Alain Badiou. A History of Finitude and Infinity: Classicism.

Alain Badiou. A History of Finitude and Infinity: Classicism. in: EGS. 2011. (English).

I’ll shall try doing a week with you, in fact, a very difficult question. So maybe some difficult lessons. It’s the question of infinity, the question of the infinite, or the question of the relationship between finite and infinite or between finitude and infinity. The French philosopher Descartes, one of my masters because he’s a master of all French philosophers, my master Descartes has written that the infinite was clearer than the finite. So for Descartes the question of the infinite is not a very difficult question. And finally the difficult question for Descartes is the question of the finite. But, you see, if the question of the infinite is a clear question so the question of the finite is difficult. If the question of the finite is a simple question, the question of the infinite becomes a very difficult question. In any case we have a difficult question, maybe the finite, maybe the infinite, but in any case we have a very difficult question. And I can try to explain to you why this question is first a very important question today, and not only in the long history of philosophy, why we must have a clear idea of the relationship between the finite and the infinite today for ourselves and not like an academic question, but in some sense as a vital question, a vital question for our concrete life and not only for speculation and so on. And, naturally, I try to explain to you a clearer concept of the infinite, maybe a difficult concept but finally a clear concept as was the idea of Descartes, my master. So it’s a lesson of fidelity to Descartes in some sense.

Just a question of organization, there are two difficult tasks concerning the questions in the discussion between us. First, it’s sometimes difficult for me to understand, to completely understand the question in English language, because as you know my language is a strange mixture of French and English. So when you explain something to me in English it is difficult for me to understand because your English is not really as French as it is for me, the first difficulty. But there is another one, which is difficult to give immediately an answer appropriate to the question and also appropriate to the general becoming of the lesson, so I propose to you to give me written questions when you want about what you want but written questions, and we shall have some lessons, some part of lessons, completely devoted to answer and discussion of your questions. So, for example, I can immediately propose to you to give to me a written question when you want, and we speak of all the question maybe the day after tomorrow, during one hour or two hours if it is a necessity, if the question I really a difficult one and contribute to the clarification of the infinite or maybe some other concepts.

So I return immediately to the question. Why this question of, it will be a proper examination, why is the question of the infinite, of infinity, of the concept of the infinite so, so for me, and I have some abutment, so important a question for us today? You know, very often the question of the infinite is a question in relationship with religious conception, with the idea of a god. And it’s a very common position to say, ok, we are finite, we are finite existents, we are mortal beings and so on, and the question of the infinite is a transcendent question, is the question of the existence of a god, the question of infinite potency beyond our concrete existence. I will explain to you that we must transform this vision, and to understand that we are in close relationship to the infinite and not only with the conception of the infinite, which is of a theological nature. But that there exits a question of the infinite which is a fundamental understanding of the world as it is and our understanding of our proper life. So it’s really an important question, but we must propose a proof of this point of view, and after that why it’s a difficult question, but it’s really across all the history of religious conception, all the history of philosophy. The question of the infinite is really a difficult question with many, many possibilities, many contradictions, and many consequences too. And so I begin by some historical vision of the problem. Historically I think we have three sequences, three moments of the question of the infinite. In any case in the western world, in our intellectual world we have three consequences where in fact the answer to the question of the relationship between finitude and infinity, the answer to this question is very different. There is really an historical movement of this question, which is probably the first proof of the importance of the question. The three sequences are the antiquity, first, the Greeks and the Roman vision of the question about ten centuries, something like that, between five before Christ and five after Christ, something like that. So it’s also the place of the birth of philosophy. It’s also the place of the development of Christianity, the, the birth of Christianity. In any case it’s a long and complex sequence. It’s the first sequence. The second we can name the Christian age, the world of Christianity, about probably ten centuries too during five after Christ and the sixteenth century, the birth of modern science and modern physics and so on. And after that we have what we can name the modern sequence, the modern world from the sixteenth century to today, five centuries, maybe something like that, you see. So the sequence of ten centuries, another sequence of ten centuries, and the modern sequence of five centuries, or something like that. So we can determine these three sequences from the point of view of the conception of the infinite, and from the point of view of the conception of the relationship between finitude and infinity.

The first sequence, in the first sequence, the concept of infinity is purely a negative one. This point is of great importance. As it is in our language infinity, infinite, it’s a negative notion in the language and not an affirmative one. So from the very beginning it’s the infinite, which is the negation of the finite and not the reverse. So the negative part of the opposition between finite and infinity is on the side of the infinite. And in Greek language “infinite” is the Greek word “apeiron,” and this is also a negative prefix. It’s exactly like in-finite and a-peiron. And the beginning of apeiron is exactly a limit – peiros. Peiron is a limit. So in the Greek vision of the question the infinite is what is without any limit, the first sense of the word, without any limit. It’s a negation, the privation of any limit. But in the Greek culture all that really exists is a limit, precisely, and we can say, maybe we can risk the idea that in the Greek culture to exist is really to have a limit, and your existence, in some sense, is the existence of a limit because your existence is the existence of a real difference with something else. Your real existence is always the existence of a difference, but we cannot have a clear concept of difference without any concept of a limit. So between to exist and to have a limit, to be limited in some sense, there is a close relationship, practically a form of identity. If something has no limit at all, it’s really that this thing does not really exist, is something like a pure middle, a pure something indeterminate for the real existence of something. And it is why it’s really a negative conception, the conception of the infinite is that sort of vision. What has no difference and by the fact no limit cannot exist properly, cannot have a proper existence, a true existence.

And the perfection itself…there is the question what is a perfect existence of what exists, which is something like a perfection. A perfection itself is precisely to be in its exact and proper limit. Perfection is not at all in the Greek culture something infinite. On the contrary, the perfection is always something which is exactly in its proper harmony, exactly in conformity with its proper identity. So there is really a form of identity between the concept of perfection and the concept of the limit, and the unlimited cannot be perfect. What is unlimited cannot be perfect because the perfection is precisely to realize its limit. If you want something like a conception of existence which is also a conception of harmony, to exist, to really exist is to be in harmony with itself, with yourself, and what exists is perfect is in relationship with it’s proper limit, like a harmony of its proper instance. And so, finally, limit, difference, existence, harmony, perfection, all these notions are in the same framework, in the same scope. And so there is something negative in the vision of what is without limit because what is without limit is also without harmony, without perfection, without difference and, finally, without true existence. That is an ontological point and maybe the most important point.

As you know in the Greek culture gods themselves are limited. There is not at all a conception of a god as an infinite subject. They are immortal in fact, but immortal is not at all for the Greeks something infinite. It’s only for the Greeks the idea to continue its existence in its proper limit indefinitely. But immortality and infinity are different. We are finite not only because there is death, not only because our existence becomes to an end. We are finite intrinsically. We are finite by ourselves, in your proper being as such. During our life we are finite and not only because at the end of a life there is death. And it’s the same thing for the gods. They are finite exactly like us, but inside their finitude they are immortal. And we have to return to this point, the relationship between to be an immortal being and to be exposed to death and to be finite. It’s not the Greek vision. In fact it’s the Christian vision. For the Greek culture the death is a part of the finitude of life, but it’s not at all the definition of the finitude of life.

So the gods of paganism, the Greek gods, are inside a finite idea of perfection. They are perfect in some sense, but their perfection is not the perfection of some new form of infinity. Their perfection is the perfection inside, precisely, the true limits of existence. We can say something like that. The Greek gods exist in the perfect sense. They can have a form of existence realized in some sense the perfection of our limits. And so god is not the name of somebody completely different from us, not at all. You now the Greek gods with desire, with woman sexuality and many terrible stories between generals. They are exactly like us, but in some sense they do all that in a perfect manner. They are inside our very strong limits. They are not beyond these limits. They can suffer. They can be in a very bad position. They can be victorious in a fight but also lose a battle and so on. So they are like us, but precisely it is very interesting why they are gods, finally. It’s a very interesting question why all these persons, male and female and so on, are gods. Certainly not because they are different in the sense of the difference between infinite and finite. They are not a qualitative difference in this direction, but are not infinite out of our poor finitude in the Greek world. Gods exist, and the existence of gods is only a sort of possibility of perfection inside our limits and not beyond our limits. And, in fact, immortality is the name of this difference. They can do something, but because they are immortal they can do something else. One day they are victorious, and one day they lose the party another day, but all that continues. So we can be inside the limits with final perfection without being at all an infinite being.

So we are, as human beings we are finite, gods themselves are finite, and the world itself is finite. It’s why it is named the cosmos. The world is something like a good totality, and very often it is described like a perfect totality. For example, at the end of the piece of Plato, Timaeus, Timaeus is a description of the world by Plato, a description of the creation of the world, the realization of the world, and at the end of the text Plato writes that this world is absolutely perfect, but it’s not at all perfect because it’s infinite. It’s a closed world, a very good and magnificent totality, and in fact he world is something like a work of art. It’s a world which is of aesthetic perfection, and we have a clear comparison between the creation of the world and the creation of a sculpture and so on. So the world is inside its limit too, in a perfect manner, perfection, but this perfection is of an aesthetic nature. It’s not perfect in the sense of a transcendent infinity.

So our existence is finite. Existence of gods themselves is finite, and existence of the world itself is finite. And so the consequence, the very important consequence, is that the definition of what is bad, what is really not good, is to go beyond our limits. It’s the clear and constant definition in the Greek world of what is dangerous, what is bad, what is negative norm, to go beyond your proper limit, to be apeiron, to be outside your limit. To go beyond your proper limit is an excess, the name of which is hubris, a very important name in all the Greek culture, maybe the most important name in Greek culture, hubris. But the definition of hubris is precisely to go beyond the limits. There is something which is not at all romantic in the Greek culture if we define romanticism precisely by the idea to go beyond the limits, to do something, to create something, which is beyond the limits. And in fact romanticism is clearly the relationship with the positive conception of the infinite. We shall see that after. And we can say something like that, there is something classical, really classical, in the definition of the infinite in the Greek culture because precisely there is no way to create or to do something of a positive nature which is beyond the proper limits of the situation. And we can propose a definition of a classical vision, not only concerning our problem, but more generally. I think a classical vision, not only in a work of art but also, maybe, in existence itself concerning life, what is a true life, what is a good life and so on. The classical vision is that the perfection of life, the perfection of creation is always to do what you can do inside your limitation, to do the best, naturally, to create the best, but inside a fundamental limitation. And so we can name this conception the classical one.

And you know, finally, the question of the finite of the relationship between the finite and the infinite is the center of the classical conception, which is why the question is very important. When we are thinking that the perfection of life, the perfection of the work of art, the perfection of the intellectual vision, the perfection of politics too is the realization, the perfect realization of the limits, inside the limits, we are in a classical conception. And there is something like that today. When the argument is to say that we can do all the best but inside the fundamental limitation of the economy as it is, inside the capitalism finally. We can do democracy but inside something which is a limitation more fundamental than something else. And so it’s a form of the contemporary world and not of the Greek world to say that in some sense there is a fundamental limitation inside which we must do what we can do, the best, and not the best in the sense of okay we must go beyond the limitation. Now, not at all today, there is always somebody to say that we cannot go beyond necessity, we cannot do it. So necessity is the name of the economic constraint as it is today. And so we are in some sense in a classical world. That is my idea. The contemporary world is in some sense a return to the classical world because the norm is not at all to go beyond the limits but to accept the fundamental limitation and inside this limitation to do what we can do, what we think is the best and so on. And it’s also the reason for what is clearly infinite must be outside the world. There is a possibility of a god in the religious sense so the infinite is possible, but outside, as it were. And so our world is in some sense a classical one with a consequence that if something infinite exists it is in fact outside this world, but our life as such is inside the limits.

But we return to all that in the third sequence. It was an anticipation concerning an idea which is in my opinion an important idea, which is that we are not at all in a completely new world. You know very often they say that all is new, the world is changing, we must adapt our self to the change of the world everyday and so on, and we are in the speed of the world, and we are behind and so on, I think it’s not true. It’s a local speed, but the global situation is very different. There is something in the global situation which is something like the end of the world itself, the last form, and this last form is precisely the prescription of a limit, and if all that is good is inside the limit we return to the classical conception where probably the gods do not exist, but what exists is the money, money which is something like a finite god, a numerical god, and the difference is that finally the only real perfection is a monetary perfection, but we return to our self. We return to the Greeks.

So to go beyond our proper limit is an excess, and hubris is really the name of the bad subjectivity. The bad subjectivity is a subjectivity which is outside its limits. And it is why the artistic form of this relationship is tragedy, the Greek tragedy, the creation of tragedy by the Greeks. The theatre is always something like an analysis of the world. It’s why it is so important, the relationship between philosopher and theatre. And so the creation of tragedy by the Greeks is in fact the realization, the aesthetic realization of the notion of hubris because every tragedy is the narrative of a hubris, the history of hubris, the history of the man who goes beyond the limits and is punished by this fact. So tragedy is also a vision of the relationship between finite and the infinite. What the Greek tragedy says is we must stay in our limits, and if we go beyond our limits precisely we have a tragedy. The tragedy is by itself the movement of hubris, and so tragedy in the Greek sense of the world is a lesson of finitude by something like a counter example, the example of hubris, the catastrophic example of hubris, and hubris in some sense is a subjective vision of the infinite. Hubris is to go beyond, to organize an infinite power of the king, to think that the power of the king is infinite precisely, and if you think something like that you have a tragedy, we have hubris. So a Greek tragedy is really the aesthetic realization of a vision, a negative vision, of the infinite as hubris.

The question here is if we are thinking that we must stay in our limit we must abandon every notion of the absolute, every notion of something which is not relative, something which is really true and so on. The answer is that’s not the case. It’s not the case because there is a Greek conception of the absolute also, but the conception of the absolute has something which is not infinite precisely. And at the center of the Greek culture we have the notion of a finite perfection. If there is an absolute idea or an absolute existence it must be something finite and not really something apeiron, without limit. And so the great characteristic of the absolute for the Greeks is not at all infinity, but what I name the One, the big One. It is unity. Perfection is perfect unity, realization of the One, and not infinity. We have an idea of perfection, maybe of abstract god in Plato or Aristotle. We can say something like that in Plato with the idea of the Good, what Plato names the Idea of the Good. This Idea of the Good has been interpreted as an abstract name for the transcendency of a god. So there is something like that in Greek culture, naturally. And in Aristotle, too, in the book lambda of Metaphysics we have also something like a pure perfection as something which exists really under the name of god finally. It’s not Zeus and so on. It’s not the gods of true sexuality, but it’s an abstract vision of something absolute, but it’s very striking that there’s no relationship between absolute and infinity. It’s very striking for us after centuries of monotheism and Christianity, this total lack of relationship between absolute perfection and infinity, but it is the case, the Idea of the Good and the god of Aristotle are absolutely perfect, but this perfection is precisely a complete realization of the pure being. There is no difference between their being and their existence. That is the point, that they realize as something which exists the pure notion of themselves. If you want there is no difference between the idea of their limits and the perfect existence of these limits. So it’s a complete realization of the limitation itself, and why we are not perfect is only because we don’t realize this unity between existence and pure Idea or pure perfection or pure limit. There is always something which is not the complete realization of what we can do. Human beings are finite in two different senses, if you want. First, they are finite because all what exists is finite, all what exists is inside our limits. But we are not perfect, and that’s the second sense of finite. We are not perfect because we are not able to completely realize what we can do inside our limits. We are, if you want, not at all beyond our limit, which is hubris, tragedy. We are before our limits. We are not able to realize our limits completely, and so there is something in our existence which is not complete realization of our real being. Our being is not completely realized in our concrete existence.

All that is a new relationship between existence and being. In the Greek conception existence and being are inside their proper limits. So the infinite is outside. Infinite is a movement of excess, an attempt to go beyond our limit, but in fact it’s always a tragedy. So it’s an inside limit. But existence can realize completely the possibility of our true being or sometimes it cannot, and the absolute is only the complete realization, by existence, of the real of being as such. The perfection is always inside the existence itself to realize what we can realize inside our proper limits. And it’s the second sense of finite. We are finite not only because existence is our being inside a limit, but we are finite in the sense without complete perfection, without complete realization of our possibilities which are prescribed by our being inside the development of our existence.

And so we have two definitions, two possible definitions of what is bad, first, hubris, the attempt to go beyond our limit, and second, lack or insufficiency to realize completely our limits. And so it’s the human condition. The human condition can be described between the excess to go beyond the limit and between the lack, to be before the limit itself with the impossibility to realize the limitation. And the perfection of the One, what is named the One, you know the signification of the One is that between existence and being we have the One. It’s the same thing, the same thing across what the perfection of being exists and not only as a possibility but as a realization. If you want, our human condition is generally to be the impossibility to realize our limits. So we are in a status of non-perfection, and it’s very important to understand this vision because there is also something like that today, which is that we have personal possibilities, and the perfection is to realize our personal possibilities, to do what we can desire, what we can do, and to realize our personality, to realize our self as individuals. And it’s a Greek conception too, that finally our existence is a good one when we realize the possibilities of our being, and it’s the concrete definition of what is the good life. It’s not to change the world, to do the revolution, to abolish capitalism or something like that. It’s to create something which is appropriate, finally, to our personal being. And there is something Greek inside this vision, which is also that there is the constraint of being which prescribes possibilities and the realization inside existence and inside existence the realization of possibilities which are prescribed by our being, our situation, our culture, our body and so on.

But maybe the question is not at all the question of realizing possibilities, but to find new possibilities. And it’s not the same thing. And maybe our destiny is not to be inside possibilities which are prescribed by our being, our situation and so on. Maybe also the problem is to find a way to create new possibilities and not only new realization of possibilities, and we can give some very simple examples of something like that. In the political field, the form of love and so on, we can know that the very destiny of our existence is not to be inside the limitation of possibilities. We have possibilities and the good life is to do the possibilities, to do the best possibilities, to realize ourselves, my realization, I realize myself, but what is myself? Myself is the final term of possibility finally. So I realize my possibilities. So my possibilities are real; I must realize them. But it is not the vital situation. The vital situation may be the possibilities are not real. We must find the possibilities or create the possibilities, and it’s a very fundamental problem today because why it’s so important for our world to prescribe possibilities? Because the possibilities, in fact, are defined in a material way. Possibilities finally are possibilities we can find on the market, the big market of things but also the big market of existence finally. And so if we have a definition of the world, which is a closed definition concerning the possibilities, a closed definition concerning the thing, finally what exists must be on the market, the market of things, the market of life and so on. But if it is like that we are in a completely classical vision, paradoxically. We return to the Greeks. And to…because finally, you know, if we must create the possibilities it is certainly because there is something infinite in the possibilities. If possibilities are inside a scope which is closed possibilities are finite, okay, but if we must find or create possibilities we go beyond, in fact, the possibilities now. And so, from the point of view of the strict realization of existent possibilities we are in the situation of hubris, go beyond the possibilities.And maybe all the question today is precisely to accept hubris, to accept the necessity for us, for our emancipation, for our freedom, to go beyond the possibilities if the possibilities are strict consequences of being, finally. And it is why we must understand this Greek conception where the existence is always between the perfection of pure realization of the possibilities and the impossibility of this realization, the good life and poor life. We must understand it’s because in some sense the dominant vision today, dominant in a structural sense, it’s not the vision of some diabolical person, it’s just dominant in a structural sense because we don’t create the possibilities of the market, the free market. That is, it creates itself, possibilities. And we observe in the possibilities of the market something like strong fear, but maybe we must change completely this classical vision. And so it is why it’s important to completely understand the classical vision, that is, the vision of the Greek culture and the culture of antiquity. It’s not only because we must know the history of the problem, but because there is something like the possibility of a return to the classical vision.

We can say that it’s also, all that, the beginning of a very important question which is also probably a question for us, which is the relationship between the One and infinity. I take my simple example, suppose that the existence must realize a closed scope, a closed framework of possibilities, the classical vision – being prescribes possibilities, and existence is realization of part of these possibilities. Perfection, good life, is the realization of something like a big part of positive possibilities. Complete perfection is the realization of all parts of possibilities. And so perfection is finally the point where existence and being are practically the same thing because existence is the realization of being in the One, the One in which we cannot distinguish between existence and being. It’s a case for god, for the god of modern age, and it’s practically the definition of the god of the age of Christianity. We shall go to that. The classical definition of god is that in god we cannot distinguish between existence and being. So the One is really the name of god. God is the One, the realization of the One, that sort of being where existence is by itself the complete realization of being. And there is no necessity that this definition implies that god is infinite. God is the One, first as the complete unity between being and existence.

So we can say that in today the vision is that we must become all some small gods to realize all our proper possibilities. And so we have small gods, that is the idea, small gods because small possibilities. God is only the same thing but with big possibilities. It’s the classical idea of every individual like a small god that is a complete realization of its proper possibilities, and it’s a vision which everybody knows is an individualist vision, but it’s a vision of the individual as a closed god of its proper existence. That is the idea where between our existence and our being there is no difference finally.

We realize the closed possibilities of our proper being, a mortal god because at the end there is death. And it is why, but it’s not our immediate problem, it is why in this conception we must inscribe death only as one of our possibilities, the small god as many possibilities and inside these possibilities there is death as one of our possibilities, and maybe what we can do is to die very old, as old as possible if it is possible to die only in a hundred years maybe. It becomes an obligation to have a death in a hundred years. If you die before, well poor you. It’s the luck of chance or poor man, something like that. And, you know, it’s a logic of all that. I really the norm o existence is to realize possibilities of our individual being and our personal being, it’s also the case for death. Death must be one of our possibilities, and so we have the right to say, “I must die not before something else, somebody else, I must die like everybody,” something like that. And so, finally, the goal is something like equality of death, pure equality of death in the idea, a life with all its proper possibilities inside the limit of death, which is finally one of the possibilities. And we find something like that exactly in Greek tragedy. If we have not hubris we die quietly inside our proper life. If we have hubris we die like a tragedy; We die young and so on, the bad death. A good death is a death which is inside our proper possibilities, inside our limits. All that is classical, and all that is very near our conception today, some of our conceptions today.

But I return to my point. The relationship between the One and infinity begins in the Greek conception by the idea that there is no relationship by necessity between the two. So we can have the perfection of the One without infinity, and its probably the classical conclusion that we can have perfection of life without infinity. We can have divine perfection without infinity. The idea of the Good in Plato and the god of Aristotle are not infinite. They are absolutely perfect. So we have the beginning of a long conceptual history of the relationship between the One and infinity, and this beginning is a separation. There is no immediate relationship between the One and the infinite.

And it’s particularly clear in the conception of art, in artistic creation. What is for a Greek the artistic perfection? The artistic perfection is not at all to create something new beyond the academic limits of artistic creation. During a long, modern time we have this idea that the artistic perfection is always a new idea of the work of art, and idea of the work of art which precisely goes beyond the limits of the artistic creation, the academic limits of artistic creation. But it’s not at all the classical conception. The classical conception is that artistic perfection is the complete formal unity of the law of the One, in fact, the complete formal unity without any lack and without any excess, so the complete realization of the unity of something without excess, without hubris, but complete too, so without any lack of perfection. So to create something, a work of art, which is an image of the One, that is the classical conception, to create an image of the One. The One is the complete harmony between existence and being, and the work of art is an image of the One. The paradigm of all that is Greek sculpture of the human age where the human body is presented, is exposed as a closed perfection in itself, as a purely closed perfection. The human body is the image of the true life. That is the image of a body which is the complete realization of the Idea of the body, and that is precisely the Greek perfection in artistic creation, and it is not at all to find a new way for creation or new possibilities. It’s, on the contrary, to realize a perfect image of the closed perfection.

But, more generally, what is thinking, not only the work of art, but thinking in general in the Greek culture? To think is always to go from multiplicity to unity. So thinking in a field, the perfection of thinking is always to produce something under the law of the One, and if existence at the beginning is multiplicity, the way of thinking is to go from multiplicity to unity under the law of the One. And you understand perfectly that when we go from multiplicity to unity you clarify the limits, you understand the limits, and you can realize by thinking the complete realization of limits. We propose conceptual clarification of limits and not at all a new proposition beyond the limits. So artistic creation, thinking, philosophical notion and so on are all in the direction of the One.

So to conclude concerning this first sequence, we can say something like that. The classical conception, we can give this name to the sequence, the classical conception is that the finite is the norm. The infinite is in some sense something pathological, something which is in the scope of hubris, something which is no true form, which is un-form. The perfection of life is the realization of closed or finite possibilities. The perfection is the complete unity between existence and being across the realization of possibilities, by the means of the realization of possibilities, and so the ultimate law of what exists is the One which is separated from the infinite. And in this classical vision, you know, the point is that creation is the same thing as realization. All creation is realization. It is maybe the most important point. But, you know, what is behind this point which is clear, all creation is in fact realization of closed possibilities, but one creation is always a realization, it is in fact a position concerning the relationship between finite and infinite. This is the point. If we understand all forms of creation as realization of existent possibilities you are also saying that the norm is the finite, that creation is something inside finitude, and so we reject, we dispose the infinite outside this creative possibility.

So you know the classical vision, to conclude all that, what are the strengths of the classical vision and what are the weaknesses of the classical vision? The strengths of the classical vision is to propose an objective vision of possibilities because possibilities are prescribed by being. So we can observe the possibilities, we know the possibilities in some sense because possibilities are prescribed in an objective manner, and after that we can realize possibilities but in an objective field, which is the objective field of being as prescribing possibility. And it’s a real strength because we can say, okay, I know what I can do because I know possibilities, because all possibilities have an objective nature. And so the action itself, action, creation and so on, is on the dependency of knowledge. Why of knowledge? The knowledge of possibilities, and the knowledge of possibilities is the same thing as the knowledge of being, so the knowledge itself because all knowledge is a knowledge of being. So in the classical vision we have the primacy of knowledge as the knowledge of possibilities, but the knowledge of possibilities is the knowledge of something objective, of objective nature, and it’s a strength. The weakness is that in some sense we have not creation at all because we have only realization. The weakness is that we have not the possibility to create possibilities, and we can maintain that if creation is not reducible to realization it’s because we can create possibilities, new possibilities and not only to realize possibilities which are objective nature. So, and it’s my final conclusion on this point, in the classical vision, and I insist on the point that maybe today we are in the classical vision in some sense, a new classical vision, in the classical vision what is, being as such, prescribes what we can do. So action is dependent on a true knowledge of being, and artistic creation too. All that is dependent on knowledge. If we want to escape this classical vision we must accept that something can be created which does not exist at all, which has no being at all for the moment, so something which is outside the finitude of being, outside the limitation of what is, but in some sense also outside knowledge because we cannot have really a knowledge of nothingness. There is no knowledge of nothingness. Maybe there is an experience of nothingness but not a knowledge. When we go beyond the classical vision what is really important is not what exists but what does not exist, what is precisely in some sense beyond the limits, and subjectivity, creative subjectivity must accept hubris, something which is beyond the limits, beyond the objective nature of limits. And all that has been introduced in some sense by the second sequence.

Alain Badiou. A History of Finitude and Infinity: Romanticism and Modernity. 2011

We go to the second historical sequence concerning all these problems. We can define the second sequence, second moment, as a fusion of the One and the infinite under the name of god. God is the name during all this sequence of that sort of transcendent fusion of the One and of the infinite with some immediate abstract consequences before the historical determinations, abstract consequences, which we can now perfectly understand. If there is a fusion between the One and the infinite under a new idea of god we have also a fusion of the idea of the infinite and the classical idea of perfection. The classical idea of perfection is a complete identity between existence and being. All possibilities of being are realized in existence. If, under the name of the One, the One is the name of that sort of perfection which is the realization, the complete realization of being, of potentialities of being, by existence, if the One is the same thing as the infinite, we can say that we have that sort of perfection but at an infinite level. At the infinite level, the level of god, we have the complete realization of being as a form of existence as abstract consequences, but it’s being itself, which is infinite, the being of god which is infinite. So the existence of god is the existence of an infinite being, so the existence of infinite possibilities. So god is the realization of infinite possibilities, naturally. And so the very concept of god is that for god there is no distinction between the possible and the real. At the infinite level there is infinite possibilities but all these possibilities exist because the classical perfection of god.

The second sequence is also something of the first sequence. The definition of perfection as the complete identity between being and existence, but if being is infinite we have some consequences because there is infinite possibilities, there is an infinite number of possibilities, so god is the realization of something infinite. So all what exists is in the dependency of god. There cannot be something which is outside the infinite possibilities, what is the being of god, and it is why we have in the second sequence the completely new idea that god creates the world and finally creates all what exists. All what exists are realizations of the being of god in some sense as infinite being of possibility. So it’s the second great genealogy of the second sequence, which is the idea of god which first is also the One and after that is the god who creates all what exists. So it’s not at all a Greek idea in the Greek culture, of the idea of a god which creates a new world. It’s an idea of Judaism naturally. So it’s not a Greek origin. It’s a Jewish origin, this idea of a god who creates a world, and so we can say that the second sequence is abstractly the fusion of the One and the infinite, but historically it is the creation of a fusion between something Greek and something Jewish. That is finally the birth of what we name today the western world, the western world at the very beginning is certainly an operation of fusion of something Jewish and something Greek because of the fact that if the infinite is in relationship to being, the perfection of the One is the realization of not only some possibilities but infinite possibilities. And so infinite possibilities is really the conception of possibilities without limit. We return to apeiron. But possibilities without limit signify that all possibilities are included in the potency of god, and so god creates realized all what exists and, much more, all what can exists.

All that is perfectly unified, perfectly consistent vision historically. So under the name of god we have during this sequence the incorporation of the infinite to the One, so a complete change because the perfection is not at all to be inside the limit, but really to have no limit. It is a fundamental change. If the One is the same thing as the infinite we have infinity of possibilities. The realization of infinity of possibilities is something which is without limit, and so we have the absolute potency of god without limit and without hubris naturally because if you have no limit we cannot go beyond the limit. It’s precisely what is absolutely impossible for god, to go beyond its proper limits because god has no limits at all so he cannot go beyond his limits. God cannot be in the state of hubris, the new god.

And finally the one change of nature, there is something like a fundamental change in the definition of the One. Certainly the One is perfection in the sense of complete realization of possibilities of being in existence, but there is something new which comes certainly, directly, from Judaism. In Judaism before all that god is not only unified, not only one, all singularities are one finally, but there is only one god, monotheism, one god. And so One is the quality of god. Inside god we have a complete and perfect unity. So god is the One in the Greek sense, but there is only one god, another sense of the word “one.” If you want, god is immanently the one by itself, by himself, by herself, as you want, is One, but there is also one god in the numerical sense of the one. There is no other god. So we can say that god is the One but also there is one god, and so, finally, god is the only one properly because god is the One, the perfect One in the Greek sense, but there is only one god so we can say that god is the one One, the only One. It’s twice one. And it is why god progressively is separated from the world. Greek gods exists inside the world completely. We can see this when they, maybe this is not a good thing, but we can, it’s a possibility, and you know the Greek gods, for example, love human female, very much in fact. I think they prefer human females to goddesses. It’s a very complex question. But in some sense they are in the world, and there is one world, and inside this world there are also something like gods. It’s not the case of the new god, and why? Because precisely we must affirm, because of the infinite, that the new god created the world, but we cannot create the world without being outside the world. So the new god is outside the world. It’s a transcendent god.

But the new problem is what is the relationship between god and the world? If god is the realization of the infinite in the form of the One, he’s probably the abstract definition of the new god. So god is the realization of infinity in the form of the One. If god is something like that, god is outside the world, the creation of the world, and the world itself is finite because it is precisely the creation of the infinite as such. So the world is the realm of finitude, and god is the realm of infinity at the end. It’s a vision, the great monotheism of our world today too. So that is a situation. The new situation in the second sequence, the question of infinity becomes finally the question of relationship between god and the world, god as the true realm of the infinite. The realm of infinity, and the world, and human beings in the world as realization of something which is in finitude. And why is this problem is very difficult? Because there is no common measure between the infinity of god and the finitude of human life. I declare life because we are interested first by human life after all. There is no common measure, and it was not in the classical vision in which we have not this problem because infinity is an abstraction and the perfection is inside finitude. The norm of life is inside finitude. But in the second sequence when we have a fusion between the One and the infinite we have the multiplicity of finitude, and there is no common measure. So there is a pure transcendency of god. And in some sense, in regard to god, we are like nothing because the relationship between finite and the infinite is without common measure and so finally is like the relationship between being and nothingness. It’s a very great difficult thing and is precisely the fundamental difficulty of thinking, of philosophy, during all the second sequence. How to understand the relationship between transcendency of god and finitude of the creature if there is no common measure between the infinite and the finite, and there is no common measure. Why is god is not completely indifferent to human beings, for example, like something which is near nothing. And so the most important question of all the sequence can be named the question of mediation, mediation between the finite and the infinite.

What is the third term, if you want, the third term which is between the transcendency of god and the finitude of the world, the third term which is a mediation between the two and which creates something like a possible common measure between the two? And it’s a new question. In the realm of finitude we have not that sort of question because we only the question of the realization of the possibility of being. I take an example of this absence of common measure. If god is infinite, we cannot know all the possibilities because all the possibilities are inside the infinite being of god. So god can naturally realize a possibility that we cannot know and cannot understand. It’s a logical necessity. It’s not an invention of something. No. It’s perfectly rational. If we have something like a fusion between the One and the infinite, if the one is also on the side of the perfection of the realization of being by existence and if the being is infinite, we have an infinite possibilities concerning the existence of god. And so it’s a question of miracle.

Miracle is always the point where we have the realization by god of a new possibility that we cannot understand. And I anticipate the fact that sometimes it is said that miracle is something irrational, but no. It is only something irrational from the point of finitude. The existence of miracle is in fact purely a rational possibility. If the transcendency of god is outside the realm of finitude certainly god can create new possibilities, and so it’s perfectly rational that we have miracles. Pascal insists on this point, that miracles are not at all irrational events but that they are purely rational from the point of view of the existence of god, and what would be absolutely irrational is the complete absence of miracles because it would be a limitation of the potency of god, and so it will be a proof of the [audio unclear] of the fusion between the perfection of the One and the infinity of being. And we can say that miracle is a first form of mediation because miracle is something which happens in our world but without any explanation which has comes from this world. So miracle is in some sense a proof, a rational proof of the existence of something transcendent, something which is outside the law of the world, and it is why Pascal writes concerning the critique, the rational critique of miracles that they are irrational, these critiques. The rationality is on the side of miracle if we have, naturally, something like the fusion of the One and the infinite. So miracle is a mediation in this sense, with a miracle we have something which is between our world, finitude, rational laws and so on, and god as the realm of infinity. And the proof is that we cannot understand miracle. The proof, the rational proof that god exists is precisely that we cannot understand miracle. If we can understand miracle, miracle is not a miracle. So if we can prove that if something like miracle exists, that is something which is a pure exception in the laws of the world. If something like a pure exception in the laws of the world exists we have something like an excess, a new mediation in the direction of the existence of the new god, the god which realizes the fusion between the One and the infinite.

But naturally the paradigm of the mediation is the figure of the Christ. Mediation has been something like a name for Christ, the figure of Jesus, which is a great invention after all of Christianity. And why? Because this figure, the figure of the Christ, is precisely a mediation between the finite and the infinite, the first attempt to propose the real existence, the historical existence of a mediation. As you know, Jesus is god, the Christ is god, but he is god inside the finite form of human existence. Jesus is god inside the form of human existence including suffering and death, so including the most significant forms of finitude, suffering and death. So the Christ as such is a common measure between infinite and finite, this common measure which is precisely our problem, our problem of the second sequence. The sequence which is opened by the progressive fusion between the One and the infinite creates the problem. There is no common measure. We cannot understand and we cannot have a relationship to god, and so we cannot have finally a real understanding of what exists. But with the Christ we have a mediation and a common measure so we have an existence which is simultaneously infinite and finite. It is why we can speak of the second sequence as something like a Christian age, an age of Chrsitianism, not because of the domination of religion and so on, but at a more abstract level, a more philosophical level because it’s clearly a proposition to a solution to the problem. It’s clearly the affirmation of the existence of a mediation. And so it’s a proposition of a possibility to maintain a relationship between human existence and the divine existence beyond the problem of the common measure between the two because we have really the existence of a common measure in the form of a human existence, including suffering and death, which is simultaneously a part of the existence of god.

It’s not simple to understand, in fact, but finally the solution is something like the problem itself because how we can understand that the human existence with suffering, death and so on is in fact in its true being something like the infinite god. But we can observe the success of this proposition, the historical success of this proposition during many centuries is not arbitrary. It’s really a completely new proposition concerning the fundamental question of relationship between finite and infinite. And it was the solution of a mediation between the two, of a common measure between the two. It was simultaneously a complete separation, the creation of the world by god, the infinite existence of god, the infinite possibilities, miracle and so on, and on the other side we have a complete fusion between the two which is the pure subjectivity of the Christ. It was really a proposition of a new vision of all the construction of human destiny. And it is certainly why there has been a real success of this proposition as in some sense a rational supposition. Naturally it is why I have spoken of miracle. In some sense it is miracle by itself. It is a man who is also a god, so something finite who is also something infinite. So it’s the affirmation of the existence of mediation of a common measure, and it is miracle in some sense. But it’s not completely an objection because, naturally, if there is a common measure between the two it must be from the point of view of god himself, and so it’s by necessity of miracle.

If we completely understand what is that sort of fusion between finite and infinite it will be something which is inside the world, but it cannot be something inside the world because it is precisely something which is not inside the world but is something which is the relationship between the world and something which is outside the world. So certainly it’s a miracle but to say that the existence of the Christ is a miracle is not a true objection against this existence. It’s not a completely rational objection. And this is why once more, says Pascal, naturally the existence of Christ is a miracle because it’s a creation by god of something which is inside the world and which is in some sense outside the world. So the mediation between something outside the world and inside the world is a miracle for us but is not by itself a miracle. What is rational is precisely that it is a miracle, and I say without any faith. I say that from the philosophical point of view. We have to examine this sequence from the point of view of the strengths of the sequence and not to criticize the religious disposition. I agree with the fact it’s a very clear in some sense and very strong proposition to propose in the form of subjectivity, of a human subjectivity, something which by itself is a common measure between the infinite and the finite.

This common measure between infinite and finite is also, we can say, a common measure between the One and the multiple if the multiple is the existence, the finite existence. In some sense it’s also a common measure between true being and nothingness, the title of the great book of Sartre, Being and Nothingness, and the attempt to find a mediation between being and nothingness, precisely the goal of all the second sequence because the Christ by himself is in some sense a mediation between being and nothingness, the absolute being of god and the existence near nothingness of human beings. And we can name all that the dialectical thinking. I think that at the philosophical level the second sequence is the creation of dialectics. Dialectics which is finally the thinking of mediation between two contradictory terms, very ordinary definition of dialectics, but we can read it here. In some sense Christianism is the invention of dialectical thinking. That is its strength. That is the proposition of a new thinking in which we can find a term which is a mediation between two absolutely contradictory terms. So it’s a theory of the third term, the term which is a mediation between the two contradictory terms. And we examine during, finally, all the week, the contradictory terms in the form of infinite and finite. And certainly Christianism is a dialectical proposition concerning the separation in the form of the Christ. And in dialectical thinking we have always, it’s elementary, we have always three terms at the end. We have three terms because the two contradictory terms, and we have the mediation between the two.

In the work of Hegel, who is a great dialectical philosopher, we can find the idea that in fact we have finally four terms and not only three. That is, we have the two contradictory terms, we have the mediation, and we have the movement of the three terms, the process of the three terms and the result of the process, which is in some sense a fourth term. The dialectical thinking must be a movement. The mediation must be an active mediation. Understand that Christ is not only a third term. We have the action of the Christ, the work of the Christ, the death and so on. It’s a process, a long difficult and terrible process. It’s not to put the third term and the problem is closed. So it’s the action of the third term, which is finally a sort of displacement of the two first terms. In the life of Christ, in the life and death of Christ we have the movement by which something of the infinite goes in side the finite because Christ is something like that. He is not only something which is finite and infinite. He is something which is the movement by which the infinite itself goes inside the finite, and this movement, which is a dialectical movement, is something like a result of all the process, and it’s not reducible to something like one, two, three. We have the movement by which the third term displaces the first two in a new manner. It is why after the Christ the world is not the same. There is a change because there has been a common measure between god and human beings. And as you know, a name of all that is that human beings are saved, saved of their finitude finally. They have a new access to the pure infinity of god by the sacrifice of the Christ. This sacrifice is not a sacrifice. This sacrifice is a victory. The terrible death of the Christ is a victory of the spirit and so on.

And so all that is really the creation of dialectical thinking, and after that we have different forms of the three terms. In Christianism as such we have god, Jesus and the salvation of humanity, so god, Jesus and human beings. We have father, son and spirit. And so the three terms are the movement of the three. We have in a more abstract word, which is our level here, we have the infinite, the mediation and the finite and so on. In Hegel we have many forms of the dialectical rhythm of the thinking, but the general framework is abstraction, nature and absolute – abstraction, being as such, infinity as such and so on. After that we have existence, natural existence or historical existence of all that, and the third terms is the absolute, which is simultaneously abstract, universal, natural, or historical, and concrete. So we have what Hegel names concrete universality, which is the result of the dialectical process, abstraction, nature and absolute.

We can say, to conclude the examination of the second sequence, that we have first the closed perfection of antiquity with sculpture and tragedy, and we have, after that, the mediation of Christianism, which gives us the absolute idea of dialectical thinking. And the other point is that inside dialectical thinking we have the possibility to go beyond the limits. Why we have the possibility to go beyond the limits? Because we have an access to the realm of infinity. We are not absolutely closed in our finitude because there is a mediation. There exists a third term. There exists a possible access to the realm of the infinite. First of all at the beginning by the figure of the Christ, but progressively all that becomes a philosophical idea, not a religious one, but a metaphysical one, the idea of Hegel and many others, the idea of the possibility for human beings to open a new access to the infinity, or to the absolute, and with or without the figure of the Christ. Certainly the figure of the Christ has been the first attempt to create something like that in the religious framework. But after that as always we have the philosophical emancipation of the religious framework and the abstract possibility to open an access for human beings to the infinity, and so the possibility to not be closed in the finitude of being. And we can name this position romanticism, after the classical determination. Romanticism is the idea that we can find an access of something which is outside the world. So we can organize, we can have the becoming in side the world of something which is outside the world. We can in some sense create a new Christ, a new mediation. We can create in the form of poetry, in the form of exceptional, historical action, maybe in the form of political revolution. In all these forms we can create something which is like a descent, an access to the infinite inside finitude itself.

And so romanticism as the final result of the second sequence is the reverse of the classical position on one fundamental point, which is we can create new possibilities in the form of a new access to the infinite. And I think that if sculpture and tragedy was typically classical arts, arts which are appropriate to the classical vision, we can say that poetry and music are appropriate to the second sequence. Poetry, because the romantic conception of the poem is that by poetry we can create new possibilities of the language. We can not only use the language to name the things, to speak with others and so on, but inside the language by poetic means, which can create new possibilities. The language can be forced to say something which was before impossible to say - poetry, to say what is impossible to say. So when you create the possibility of something impossible, you create, naturally, a new possibility because in the law of the world there is a clear distinction between what is possible and what is impossible, and poetry is the creation of something impossible, something which is impossible to say, but with poetical means we can say something which is absolutely new which was impossible to say before the poetical gesture itself. And sometimes the same thing in music, music which is maybe the romantic art because in music too we can create absolutely new forms of sensibility. And in any case we can find all that in Hegel, we can find all that in Schopenhauer with music, we can find for poetry in Nietzsche and so on.

So all these arts can be found in philosophy, but the most important point may be is that we can find something like that in politics too, the idea that it’s possible to create a completely new possibility in the field of politics. It’s the idea of revolution, the typically romantic idea of revolution. And it’s also a new access to infinity, the idea that the law of the world can be broken, that we can go beyond the laws of the economic world, of the social world, of hierarchical world and so on. We can go beyond oppression and alienation and so on. We can do that not by passion and not a certain transformation, but we can do that by a real creation, a collective creation of something new. We can create a new humanity, in fact, something which is a new representation of humanity by itself. So in all the revolutionary ideology of the Nineteenth Century, because Nineteenth Century is the great romantic century, in all revolutionary visions we can find the idea that the collectivity, the human beings being together can create in historical becoming something as new as a new poem or a new artistic creation. It’s really the idea. It is why there is something artistic or aesthetic with this vision and not only political or economical an so on, the idea that the historical action can be and must be at the same level as artistic creation. That is, to create forms of collectivity by the means of collectivity itself a new collective world, which is something like a historical and political work of art, the work of politics. And it’s not at all the realization of a new possibility. It’s not something like we can do something better, that inside the world we can do something which is better in the world as it is and so on. And it’s the idea that we can go in action from a completely different idea of what is human being as such. It is why there is not only the idea of a new collective world but the idea of new human beings. With the transformation of the world we have the transformation of subjectivities.

And you can say, okay, but why is all that with the infinite and finite, but this is precisely the problem. If there is the possibility of creation, true creation of a new world it’s not by the realization of an objective possibility. It’s by the creation of something in something from nothingness, something which does not exist but must be and can be created by thinking and action. So it’s not…the consequences of the old world is really the birth of a new world, and the birth of a new world with new laws of the world itself. And with poetry, with music, with revolutionary thinking, we have a completely new conception of the relationship between finite and the infinite without the necessity of a religious framework. There is no contradiction between all that and the religious framework, but there is no obligation of the religious framework. At the beginning we have something like that, but in the Nineteenth Century we have sometimes poetry and revolutionary determination inside the religious framework, but we have also something like that outside the religious framework. So there is no necessity of this relationship, but there is finally a completely new vision of the relationship between the finite condition of actions, the finite world and so on, and the infinite. And the mediation is new possibility, the creation not only of a new real, but of a new possibility, which was not perceived, which is not existent before something which is thinking, action, decision, organization, movement and so on.

And there is also something like a mediation, a mediation between the old world and the new world. And this mediation is always an event, something which happens without any possibility to calculate completely this happening. So it’s possible to say that inside the romanticism which comes before the classical vision we have by necessity something near a miracle. We have miracles in Christianism as such, naturally. But a revolutionary event is something like a rational miracle too because it’s also a mediation between the laws of the old world and the possibility of a new world. I insist on this point – the possibility and not the necessity of the new world, but the possibility, the creation of a new possibility. The event is not the creation of a new real, but a new possibility, a new subjective possibility. It is why when we have an event as clear as all the movement in all the Arabic countries in the last month nobody knows what is the destiny of all that. It is the opening of new possibilities, new differences, and in this sense it’s a miracle not, once more, because there is something irrational, something which we cannot understand at all, but only because it’s something like a mediation between our finitude, our situation, the laws of the world and a new possibility. Maybe the new possibility, finally, will be nothing. We must accept the failure of all that, exactly like, finally, Christianism itself must accept the failure of the mediation after all. It’s not true that everybody is saved. So we have a miracle with consequences, limited consequences. It’s the same thing in the political-romantic vision, but it’s really a new access to the infinity of the world as such. Inside the world we have, by the mediation of some events the birth of new possibilities, and these possibilities do not come from the being as such. They come from what in the being was not existent, was not possible. So I name all that miracle because it’s the sudden possibility of something which was objectively impossible, absolutely impossible.

Nobody was thinking that the complete change of the situation in Egypt was possible. We have read something like that somewhere. Absolutely it was, on the contrary, a very strong situation. Mubarak was really a big chief, and all that was absolutely consistent. So the riot and so on in Egypt and the fall of Mubarak, what is all that? It is really a miracle. We must have the courage to make that a miracle not in an irrational religious sense. That is the sense that the birth of a new possibility, the opening of something and not a consequence of the situation. After that the historian writes that “finally the consequence are…”, and they find all the causes and so on, but in the true life, in the collective existence of all men and women we are doing all that. It’s not a consequence. One day there is something like that. And so I don’t think that all that is irrational. I think it’s perfectly rational, but it’s the rationality of the becoming of a new possibility. It’s the rationality of the pure consequences, the determination of the situation as such.

And so, to conclude on the second sequence, during all these times which are between the second sequence and the third sequence, or in the consequences of the second sequence without the religious framework and so on, what I name, finally, romanticism, to oppose romanticism to the classical vision, what we have is a completely new articulation between all our terms. Finally, we have much more something like that [Badiou draws diagram on note pad]. The original situation is the opposition between existence, which is the framework which is finite, and being, which is without any visible determination. And so what we have is event as a mediation, and event as a mediation creates the opening of new possibilities, which, after that, opens a new access to the infinite. So it’s a complete transformation of the relationship between all the terms. Naturally we have always the point of departure of relationship between existence and being, and we have the classical idea that existence as such is finite. But we have the idea which comes naturally from Christianism in the second sequence, that there is the possibility of a mediation. So the mediation is something which is something like an interruption of the laws of the finite, exactly like the Christ of the world. What is the Christ? The Christ is something which is inside the finite but which is a complete interruption in the laws of the finite because the Christ is the finite. So there is suffering, there is death, but there is resurrection, but resurrection is the fact, the true miracle where something completely new appears, something which is a proof that we have a mediation between the finite and the infinite in the event as mediation. But the event can be a new poetry. It can be a new work of art, the invention of new music, not only, maybe the new invention of a new, extraordinary scientific invention, a new mathematic invention and so on. All that is in the field of the possibility of a new mediation which creates a new possibility at the point of the impossible itself. Where something was impossible we find a new possibility that is something which we extract from the impossible itself, something like a new possibility. And this new possibility returns to the being by saying that we can do with our being something we cannot change. We can do with our being what it was impossible to imagine. And it is the fundamental point of romanticism. We can do something that we cannot do. We can do something which was impossible for us to do, and when we are inside the revolutionary mind, inside a new collective, when we have a new feeling concerning a new work of art and so on, we are precisely in this position. We experience in our proper life that something is possible which was not possible.

And this experiment is the birth of a new subject, that is, a new relationship between existence and being, a new relationship which is not a direct one, but the mediation of something new. By the mediation we become a new subject, and maybe the most important example is love, naturally. And it is why love is also something absolutely fundamental in romanticism, you know. Why is it something fundamental? Because it is an example of, in some sense, a pure event, the encounter of somebody without any preparation. There is the absolutely chance encounter with somebody which the mediation of a new possibility for our life, the opening of a new possibility of our life. And this new possibility is at the point of something which was impossible, the revelation of the potentiality of our subjectivity which was absolutely obscure or impossible. So the event of the encounter for love, the event of the encounter, is really a new relationship to our proper being as being able of something which is really a new possibility of life. And so love is a mediation. The encounter is a mediation between our existence and our being, which is why also it is something terrible. Terrible why? Because there is always something terrible when we find a new access to the infinite. It’s not something which is quiet and something. It’s something hard and terrible. Why? Because it’s really a new opening to our being. And so it’s birth in ourselves, the birth of a new subject.

Finally, romanticism can be defined as the possibility for individual to become a new subject. And that was absolutely absent to the purely classical vision where the good is to realize our potentialities and not to create or to become a new subject. So the difference between the classical vision, which is a realization of ourselves, becomes in romanticism the creation of a new subject. And in any case it’s two different forms of relationship between finite and the infinite. In the first case we must realize our finite possibilities, and the second case we must open an access to eh infinite possibilities of the new subject. And so when the third sequence begins, in fact during many centuries with the mixture between the first and second, where the third sequence begins we have inside the two possibilities, classical vision or romanticism, so the dialectic of the third sequence. And it’s the law today. The dialectics of the third sequence is naturally the dialectics between classicism and romanticism with something which is neither one nor the other, naturally, which is the modern form of subjectivity. And maybe this form is not completely created today, and that is our problem. But we examine the third sequence tomorrow.