Translated by Susan Spitzer
polity
First published in French as Éloge des mathématiques © Flammarion, Paris, 2015
This English edition © Polity Press, 2016
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ISBN-13: 978-1-5095-1206-5
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Badiou, Alain, author. | Haéri, Gilles, author.
Title: In praise of mathematics / Alain Badiou, Gilles Haéri.
Other titles: Éloge des mathématiques. English
Description: Malden, MA : Polity Press, 2016. | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016012538| ISBN 9781509512027 (hardback : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781509512034 (pbk. : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Mathematics--Philosophy. | Badiou, Alain--Interviews. | Haéri, Gilles--Interviews.
Classification: LCC QA8.4 .B33713 2016 | DDC 510.1--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016012538
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Many years ago – a little before and a little after my first philosophical “opus,” Being and Event (1988) – I introduced the concept of the conditions of philosophy, which you’ll encounter later in this book. The aim was to identify precisely the real types of creative activity of which humanity is capable and on whose existence philosophy depends. Indeed, it is clear that philosophy was born in Greece because in that country, beginning, at any rate, in the fifth century BCE, there were some totally new ideas about mathematics (deductive geometry and arithmetic), artistic activity (humanized sculpture, painting, dance, music, tragedy, and comedy), politics (the invention of democracy), and the status of the emotions (transference-love, lyric poetry, and so on). So I suggested that philosophy really only develops when new advances emerge in a set of “truths” (that’s the name I give them for philosophical reasons) of four different types: science, art, politics, and love. That’s why I responded positively to Nicolas Truong’s invitation to have a dialogue with him in praise of love, and then in praise of theater, in Avignon. Likewise, I accepted Gilles Haéri’s proposal of a dialogue in praise of mathematics in the setting of the Villa Gillet in Lyon. The first two conversations resulted in books published in Flammarion’s “Café Voltaire” series. [English translations: In Praise of Love, New Press, 2012, and In Praise of Theatre, Polity, 2015.] The same is true of the third, which is the subject of this book. All that remains to be done is to write a book in praise of politics, and I’m considering it.