The One: Descartes, Plato, Kant

Alain Badious 19831984 lecture series on the One is the earliest of his seminars that he has chosen to publish. It focuses on the philosophical concept of oneness in the works of Descartes, Plato, and Kanta crucial foil for his signature metaphysical concept, the multiple. Badiou declares that there is no One: there is no fundamental unit of being; being is inherently multiple.

What is novel in Badious view of multiplicity is his reliance on mathematics, and set theory in particular. A set is a collection of thingsyet, as he observes, it often is taken to count as one operationally for the purposes of mathematical transformations. In this seminar, distinguishing between the One and counting as one emerges as essential to Badious ontological project. His analysis of reflections on oneness in Descartes, Plato, and Kant prefigures core arguments of his defining work, Being and Event.

Showcasing the seeds of Badious key ideas and later thought, The One features singular readings, breathtaking theorizations, and frequently astonishing offhand remarks. See more