Alain Badiou’s theory of discipline condenses many important theoretical tools that he developed throughout his long encounter with various philosophical and political milieus from the mid 1960s to the mid 1980s, when he wrote his magnum opus _Being and Event_. Through this vast terrain, Badiou expressed seemingly different commitments: from logic and the epistemology of science in the late 1960s and politics during the 1970s, to ontology and mathematics in the 1980s, which has continued to this time. However, a close (...) reading of his major works during this period reveals an internal thread of thought that runs between them, which I have named discipline. In other words, discipline is the framework within which we can reconstruct Badiou’s main ideas as part of a continuous work (during the stated period) that not only reveals the internal coherence of his overall thought over the course of time, within which he showed different and seemingly unrelated commitments, but also gives us a powerful tool to understand the key concepts of his philosophy, such as the procedures of truth, ontology, phenomenology, and his commitment to axiomatic thinking. In this essay we aim to examine the concept of the subject in relation to the theory of discipline. We will do so by examining Badiou’s encounter with two crucial aspects of the theory of the subject discussed by Lacan: the Cartesian _cogito_ and the relation of the subject to the mathematical infinite. (shrink)

This book focuses on the three main categories of Badiou's philosophy-being, truth, and subject- which are elaborated according to three encounters: structure, real, and mathematical infinity. It articulates an underlying theory, "discipline," constituted based on these encounters, which reveals the inner logic of Badiou's method.

Philosophy After Lacan: Politics, Science and Art brings together reflections on contemporary philosophy inspired by and in dialogue with Lacanian theory. Rather than focus on the thinkers who came before Lacan, the editors maintain attention on innovations in contemporary philosophy that owe their emergence to complimentary, critical, direct, or tangential engagement with Lacan. This collection makes one of the first concerted efforts to expand discussions between psychoanalysis and more recent philosophical thinkers while gathering chapters by some of the leading philosophical (...) voices of the present moment. With contributors from around the world, this book has international appeal and is unique in its emphasis on contemporary philosophies inspired or influenced by Lacan. Philosophy After Lacan will not only appeal to psychotherapists and psychoanalysts, but also to students and professors of philosophy, critical theory, psychology, politics, history, and literature. (shrink)