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The Lacan–Badiou constellation in L’immanence des vérités: A limit on the infinite?

Version 2 2024-06-02, 14:18
Version 1 2022-02-18, 22:34
journal contribution
posted on 2024-06-02, 14:18 authored by K Turner, Caitlyn Lesiuk
In Alain Badiou’s most recent work, L’immanence des vérités (The Immanence of Truths), psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan once again figures peripherally but saliently. What is their specific relation in this text, however? We argue that Badiou responds here to the problem raised precisely by the Lacanian subject, situated as it is between the radical subjectivity of the symptom and the possibility of formalization. In L’immanence, he introduces the term ‘absoluteness’ to secure truths against both relativism and transcendental construction. We show that in drawing on Lacan to establish an understanding of the absolute, Badiou highlights the implicit tension between psychoanalysis and philosophy. We treat central cross-currents – truths, knowledge, the event and love – to help reveal the specific character of their confluence in this third book of Badiou’s trilogy. Although he stresses the unity of his and Lacan’s efforts, the impossible Real marking their divisions also invariably emerges the closer one investigates.

History

Journal

Philosophy and Social Criticism

Volume

49

Pagination

839-855

Location

London, England

ISSN

0191-4537

eISSN

1461-734X

Language

English

Notes

In press

Publication classification

C1 Refereed article in a scholarly journal

Issue

7

Publisher

SAGE Publications