Metapolitics - Softcover

Badiou, Alain

Softcover

ISBN 10: 184467567X ISBN 13: 9781844675678

Publisher: Verso Books, 2006

Synopsis

In this follow-up to his highly acclaimed volume "Ethics", a searing critique of liberalism, Alain Badiou discusses the limits of political philosophy. "Metapolitics" argues that one of the main tasks of contemporary thought is to abolish the idea that politics is merely an object for philosophical reflection. Badiou indicts this approach, which reduces politics to a matter of opinion, thus eliminating any of its truly radical and emancipatory possibilities. Against this intellectual tradition, Badiou proposes instead the consideration of politics in terms of the production of truth and the affirmation of equality. He demands that the question of a possible "political truth" be separated from any notion of consensus or public opinion, and that political action be rethought in terms of the complex process that binds discussion to decision. Starting from this analysis, Badiou critically examines the thought of anthropologist and political theorist Sylvain Lazarus, Jacques Ranciere's writings on workers' history and democratic dissensus, the role of the subject in Althusser, as well as the concept of democracy and the link between truth and justice.

About this title

Product Description:

Unusual book

Review:

"Scarcely any other moral thinker of our day is a politically clear-sighted and courageously polemical, so prepared to put notions of truth and universality back on the agenda." - Terry Eagleton "Badiou is by turns speculative, provocative... and droll." - Times Literary Supplement

About this edition

• Publisher: Verso Books
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 184467567X
• ISBN 13: 9781844675678
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 159