Alain Badiou is a French Marxist philosopher, novelist and playwright. Born in Rabat, Morocco, Badiou completed high school in Toulouse before moving to Paris for undergraduate studies at the prestigious École Normale Supérieure (ENS), where he worked closely with Louis Althusser, but was never one of the select group of disciples who came to be known as Althusserians. After completing his obligatory military service, Badiou taught in Reims, first at a lycée, then at the university. In 1968 he was invited by Michel Foucault to join the department of philosophy at Vincennes (University of Paris VIII), where his colleagues included Hélène Cixous, Gilles Deleuze, and Jean-François Lyotard. After spending 30 years at Vincennes, Badiou left in 1998 to return to his alma mater ENS.
The primary philosophical system developed by Alain Badiou is constructed in Being and Event, Logics of Worlds: Being and Event II, and the forthcoming Immanence of Truths: Being and Event III.
Badiou’s model of praxis is usually described as subtractive because it operates on the premise that political action can only work if it subtracts itself from the power and processes of the state. Slavoj Žižek adopts this model in his self-styled political manifesto In Defence of Lost Causes. Throughout his career, Badiou has been actively involved in politics. During the events of May ’68 he was a member of highly vocal Maoist groups. In more recent times he has been involved with L’Organisation Politique, a politicized group he helped found. Because of its powerfully political texture, Badiou’s philosophy is increasingly widely read today, a measure both of the volatility of the times and the lucidity of his thought.
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BOOKS
- 1999, Deleuze: The Clamor of Being
- 1999, Manifesto for Philosophy
- 2001, Ethics: An Essay on the Understanding of Evil
- 2001, Alain Badiou: A Critical Introduction
- 2002, Briefings on Existence: A Short Treatise on Transitory Ontology
- 2003, On Beckett
- 2003, Saint Paul: The Foundation of Universalism
- 2004, Handbook of Inaesthetics
- 2004, Infinite Thought: Truth and the Return to Philosophy
- 2004, Think Again: Alain Badiou and the Future of Philosophy
- 2004, Theoretical Writings
- 2005, Alain Badiou: Philosophy and its Conditions
- 2006, Being and Event
- 2006, The Praxis of Alain Badiou
- 2006, Metapolitics
- 2007, The Century
- 2007, Polemics
- 2007, The Concept of Model
- 2008, Number and Numbers
- 2008, The Meaning of Sarkozy
- 2009, Conditions
- 2009, Logics of Worlds: Being and Event II
- 2009, Philosophy in the Present
- 2009, Pocket Pantheon: Figures of Postwar Philosophy
- 2009, Theory of the Subject
- 2010, Alain Badiou: Key Concepts
- 2010, Badiou: A Philosophy of the New
- 2010, Heidegger: His Life & His Philosophy
- 2010, Five Lessons on Wagner
- 2010, The Communist Hypothesis
- 2010, The Idea of Communism
- 2010, What is Philosophy?
- 2011, The Rational Kernel of the Hegelian Dialectic
- 2011, Badiou and Politics
- 2011, Democracy in What State?
- 2011, Second Manifesto for Philosophy
- 2011, Wittgenstein’s Anti-philosophy
- 2012, Concept and Form / Cahiers pour l’Analyse
- 2012, Badiou and Philosophy
- 2012, In Praise of Love
- 2012, Philosophy for Militants
- 2012, The Adventure of French Philosophy
- 2012, The Rebirth of History: Times of Riots and Uprisings
- 2012, The Subject of Change
- 2013, Badiou and the Philosophers: Interrogating 1960s French Philosophy
- 2013, The Idea of Communism vol. 2: The New York Conference
- 2013, Cinema
- 2013, Philosophy and the Event
- 2013, Plato’s Republic: A Dialogue in Sixteen Chapters
- 2013, Reflections on Anti-Semitism
- 2013, Rhapsody for the Theatre
- 2013, The Incident at Antioch: A Tragedy in Three Acts
- 2013, What is a People?
- 2014, Ahmed the Philosopher
- 2014, Controversies: Politics and Philosophy in our Time
- 2014, Confrontation: Alain Badiou & Alain Finkielkraut – A Conversation with Aude Lancelin
- 2014, Introducing Alain Badiou: A Graphic Guide
- 2014, Jacques Lacan, Past and Present: A Dialogue
- 2014, Mathematics of the Transcendental
- 2014, The Age of the Poets
- 2014, Badiou and the Political Condition
- 2015, Badiou and Hegel: Infinity, Dialectics, Subjectivity
- 2015, In Praise of Mathematics
- 2015, Philosophy and the Idea of Communism
- 2015, For Badiou: Idealism Without Idealism
- 2015, The Badiou Dictionary
- 2016, The Idea of Communism vol. 3: The Seoul Conference
- 2016, In Praise of Theatre
- 2016, Is Lacan an Anti-Philosopher?
- 2016, What Is To Be Done?: A Dialogue on Communism, Capitalism, and the Future of Democracy
- 2016, Black: The Brilliance of a Non-Color
- 2017, Greece and the Reinvention of Politics
- 2017, The True Life: A Plea for Corrupting the Youth
- 2017, There’s No Such Thing as a Sexual Relationship: Two Lessons on Lacan
- 2018, German Philosophy: A Dialogue
- 2018, Badiou and His Interlocutors: Lectures, Interviews and Responses
- 2018, Lacan: Anti-Philosophy 3 (The Seminars of Alain Badiou)
- 2019, Happiness
- 2019, Malebranche: Theological Figure, Being 2 (The Seminars of Alain Badiou)
- 2019, Trump
- 2019, Can Politics Be Thought?
- 2019, The End: A Conversation
- 2020, The Pornographic Age
- 2020, Migrants and Militants
- 2020, Sometimes, We Are Eternal
