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In a new paperback edition, this compelling and highly original book represents a confrontation between two of the most radical thinkers at work in France today: Alain Badiou and the author, Francois Laruelle.
At face value, the two have much in common: both espouse a position of absolute immanence; both argue that philosophy is conditioned by science; and both command a pluralism of thought. Anti-Badiou relates the parallel stories of Badiou's Maoist 'ontology of the void' and Laruelle's own performative practice of 'non-philosophy' and explains why the two are in fact radically different. Badiou's entire project aims to re-educate philosophy through one science: mathematics. Laruelle carefully examines Badiou's Being and Event and shows how Badiou has created a new aristocracy that crowns his own philosophy as the master of an entire theoretical universe. In turn, Laruelle explains the contrast with his own non-philosophy as a true democracy of thought that breaks philosophy's continual enthrall with mathematics and instead opens up a myriad of 'non-standard' places where thinking can be found and practised.
Preface: The Re-education of Philosophy by Mathematics: Purification and Terror
Introduction
1. A Short Synoptic Parallel
2. Modern Party Positions in Philosophy
3. The Old and New Relationship Between Science and Philosophy
4. Matrices and Principles
5. Subtraction and Superposition
6. Philosophy and Mathematics in the Mirror
7. Ontology and Materiality
8. Philo-Fiction
Notes
Index
Description
In a new paperback edition, this compelling and highly original book represents a confrontation between two of the most radical thinkers at work in France today: Alain Badiou and the author, Francois Laruelle.
At face value, the two have much in common: both espouse a position of absolute immanence; both argue that philosophy is conditioned by science; and both command a pluralism of thought. Anti-Badiou relates the parallel stories of Badiou's Maoist 'ontology of the void' and Laruelle's own performative practice of 'non-philosophy' and explains why the two are in fact radically different. Badiou's entire project aims to re-educate philosophy through one science: mathematics. Laruelle carefully examines Badiou's Being and Event and shows how Badiou has created a new aristocracy that crowns his own philosophy as the master of an entire theoretical universe. In turn, Laruelle explains the contrast with his own non-philosophy as a true democracy of thought that breaks philosophy's continual enthrall with mathematics and instead opens up a myriad of 'non-standard' places where thinking can be found and practised.
