žižek archive
archive / stories / Badiou’s stages of philosophy

Badiou’s stages of philosophy

setpiece · philosophy: Alain Badiou · retold in 3 talks

Žižek maps Alain Badiou’s three truth domains (Science, Politics, Art, Love) onto German Idealism (Kant, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel) to argue that contemporary philosophy is the culmination of this tradition.

As told 3

“Kant: science. Fichte is politics. Schelling is art. Hegel... love.”
“The first way is a direct defeat you are simply crushed by the enemy. The second way is to lose in the victory itself... The next one is the radical one... sacrificial temptation of the void.”
“me and Badiou that's our private joke like to make fun of unfair a little bit of Derrida”

What it carries

one story, many jobs: the ideas this anecdote is deployed to argue, one tally mark per use (an idea page shows the same relation from the other end, as its shelf of stories)

Its cast and sources

populated by
alongside works

Every retelling 3

Žižek maps Alain Badiou’s three truth domains (Science, Politics, Art, Love) onto German Idealism (Kant, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel) to argue that contemporary philosophy is the culmination of this tradition., illustrating Hegel-dialectics,philosophy-general
Badiou identifies three ways to lose: direct crushing by the enemy; winning but becoming the new power structure (Stalinism, social democracy); and remaining pure while descending into self-destructive violence (Thermidor, Pol Pot, Cultural Revolution). His conclusion is that all three stem from daring to take power., illustrating subtraction,dare to win,Badiou critique
A private joke with Badiou mocking Derrida’s tendency to insist situations are 'a little bit more complex' rather than making a decisive reduction., illustrating consciousness as operator of simplification