The work of Alain Badiou is still almost unknown in English-speaking countries, if now almost unavoidable on the continent itself. Following the publication of his magnum opus, L’être et l’événement, in 1988, Badiou has continued to elaborte a philosophy which rejects the still-dominant post-Heideggerean belief that the era of Western metaphysics is effectively over.
It is striking that, for a philosopher whose system is founded on the equation mathematics = ontology, responses to Alain Badiou’s work often attempt to circumvent the very precise scope, status, and strength that he assigns to mathematics. These circumventions are immediately apparent from even a glancing acquaintance with the secondary materials, though they take - as one might expect - rather different forms.