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Second Manifesto for Philosophy

ISBN: 978-0-745-64862-0

January 2011

Polity

176 pages

Description
Twenty years ago, Alain Badiou's first Manifesto for Philosophy rose up against the all-pervasive proclamation of the "end" of philosophy. In lieu of this problematic of the end, he put forward the watchword: "one more step".

The situation has considerably changed since then. Philosophy was threatened with obliteration at the time, whereas today it finds itself under threat for the diametrically opposed reason: it is endowed with an excessive, artificial existence. "Philosophy" is everywhere. It serves as a trademark for various media pundits. It livens up cafés and health clubs. It has its magazines and its gurus. It is universally called upon, by everything from banks to major state commissions, to pronounce on ethics, law and duty. In essence, "philosophy" has now come to stand for nothing other than its most ancient enemy: conservative ethics.

Badiou's second manifesto therefore seeks to demoralize philosophy and to separate it from all those "philosophies" that are as servile as they are ubiquitous. It demonstrates the power of certain eternal truths to illuminate action and, as such, to transport philosophy far beyond the figure of "the human" and its "rights". There, well beyond all moralism, in the clear expanse of the idea, life becomes something radically other than survival.

About the Author
Alain Badiou is Emeritus Professor in Philosophy at the École Normale Supérieure.
Features
• The book is written as a defence of philosophy - or, as Badiou puts it, 'a philosophical declaration of the existence of philosophy at a particular point in time.'
• The text is organized around a set of concepts through which he seeks to do this: opinion, appearance, differentiation, existence, mutation, incorporation, subjectivation, ideation.
• Badiou is very much 'flavour of the month' among French philosophers.
• This will appeal to students and academics in philosophy and critical cultural theory.