Bahasa Inggris Bisnis 2

Theory of Subject

Subject and Appearance: On Alain Badiou’s Theory of the Subject and Logics of Worlds

Event held at Bolivar Hall Friday 20th November 2009

Speakers: Bruno Bosteels & Kristin Ross (Theory of the Subject) Alberto Toscano & Ali Alizadeh (Logics of Worlds)

Chair: Peter Hallward, Peter Osborne

Introduction (Peter Hallward): Badiou’s philosophy concerns changing the logic of the world, topologically constituted by the space of placements or l’esplace in Badiouan terminology, ‘not in order to change the bourgeoisie, but to change the bourgeois world’. Therefore he is concerned with the political project of the proletariat. There are two dominant structures to his thought:

i. The Logic of Place (splace), which is a logic of historical topology.
ii. History as aspect of the dialectic, in which history takes secondary status to politics.

The theory of a militant subject is not a science of history, in which history is mere appearance. The emphasis is on political needs over and above what seems historically or teleologically feasible.

[…] it is always in the interest of the powerful that history is mistaken for politics….Science of history? Marxism is the discourse with which the proletariat sustains itself as subject. We must never let go of this idea. [p44Theory of the Subject]

Bruno Bosteels: On The Role of History – What is Badiou’s relation to Marx? Badiou’s relation to Marx lies in the concept of inexistence (the impossible), potential and actualization. Here Borsteels made reference to Marx’s 1843 Letter to Ruge and the relationship of the dream to change in history:

“The reform of consciousness consists only in making the world aware of its own consciousness, in awakening it out of its dream about itself, inexplaining to it the meaning of its own actions.”