA's second premise. In this paper, I contend that the Malpass‐Dretske counterexample should not worry advocates of the SAA. (...) First, I argue that one objection Malpass considers—the Potential Infinite Objection—reveals an interesting fact: the SAA's second premise is unnecessarily strong and can be weakened whilst still yielding the same conclusion. Second, I show how another one of the objections considered by Malpass—the Accumulation Objection—is successful, provided some clarification to the SAA's premises. The upshot of both analyses is that we generate two ‘new’ Successive Addition arguments that not only move the dialectic forward, but shed light on deeper assumptions and motivating intuitions concerning the Kalām. (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)

The emergence of the Family Resemblance Approach to nature of science has prompted a fresh wave of scholarship embracing this new approach in science education. The FRA provides an ambitious and practical vision for what NOS-enriched science content should aim for and promotes evidence-based practices in science education to support the enactment of such vision. The present article provides an overview of research and development efforts utilizing the FRA and reviews recent empirical studies including those conducted in preservice science teacher (...) education as well as studies utilizing FRA to analyze NOS representations in curriculum documents and textbooks. The article concludes with implications and recommendations for future research and practice. (shrink)

It is a common intuition in scientific practice that positive instances confirm. This confirmation, at least based purely on syntactic considerations, is what Nelson Goodman’s ‘Grue Problem’, and more generally the ‘New Riddle’ of Induction, attempt to defeat. One treatment of the Grue Problem has been made along Bayesian lines, wherein the riddle reduces to a question of probability assignments. In this paper, I consider this so-called Bayesian Grue Problem and evaluate how one might proffer a solution to this problem (...) utilizing what I call a phenomenological approach. I argue that this approach to the problem can be successful on the Bayesian framework. (shrink)

La philosophie est aujourd'hui possible, dans la plénitude de son ambition. La philosophie elle-même, telle que l'entendait Platon.Ce qui a entraîné son éclipse au XIXe siècle, c'est qu'elle s'est identifiée, « suturée », tour à tour à un seul des champs où se pose, par-delà le savoir, une vérité : le scientifique (positivisme), le politique (marxisme), puis, avec Nietzche et plus encore Heidegger, le poème.

Plato's _Republic_ is one of the best-known and most widely-discussed texts in the history of philosophy. But how might we get to the heart of this work today, 2,500 years after its original composition? Alain Badiou breathes life into Plato's landmark text and revives its universality. Rather than producing yet another critical commentary, he has instead worked closely on the original Greek and, through spectacular changes, adapted it to our times. In this innovative reimagining of Plato's work, Badiou has (...) removed all references specific to ancient Greek society--from lengthy exchanges about moral courage in archaic poetry to political considerations mainly of interest to the aristocratic elite--and has expanded the range of cultural references. Here, philosophy is firing on all cylinders: Socrates and his companions are joined by Beckett, Pessoa, Freud, and Hegel, among others. Together these thinkers demonstrate that true philosophy endures, ready to absorb new horizons without changing its essence. Moreover, Badiou--who is also a dramatist--has transformed the Socratic dialogue into a genuine oratorial contest. In his version of the _Republic_, the interlocutors do much more than simply agree with Socrates. They argue, stand up to him, put him on the spot, and show thought in motion. In this work of dramatic scholarship and philosophy, we encounter a modern version of Plato's text that is alive, stimulating, and directly relevant to our own world. (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)

Hegel once wrote that Truth could not be expressed within a single sentence. His statement could surely be taken as justification for the length of his ...

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.

This paper is an evaluation and expansion of William Hasker’s transcendental argument against determinism. Hasker’s argument attempts to show that determinism is logically incompatible with rationality and justified belief. Hasker claims this argument to be conclusive given two independent qualifications: first that the argument only applies to a specific form of determinism, and second that the argument rests on a specific conception of rationality. My aim in this paper will be to modify and expand Hasker’s argument such that it (1) (...) applies to the more general deterministic thesis (as defined below), and (2), rests on a modified epistemic conception of rationally unaffirmable beliefs. I will attempt to do (2) by modeling Hasker’s argument after one of Alvin Plantinga’s epistemological arguments against naturalism, and hope to show that such an argumentative model is superior for the conclusion Hasker wishes to bring out. I will begin by explicating Hasker’s argument, and then I will move to the modification and expansion of the argument. (shrink)

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)

Often, semantic accounts of ethical statements wherein those statements have their truth-conditions linked in some capacity to the mental state of an agent face the difficulty of explaining how it is that moral agents and communities genuinely disagree. However, there are––I shall argue––such semantic theories of ethical statements we can construct that avoid this explanatory deficit, insofar as they are both absolute and dispositional theories. In this paper, I will (i) explore and analyze one such semantic theory, Roderick Firth (1952)’s (...) ‘ideal observer theory’, and its relation to the problem of genuine moral disagreement, and (ii) argue that the theory successfully accounts for genuine moral disagreement in virtue of its being absolute and dispositional. (shrink)

Plato's _Republic_ is one of the best-known and most widely-discussed texts in the history of philosophy. But how might we get to the heart of this work today, 2,500 years after its original composition? Alain Badiou breathes life into Plato's landmark text and revives its universality. Rather than producing yet another critical commentary, he has instead worked closely on the original Greek and, through spectacular changes, adapted it to our times. In this innovative reimagining of Plato's work, Badiou has (...) removed all references specific to ancient Greek society--from lengthy exchanges about moral courage in archaic poetry to political considerations mainly of interest to the aristocratic elite--and has expanded the range of cultural references. Here, philosophy is firing on all cylinders: Socrates and his companions are joined by Beckett, Pessoa, Freud, and Hegel, among others. Together these thinkers demonstrate that true philosophy endures, ready to absorb new horizons without changing its essence. Moreover, Badiou--who is also a dramatist--has transformed the Socratic dialogue into a genuine oratorial contest. In his version of the _Republic_, the interlocutors do much more than simply agree with Socrates. They argue, stand up to him, put him on the spot, and show thought in motion. In this work of dramatic scholarship and philosophy, we encounter a modern version of Plato's text that is alive, stimulating, and directly relevant to our own world. (shrink)

We present a model of steady state solute and water reabsorption along the rat proximal tubule. Major co-and counter-transport systems in the apical and basolateral cell membranes are described using kinetic descriptions based on data from the flows and solute concentrations along the length of the proximal tubule as a function of filtration rate and peritubular solute concentrations. We show that for many aspects of proximal tubule transport physiology this kinetics-based model is an adequate representation of the mammalian proximal tubule.

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 dialogue, Alain Badiou shares the clearest, most detailed account to date of his profound indebtedness to Lacanian psychoanalysis. He explains in depth the tools Lacan gave him to navigate the extremes of his other two philosophical "masters," Jean-Paul Sartre and Louis Althusser. Élisabeth Roudinesco supplements Badiou's experience with her own perspective on the troubled landscape of the French analytic world since Lacan's death--critiquing, for example, the link (or lack thereof) between politics and psychoanalysis in Lacan's work. Their (...) exchange reinvigorates how the the work of a pivotal twentieth-century thinker is perceived. (shrink)

La quatrième de couverture indique : Deleuze et Guattari étaient des lecteurs sans pareils. C'est la raison pour laquelle Alain Jugnon les lit dans ce livre ; plus précisément, il lit avec eux Artaud et Kafka, Lacan et Klossowski, Büchner et Nietzsche. N'ont-ils pas assez lu Lautréamont ; il les lit pour eux, comme eux l'auraient lu, l'ajoutant à leurs lectures, avec les outils qu'ils ont créés pour lire. Nul mieux qu'Alain Jugnon n'articule les lectures nécessaires à la (...) défaite de ce monde-ci et au surgissement d'un monde transformé : "Deleuze et Guattari ont commencé à dire dans leur livre premier, L'Anti-Oedipe : il n'y a plus de dialectique à penser ou bien d'histoires à raconter, mais il y aura des machines capitalistes et des machines désirantes, des guerres des sexes et des guerres des races, des combats de rue et des révolutions de palais, il y aura tout ça et plus encore, qui fera une bible humaine à revendre ou bien une philosophie populaire à inventer pour demain." (A.J.). (shrink)

Quali sono lo spazio e il tempo della filosofia nel sapere contemporaneo? È possibile tracciare dei confini e far emergere la figura di un sapere sullo sfondo di un'epoca e della sua forma di vita?

A passionate critique of Enlightenment--both in its contemporary invocation and its historical and cultural use--and a call to arms to rethink human equality and liberty without the sacrifice of individual rights and ethnicities.

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)

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)

The notion that all the world's peoples constitute a "brotherhood of man" is not a given among all human beings--it is rather the product of history. So suggests acclaimed philosopher Alain Finkielkraut in _In the Name of Humanity,_ an unsettling reflection on the twentieth century in its twilight hours in which he asks us to rethink our assumptions about universalism and humanism. While many people look to humanist ideals as a deterrent to nationalist chauvinism, Finkielkraut challenges the abstract idea (...) of universalism by describing the terrible crimes "civilized" Europe has committed in its name. At the same time as it challenges the inhumanity of our century's great universalistic solutions, _In the Name of Humanity_ also confronts the more onerous elements of unreflective nationalism--clearly condemning the dangerous use of claims for ethnic purity. However, the book does not put forth a standard-issue polemic against the multitude of nationalistic currents that continue to plague the international arena. Indeed, even as he deplores the violence that seems to go hand in hand with nationalism, Finkielkraut defends its underlying cause--the need to belong. Eloquently quoting the experiences of refugees from Hitler's Germany, he shows the reader why we must heed the call of this irreducible need. Finkielkraut reminds us that the concept of cultural relativism--indeed, the very idea of tolerating other cultures--is a relatively recent development in Western history. As he looks for answers he interrogates the differences between historical racism and the racism embedded in the philosophies of this century's genocidal movements, showing how modern racist ideologies like National Socialism look not to sin within the self as the stumbling block of human advancement but to a clandestine conspiracy by a particular, identifiable element of human society. What this form of radical racist thought eliminates is the notion of personal responsibility--instead of finding the answers to misfortune within the self, modern racism suggests that evil can be identified in others and summarily eliminated. Lucidly connected to the ideas of past thinkers, from Plato to Levinas to Hannah Arendt, Finkielkraut's latest work is a troubling indictment of our century that refuses to back away from the "messiness" of human life and culture. In his willingness to abjure simple solutions, he offers a glimmer of hope. (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)