Overview

The first critical work to attempt the mammoth undertaking of reading Badiou’s Being and Event as part of a sequence has often surprising, occasionally controversial results. Looking back on its publication Badiou declared: “I had inscribed my name in the history of philosophy”. Later he was brave enough to admit that this inscription needed correction. The central elements of Badiou’s philosophy only make sense when Being and Event is read through the corrective prism of its sequel, Logics of Worlds, published nearly twenty years later. At the same time as presenting the only complete overview of Badiou’s philosophical project, this book is also the first to draw out the central component of Badiou’s ontology: indifference. Concentrating on its use across the core elements Being and Event—the void, the multiple, the set and the event—Watkin demonstrates that no account of Badiou’s ontology is complete unless it accepts that Badiou’s philosophy is primarily a presentation of indifferent being. Badiou and Indifferent Being provides a detailed and lively section by section reading of Badiou’s foundational work. It is a seminal source text for all Badiou readers.

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9781350015678

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Reviews

A remarkable achievement and a distinctive contribution to our knowledge of Badiou's thought. For all the skill, and sometimes brilliance, of previous explications, no-one had quite captured the tenor, the character or (a heretical word, perhaps) the feel of Badiou's ontology; not, at least, in language. * Journal of Badiou Studies * Watkin's is a very important book. Much of the commentary on Badiou has tended to move his politics to the centre of his thought. With meticulousness, clarity and rigour, Watkin works rather through Badiou's philosophization of mathematics, liberating the philosopher qua philosopher, the thinker whose awesome achievement has been to recast and transform our understanding of a major set of traditional philosophical terms. This book returns us to what is most gripping about Badiou, his stark, courageous and deeply uncontemporary asceticism. -- Andrew Gibson, former Research Professor of Modern Literature and Theory, Royal Holloway, University of London, UK

Watkin's is a very important book. Shrinking the gap between him and Marx, much of the commentary on Badiou has tended to move his politics to the centre of his thought. With meticulousness, clarity and impressive rigour, Watkin works rather through Badiou's philosophization of mathematics. In doing so, he liberates the philosopher qua philosopher, the Badiou whose awesome achievement has been to recast and transform our understanding of infinity and the limit, possibility and necessity, singularity and generality, chance and determinate nature, relation and non-relation and, above all, difference and indifference. In doing so, Watkin returns us to what is most gripping about Badiou, his stark, courageous and deeply uncontemporary asceticism. -- Andrew Gibson, former Research Professor of Modern Literature and Theory, Royal Holloway, University of London, UK

Author Information

William Watkin is Professor of Contemporary Literature and Philosophy at Brunel University, UK.

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