display all the ideas for this combination of texts
6 ideas
| 12340 | There is no Being as a whole, because there is no set of all sets [Badiou] |
| Full Idea: The fundamental theorem that 'there does not exist a set of all sets' designates the inexistence of Being as a whole. ...A crucial consequence of this property is that any ontological investigation is irremediably local. | |
| From: Alain Badiou (Briefings on Existence [1998], 14) | |
| A reaction: The second thought pushes Badiou into Topos Theory, where the real numbers (for example) have a separate theory in each 'topos'. |
| 12323 | Existence is Being itself, but only as our thought decides it [Badiou] |
| Full Idea: Existence is precisely Being itself in as much as thought decides it. And that decision orients thought essentially. ...It is when you decide upon what exists that you bind your thought to Being. | |
| From: Alain Badiou (Briefings on Existence [1998], 2) | |
| A reaction: [2nd half p.57] Helpful for us non-Heideggerians to see what is going on. Does this mean that Being is Kant's noumenon? |
| 12332 | The modern view of Being comes when we reject numbers as merely successions of One [Badiou] |
| Full Idea: The saturation and collapse of the Euclidean idea of the being of number as One's procession signs the entry of the thought of Being into modern times. | |
| From: Alain Badiou (Briefings on Existence [1998], 11) | |
| A reaction: That is, by allowing that not all numbers are built of units, numbers expand widely enough to embrace everything we think of as Being. The landmark event is the acceptance of the infinite as a number. |
| 12326 | The primitive name of Being is the empty set; in a sense, only the empty set 'is' [Badiou] |
| Full Idea: In Set Theory, the primitive name of Being is the void, the empty set. The whole hierarchy takes root in it. In a certain sense, it alone 'is'. | |
| From: Alain Badiou (Briefings on Existence [1998], 6) | |
| A reaction: This is the key to Badiou's view that ontology is mathematics. David Lewis pursued interesting enquiries in this area. |
| 23855 | Creation produced a network or web of determinations [Weil] |
| Full Idea: What is sovereign in this world is determinateness, limit. Eternal Wisdom imprisons this universe in a network, a web of determinations. | |
| From: Simone Weil (The Need for Roots [1943], III 'Growth') | |
| A reaction: Love this, because I take 'determination' to be the defining relationship in ontology. It covers both physical causation and abstract necessities. |
| 12320 | Ontology is (and always has been) Cantorian mathematics [Badiou] |
| Full Idea: Enlightened by the Cantorian grounding of mathematics, we can assert ontology to be nothing other than mathematics itself. This has been the case ever since its Greek origin. | |
| From: Alain Badiou (Briefings on Existence [1998], 1) | |
| A reaction: There seems to be quite a strong feeling among mathematicians that new 'realms of being' are emerging from their researches. Only a Platonist, of course, is likely to find this idea sympathetic. |