In Praise of Love
By Alain Badiou, Nicolas Truong and Peter Bush
4.5/5
()
About this ebook
In a world rife with consumerism, where online dating promises risk-free romance and love is all too often seen as a mere variant of desire and hedonism, Alain Badiou believes that love is under threat. Taking to heart Rimbaud’s famous line “love needs reinventing,” In Praise of Love is the celebrated French intellectual’s passionate treatise in defense of love.
For Badiou, love is an existential project, a constantly unfolding quest for truth. This quest begins with the chance encounter, an event that forever changes two individuals, challenging them “to see the world from the point of view of two rather than one.” This, Badiou believes, is love’s most essential transforming power.
Through thought-provoking dialogue edited from a conversation between Badiou and Truong, a vibrant cast of thinkers are invoked: Kierkegaard, Plato, de Beauvoir, Proust, and more, create a new narrative of love in the face of twenty-first-century modernity. Moving, zealous, and wise, Badiou’s “paean to the anticapitalist, antiessentialist, unifying power of love” urges us not to fear it but to see it as a magnificent undertaking that compels us to explore others and to move away from an obsession with ourselves (Publishers Weekly).
“Finally, the cure for the pornographic, utilitarian exchange of favors to which love has been reduced in America. Alain Badiou is our philosopher of love.” —Simon Critchley, author of The Faith of the Faithless
Alain Badiou
Alex Kirstukas has published and presented on Verne's work for both academic and popular audiences and is a trustee of the North American Jules Verne Society as well as the editor of its peer-reviewed publication Extraordinary Voyages. Kirstukas' first published translation was Robur the Conqueror by Jules Verne and published by the Wesleyan University Press in 2017.
Read more from Alain Badiou
There’s No Such Thing as a Sexual Relationship: Two Lessons on Lacan Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Ethics: An Essay on the Understanding of Evil Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ethics: An Essay on the Understanding of Evil Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Indifference and Repetition; or, Modern Freedom and Its Discontents Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Communist Hypothesis Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Badiou by Badiou Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDemocracy in What State? Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Adventure of French Philosophy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Philosophy for Militants Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Pocket Pantheon: Figures of Postwar Philosophy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5St. Paul Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Rebirth of History: Times of Riots and Uprisings Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Polemics Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Plato's Republic: A Dialogue in 16 Chapters Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Reflections On Anti-Semitism Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHeidegger: His Life and His Philosophy Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Related to In Praise of Love
Related ebooks
Philosophy in Turbulent Times: Canguilhem, Sartre, Foucault, Althusser, Deleuze, Derrida Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Politics of Friendship Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Pocket Pantheon: Figures of Postwar Philosophy Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Vital Illusion Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5In Defense of Lost Causes Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Living in the End Times Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Styles of Radical Will Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5First As Tragedy, Then As Farce Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hegel and the Infinite Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRead My Desire: Lacan Against the Historicists Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Trouble with Being Born Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Spectre of Hegel: Early Writings Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDeleuze Beyond Badiou: Ontology, Multiplicity, and Event Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Notes on "Camp" Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Heidegger: His Life and His Philosophy Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHölderlin's Hymn "Remembrance" Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5Against Interpretation: And Other Essays Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Absolute Recoil: Towards A New Foundation Of Dialectical Materialism Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Beckett, Lacan, and the Voice Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lacan: In Spite Of Everything Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Kierkegaard's Writings, VI, Volume 6: Fear and Trembling/Repetition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Being and Nothingness Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Screened Out Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5All Gall Is Divided: The Aphorisms of a Legendary Iconoclast Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Ethics of Ambiguity Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Did Somebody Say Totalitarianism?: 5 Interventions in the (Mis)Use of a Notion Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Portable Kristeva Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5Illness as Metaphor and AIDS and Its Metaphors Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lacan and the Limits of Language Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratings
Philosophy For You
The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sun Tzu's The Art of War: Bilingual Edition Complete Chinese and English Text Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Courage to Be Happy: Discover the Power of Positive Psychology and Choose Happiness Every Day Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Meditations: Complete and Unabridged Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Plato and a Platypus Walk Into a Bar...: Understanding Philosophy Through Jokes Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Art of War Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Four Loves Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Republic by Plato Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Art of Loving Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Beyond Good and Evil Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Human Condition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Denial of Death Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Tao Te Ching: A New English Version Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Be Here Now Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The City of God Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Egyptian Book of the Dead: The Complete Papyrus of Ani Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Course in Miracles: Text, Workbook for Students, Manual for Teachers Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Inward Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Tao Te Ching: Six Translations Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Little Book of Stoicism: Timeless Wisdom to Gain Resilience, Confidence, and Calmness Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Buddha's Guide to Gratitude: The Life-changing Power of Everyday Mindfulness Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5How to Be Perfect: The Correct Answer to Every Moral Question Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Experiencing God (2021 Edition): Knowing and Doing the Will of God Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Bhagavad Gita Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Letters from a Stoic: All Three Volumes Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Daily Stoic: A Daily Journal On Meditation, Stoicism, Wisdom and Philosophy to Improve Your Life Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The School of Life: An Emotional Education: An Emotional Education Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for In Praise of Love
7 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
In Praise of Love - Alain Badiou
INTRODUCTION
A philosopher must never forget the countless situations in life when he is no different from anyone else. If he does, theatrical tradition, particularly comedy, will rudely remind him of that fact. There is, after all, a stock stage character, the philosopher in love, whose Stoic wisdom and well-rehearsed distrust of passion evaporate in their entirety the moment a dazzlingly beautiful woman sweeps into the room and blows him away forever.
I realised this a long time ago. I have suggested that a philosopher (and this neutral noun naturally encompasses both male and female varieties) must be an accomplished scientist, an amateur poet and a political activist, but also has to accept that the realm of thought is never sealed off from the violent onslaughts of love. Philosophy requires its practitioners of either gender to assume the roles of savant, artist, activist and lover. I have called them the four conditions of philosophy.
That was why I immediately agreed when Nicolas Truong invited me to join him in conversation in the Theatre of Ideas
series he organises at the Avignon Festival. It looked as if it would be a delicious cocktail of theatre, crowds, conversation, love and philosophy. Besides, it was going to be held on 14 July (2008) and I was excited by the idea of celebrating love, a cosmopolitan, subversive, sexual energy that transgresses frontiers and social status at a time normally devoted to the Army, the Nation and the State.
Let’s now blow our own trumpet a little: Nicolas asked the questions, and I performed the ambiguous role of a philosopher of love, we worked well together and it was a success. No doubt about it: it was a hit.
The text you are about to read is an elaboration of what we said on the day. It retains the spontaneous rhythm, clarity and energy but is more rounded and incisive. I believe that, from start to finish, it is what it says it is: praise of love, sung by a philosopher who thinks, like Plato, whom I quote: Anyone who doesn’t take love as a starting point will never understand the nature of philosophy
. So here you have Alain Badiou, the philosopher lover, tussling with Nicolas Truong, a wise interrogator, a philosopher, and, of course, a lover.
I
LOVE UNDER THREAT
In The Meaning of Sarkozy, a book that has subsequently become famous, you argue that we must re-invent love but also quite simply defend it, because it faces threats from all sides
. In what ways is it threatened? How, in your view, have the arranged marriages of yesteryear been re-packaged in the new clothes of today? I believe that recent publicity for a dating website has particularly struck you. . .
That’s right, Paris is plastered with posters for the Meetic internet dating-site, whose ads I find really disturbing. I could mention a number of slogans its hype uses. The first misappropriates the title of Marivaux’s play, The Game of Love and Chance, Get love without chance!
And then another says: Be in love without falling in love!
No raptures, right? Then: Get perfect love without suffering!
And all thanks to the Meetic dating-site. . . that offers into the bargain – and the notion takes my breath away – coaching in love
. So they supply you with a trainer who will prepare you to face the test.
I believe this hype reflects a safety-first concept of love
. It is love comprehensively insured against all risks: you will have love, but will have assessed the prospective relationship so thoroughly, will have selected your partner so carefully by searching online – by obtaining, of course, a photo, details of his or her tastes, date of birth, horoscope sign, etc. – and putting it all in the mix you can tell yourself: This is a risk-free option!
That’s their pitch and it’s fascinating that the ad campaign should adopt it. Clearly, inasmuch as love is a pleasure almost everyone is looking for, the thing that gives meaning and intensity to almost everyone’s life, I am convinced that love cannot be a gift given on the basis of a complete lack of risk. The Meetic approach reminds me of the propaganda of the American army when promoting the idea of smart
bombs and zero dead
wars.
So do you think there is a connection between zero dead
wars and zero risk
love, in the same way that sociologists, Richard Sennett and Zygmunt Bauman, see an analogy between the No commitment to you
that finance capitalism tells the casual worker to the No commitment for my part
the lover
tells his or her partner as they float in a world where relationships are made