[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"doc-detail-86664-en":3,"doc-seo-86664-105":30,"detail-sidebar-cat-0-en-105":91},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":6},0,"success",{"doc_id":7,"user_id":8,"nickname":9,"user_avatar":10,"doc_module":4,"category_id":11,"category_name":12,"doc_title":13,"doc_description":14,"doc_content":15,"file_id":16,"file_url":17,"file_type":18,"file_size":19,"view_count":20,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":21,"is_downloadable":21,"audit_status":21,"page_count":22,"language":23,"language_code":24,"site_id":25,"html_lang":24,"table_of_contents":26,"faqs":27,"seo_title":13,"seo_description":14,"update_tm":28,"read_time":29},86664,7971461741311,"Ophelia","https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/avatar/74000253aff267980c6?x-image-process=image/resize,m_fixed,w_180,h_180&k=1779345379180704826",2,"Literature","Parrhesia Issue 12 2011: History and Event in Alain Badiou","The text outlines key philosophical decisions in Alain Badiou’s system, focusing on the seminar themes of history and event. It advances a central thesis: there is only a history of the eternal, since the eternal proceeds from the event. It contrasts Badiou with both classical metaphysics that separates eternal truth from historicity and relativist views that tie truth to context. It explains ontology through mathematics and develops the links among history, event, and eternity via the concepts of Being and Event and Logics of Worlds.","|  |  | PARRHESIA\u003Cbr>WWW.PARRHESIAJOURNAL.ORG |  |\n| --- | --- | --- | --- |\n|  | iSSUE 12 2011 |  |  |\n|  |  |  |  |\n\nHISTORY AND EVENT IN ALAIN BADIOU Quentin Meillassoux 1  \nI would like to lay out for you the main theoretical decisions in the philosophy of Alain Badiou concerning the themes of today’s seminar: history and event.2 I do not speak as a disciple of Alain Badiou, because I develop philosophical positions distinct from his: but it seems important to me, that if one seeks to enter into a conceptual contemporaneity with the Marxist and Post-Marxist demands of politics and history, that one do so with the full scope of Badiou’s system in view, a system, now built around his two principle books Being and Event (BE) and Logics of Worlds (LW) . This philosophy is particularly complex, but it seems to me that one can bring it into view through the two notions of history and event. I will thus attempt to explain a nodal and seemingly paradoxical thesis of Badiou’s: that there is only a history of the eternal, because only the eternal proceeds from the event. In other words: there is only a history of truths insofar as all truth is strictly eternal and impossible to reduce to any relativism.  \nBadiou refuses therefore two antithetical positions: on the one hand that there can be eternal truths deprived as such of their historicity—a position proper to classical metaphysics—and on the other hand conversely that there can be no eternal truth, all discursive statements being irremediably inscribed in a historico-cultural context that strictly delimits the scope of truth to the particular instance that it supports. On the contrary, BE maintains that there are eternal truths, but that they are not unifiable in a metaphysical system, because they are distributed among four truth procedures: science, art, politics, and love—philosophy itself not having the capacity to produce truths. These truths, moreover, cannot exist in a Heaven of Ideas: they are the result of an undecidable event and of a fidelity of subjects that attempt to investigate their world in light of it. LW will conversely add that all processes lacking truth are not historical in the true sense, but have been reduced to a simple temporal modification without the capacity for truth and the subjects who adhere to it.  \nTo elucidate the meaning of these statements, we must first understand the two constitutive theses of Badiouian philosophy: 1. Mathematics is ontology; 2. All truth is post-evental.  \nWe will then be in a position to draw out the precise connection that exists between the three principle terms of our intervention: history, event, eternity.  \n◊  \n1. The inaugural decision of BE bears on ontology and conjoins two theses about it: the affirmation, on the one hand, of its rational possibility (against Heidegger), and the denial, on the other hand, that philosophy carries its burden (against dogmatic metaphysics) . For it is, and always has been, mathematics, and only mathematics, that constitutes according to Badiou, the discourse of being-qua-being. Consequently, ontology is identified as an  \nunachievable science, evolving in rhythm with the most fundamental advances in the science that deploys it, and does so even without the knowledge of mathematicians. They are “without knowledge,” because only the philosopher can draw out the ontological meaning of mathematics—mathematicians being ontologists unaware of themselves as such. Philosophy plays a “meta-ontological” role whose task it is to locate the place in which mathematics effectively manages to speak being. For Badiou, the “Platonic gesture” consists in mathematizing and not poetizing being.  \n2. Ontology, for our time, is thus identified with set theory, in the sense that this theory reveals to us that any mathematical entity can be thought of as a multiple. To be, in the most general and fundamental sense, is tobe a set, and therefore a multiplicity. Hence Badiou’s ontological thesis: being is m","cbCaih9nuNYavSMz","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaih9nuNYavSMz","pdf",2328313,5,1,109,"English","en",105,"# History and Event in Alain Badiou\n## Paradoxical thesis: history of the eternal\n## Two antithetical positions\n## Mathematics as ontology and the event as exception\n## Being as multiplicity and the role of set theory\n## Ontology’s exception: thinking the event","[{\"question\":\"What is the central thesis about history in Badiou’s philosophy as presented here?\",\"answer\":\"There is only a history of the eternal, because only the eternal proceeds from the event. Truths have a historical dimension only insofar as they are strictly eternal and linked to the event.\"},{\"question\":\"How does Badiou avoid the two opposite views about eternal truth?\",\"answer\":\"Badiou rejects both the idea that eternal truths exist without historicity and the idea that there is no eternal truth due to truth being trapped in historico-cultural contexts. Instead, eternal truths exist, but they are distributed among truth procedures rather than unified in a metaphysical system.\"},{\"question\":\"What roles do mathematics and the event play in Badiou’s approach to ontology and truth?\",\"answer\":\"Mathematics is identified as ontology, with being understood as multiplicity revealed through set theory. The event is an exception to being: a reflexive multiple whose multiplicity is ontologically forbidden in standard set axioms, and it grounds truth through fidelity and post-evental processes.\"}]",1784239305,168,{"code":4,"msg":31,"data":32},"ok",{"site_id":25,"language":24,"slug":33,"title":13,"keywords":34,"description":14,"schema_data":35,"social_meta":86,"head_meta":88,"extra_data":90,"updated_unix":28},"parrhesia-issue-12-2011-history-and-event-in-alain-badiou","",{"@graph":36,"@context":85},[37,53,68],{"@type":38,"itemListElement":39},"BreadcrumbList",[40,44,47,50],{"item":41,"name":42,"@type":43,"position":21},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":45,"name":46,"@type":43,"position":11},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/","Document",{"item":48,"name":12,"@type":43,"position":49},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/literature/",3,{"item":51,"name":13,"@type":43,"position":52},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/parrhesia-issue-12-2011-history-and-event-in-alain-badiou/86664/",4,{"url":51,"name":13,"@type":54,"author":55,"headline":13,"publisher":57,"fileFormat":60,"inLanguage":24,"description":14,"dateModified":61,"datePublished":62,"encodingFormat":60,"isAccessibleForFree":63,"interactionStatistic":64},"DigitalDocument",{"name":9,"@type":56},"Person",{"url":41,"name":58,"@type":59},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-07-24","2026-07-16",true,{"@type":65,"interactionType":66,"userInteractionCount":20},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":67},"ViewAction",{"@type":69,"mainEntity":70},"FAQPage",[71,77,81],{"name":72,"@type":73,"acceptedAnswer":74},"What is the central thesis about history in Badiou’s philosophy as presented here?","Question",{"text":75,"@type":76},"There is only a history of the eternal, because only the eternal proceeds from the event. Truths have a historical dimension only insofar as they are strictly eternal and linked to the event.","Answer",{"name":78,"@type":73,"acceptedAnswer":79},"How does Badiou avoid the two opposite views about eternal truth?",{"text":80,"@type":76},"Badiou rejects both the idea that eternal truths exist without historicity and the idea that there is no eternal truth due to truth being trapped in historico-cultural contexts. Instead, eternal truths exist, but they are distributed among truth procedures rather than unified in a metaphysical system.",{"name":82,"@type":73,"acceptedAnswer":83},"What roles do mathematics and the event play in Badiou’s approach to ontology and truth?",{"text":84,"@type":76},"Mathematics is identified as ontology, with being understood as multiplicity revealed through set theory. The event is an exception to being: a reflexive multiple whose multiplicity is ontologically forbidden in standard set axioms, and it grounds truth through fidelity and post-evental processes.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":51,"og:type":87,"og:title":13,"og:site_name":58,"og:description":14},"article",{"robots":89,"canonical":51},"index,follow",{"doc_id":7,"site_id":25},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":92},[93,97,100,104,108,113,118,123,128,131,135],{"id":21,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":94,"show_sort_weight":95,"slug":96},"Story & Novel",90,"story-novel",{"id":11,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":12,"show_sort_weight":98,"slug":99},80,"literature",{"id":52,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":101,"show_sort_weight":102,"slug":103},"Exam",70,"exam",{"id":20,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":105,"show_sort_weight":106,"slug":107},"Comic",60,"comic",{"id":109,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":110,"show_sort_weight":111,"slug":112},6,"Technology",50,"technology",{"id":114,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":115,"show_sort_weight":116,"slug":117},7,"Healthcare",40,"healthcare",{"id":119,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":120,"show_sort_weight":121,"slug":122},8,"Research & Report",30,"research-report",{"id":124,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":125,"show_sort_weight":126,"slug":127},9,"Religion & Spirituality",20,"religion-spirituality",{"id":126,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":129,"show_sort_weight":126,"slug":130},"World Cup","world-cup",{"id":132,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":133,"show_sort_weight":132,"slug":134},10,"Lifestyle","lifestyle",{"id":136,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":46,"category_name":137,"show_sort_weight":20,"slug":138},19,"General","general"]