30 ideas
| 12330 | In ontology, logic dominated language, until logic was mathematized [Badiou] |
| Full Idea: From Aristotle to Hegel, logic was the philosophical category of ontology's dominion over language. The mathematization of logic has authorized language to become that which seizes philosophy for itself. | |
| From: Alain Badiou (Briefings on Existence [1998], 8) |
| 12318 | The female body, when taken in its entirety, is the Phallus itself [Badiou] |
| Full Idea: The female body, when taken in its entirety, is the Phallus itself. | |
| From: Alain Badiou (Briefings on Existence [1998]) | |
| A reaction: Too good to pass over, too crazy to file sensibly, too creepy to have been filed under humour, my candidate for the weirdest remark I have ever read in a serious philosopher, but no doubt if you read Lacan etc for long enough it looks deeply wise. |
| 12325 | Philosophy has been relieved of physics, cosmology, politics, and now must give up ontology [Badiou] |
| Full Idea: Philosophy has been released from, even relieved of, physics, cosmology, and politics, as well as many other things. It is important for it to be released from ontology per se. | |
| From: Alain Badiou (Briefings on Existence [1998], 3) | |
| A reaction: A startling proposal, for anyone who thought that ontology was First Philosophy. Badiou wants to hand ontology over to mathematicians, but I am unclear what remains for the philosophers to do. |
| 12324 | Consensus is the enemy of thought [Badiou] |
| Full Idea: Consensus is the enemy of thought. | |
| From: Alain Badiou (Briefings on Existence [1998], 2) | |
| A reaction: A nice slogan for bringing Enlightenment optimists to a halt. I am struck. Do I allow my own thinking to always be diverted towards something which might result in a consensus? Do I actually (horror!) prefer consensus to truth? |
| 12337 | There is 'transivity' iff membership ∈ also means inclusion ⊆ [Badiou] |
| Full Idea: 'Transitivity' signifies that all of the elements of the set are also parts of the set. If you have α∈Β, you also have α⊆Β. This correlation of membership and inclusion gives a stability which is the sets' natural being. | |
| From: Alain Badiou (Briefings on Existence [1998], 11) |
| 12321 | The axiom of choice must accept an indeterminate, indefinable, unconstructible set [Badiou] |
| Full Idea: The axiom of choice actually amounts to admitting an absolutely indeterminate infinite set whose existence is asserted albeit remaining linguistically indefinable. On the other hand, as a process, it is unconstructible. | |
| From: Alain Badiou (Briefings on Existence [1998], 2) | |
| A reaction: If only constructible sets are admitted (see 'V = L') then there is a contradiction. |
| 12342 | Topos theory explains the plurality of possible logics [Badiou] |
| Full Idea: Topos theory explains the plurality of possible logics. | |
| From: Alain Badiou (Briefings on Existence [1998], 14) | |
| A reaction: This will because logic will have a distinct theory within each 'topos'. |
| 12341 | Logic is a mathematical account of a universe of relations [Badiou] |
| Full Idea: Logic should first and foremost be a mathematical thought of what a universe of relations is. | |
| From: Alain Badiou (Briefings on Existence [1998], 14) |
| 12335 | Numbers are for measuring and for calculating (and the two must be consistent) [Badiou] |
| Full Idea: Number is an instance of measuring (distinguishing the more from the less, and calibrating data), ..and a figure for calculating (one counts with numbers), ..and it ought to be a figure of consistency (the compatibility of order and calculation). | |
| From: Alain Badiou (Briefings on Existence [1998], 11) |
| 12334 | There is no single unified definition of number [Badiou] |
| Full Idea: Apparently - and this is quite unlike old Greek times - there is no single unified definition of number. | |
| From: Alain Badiou (Briefings on Existence [1998], 11) |
| 12333 | Each type of number has its own characteristic procedure of introduction [Badiou] |
| Full Idea: There is a heterogeneity of introductory procedures of different classical number types: axiomatic for natural numbers, structural for ordinals, algebraic for negative and rational numbers, topological for reals, mainly geometric for complex numbers. | |
| From: Alain Badiou (Briefings on Existence [1998], 11) |
| 12322 | Must we accept numbers as existing when they no longer consist of units? [Badiou] |
| Full Idea: Do we have to confer existence on numbers whose principle is to no longer consist of units? | |
| From: Alain Badiou (Briefings on Existence [1998], 2) | |
| A reaction: This very nicely expresses what seems to me perhaps the most important question in the philosophy of mathematics. I am reluctant to accept such 'unitless' numbers, but I then feel hopelessly old-fashioned and naïve. What to do? |
| 12327 | The undecidability of the Continuum Hypothesis may have ruined or fragmented set theory [Badiou] |
| Full Idea: As we have known since Paul Cohen's theorem, the Continuum Hypothesis is intrinsically undecidable. Many believe Cohen's discovery has driven the set-theoretic project into ruin, or 'pluralized' what was once presented as a unified construct. | |
| From: Alain Badiou (Briefings on Existence [1998], 6) | |
| A reaction: Badiou thinks the theorem completes set theory, by (roughly) finalising its map. |
| 12329 | If mathematics is a logic of the possible, then questions of existence are not intrinsic to it [Badiou] |
| Full Idea: If mathematics is a logic of the possible, then questions of existence are not intrinsic to it (as they are for the Platonist). | |
| From: Alain Badiou (Briefings on Existence [1998], 7) | |
| A reaction: See also Idea 12328. I file this to connect it with Hellman's modal (and nominalist) version of structuralism. Could it be that mathematics and modal logic are identical? |
| 12328 | Platonists like axioms and decisions, Aristotelians like definitions, possibilities and logic [Badiou] |
| Full Idea: A Platonist's interest focuses on axioms in which the decision of thought is played out, where an Aristotelian or Leibnizian interest focuses on definitions laying out the representation of possibilities (...and the essence of mathematics is logic). | |
| From: Alain Badiou (Briefings on Existence [1998], 7) | |
| A reaction: See Idea 12323 for the significance of the Platonist approach. So logicism is an Aristotelian project? Frege is not a true platonist? I like the notion of 'the representation of possibilities', so will vote for the Aristotelians, against Badiou. |
| 12331 | Logic is definitional, but real mathematics is axiomatic [Badiou] |
| Full Idea: Logic is definitional, whereas real mathematics is axiomatic. | |
| From: Alain Badiou (Briefings on Existence [1998], 10) |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 14590 | If we accept scattered objects such as archipelagos, why not think of cars that way? [Hawthorne] |
| Full Idea: In being willing to countenance archipelagos, one embraces scattered objects. Why not then embrace the 'archipelago' of my car and the Eiffel Tower? | |
| From: John Hawthorne (Three-Dimensionalism v Four-Dimensionalism [2008], 2.1) | |
| A reaction: This is a beautifully simple and striking point. Language is full of embracing terms like 'the furniture', but that doesn't mean we assume the furniture is unified. The archipelago is less of an 'object' if you live on one of the islands. |
| 14591 | Four-dimensionalists say instantaneous objects are more fundamental than long-lived ones [Hawthorne] |
| Full Idea: Self-proclaimed four-dimensionalists typically adopt a picture that reckons instantaneous objects (and facts about them) to be more fundamental than long-lived ones. | |
| From: John Hawthorne (Three-Dimensionalism v Four-Dimensionalism [2008], 2.2) | |
| A reaction: A nice elucidation. As in Idea 14588, this seems motivated by a desire for some sort of foundationalism or atomism. Why shouldn't a metaphysic treat the middle-sized or temporally extended as foundational, and derive the rest that way? |
| 14589 | A modal can reverse meaning if the context is seen differently, so maybe context is all? [Hawthorne] |
| Full Idea: One person says 'He can't dig a hole; he hasn't got a spade', and another says 'He can dig a hole; just give him a spade', and both uses of the modal 'can' will be true. So some philosophers say that all modal predications are thus context-dependent. | |
| From: John Hawthorne (Three-Dimensionalism v Four-Dimensionalism [2008], 1.2) | |
| A reaction: Quine is the guru for this view of modality. Hawthorne's example seems to me to rely too much on the linguistic feature of contrasting 'can' and 'can't'. The underlying assertion in the propositions says something real about the possibilities. |
| 12338 | We must either assert or deny any single predicate of any single subject [Badiou] |
| Full Idea: There can be nothing intermediate to an assertion and a denial. We must either assert or deny any single predicate of any single subject. | |
| From: Alain Badiou (Briefings on Existence [1998], 1011b24) | |
| A reaction: The first sentence seems to be bivalence, and the second sentence excluded middle. |
| 12316 | For Enlightenment philosophers, God was no longer involved in politics [Badiou] |
| Full Idea: For the philosophers of the Enlightenment politics is strictly the affair of humankind, an immanent practice from which recourse to the All Mighty's providential organization had to be discarded. | |
| From: Alain Badiou (Briefings on Existence [1998], Prol) |
| 1748 | Archelaus was the first person to say that the universe is boundless [Archelaus, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: Archelaus was the first person to say that the universe is boundless. | |
| From: report of Archelaus (fragments/reports [c.450 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 02.Ar.3 |
| 14588 | Modern metaphysicians tend to think space-time points are more fundamental than space-time regions [Hawthorne] |
| Full Idea: Nowadays it is common for metaphysicians to hold both that space-time regions are less fundamental than the space-time points that compose them, and that facts about the regions are less fundamental than facts about the points and their arrangements. | |
| From: John Hawthorne (Three-Dimensionalism v Four-Dimensionalism [2008], 1) | |
| A reaction: I'm not quite sure what a physicist would make of this. It seems to be motivated by some a priori preference for atomism, and for system-building from minimal foundations. |
| 5989 | Archelaus said life began in a primeval slime [Archelaus, by Schofield] |
| Full Idea: Archelaus wrote that life on Earth began in a primeval slime. | |
| From: report of Archelaus (fragments/reports [c.450 BCE]) by Malcolm Schofield - Archelaus | |
| A reaction: This sounds like a fairly clearcut assertion of the production of life by evolution. Darwin's contribution was to propose the mechanism for achieving it. We should honour the name of Archelaus for this idea. |
| 12317 | The God of religion results from an encounter, not from a proof [Badiou] |
| Full Idea: The God of metaphysics makes sense of existing according to a proof, while the God of religion makes sense of living according to an encounter | |
| From: Alain Badiou (Briefings on Existence [1998], Prol) |