Alain Badiou. Democracy, Politics and Philosophy.

Lecture at European Graduate School EGS, Saas Fee, Switzerland. 2006.

Transcription by Marcus Leis Allion

We can begin by a striking contradiction. On one side philosophy is clearly and by necessity a democracy (I shall explain why in a few minutes). On the other side the political conceptions of the majority of philosophers--from Plato to myself, including Hegel, Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, Heidegger or Deleuze--are not at all democratic in the usual sense of the word (I shall also explain this). So we have a contradiction between the true nature of philosophy, which is certainly a democratic conception of discussion and thinking, and the explicit conceptions of philosophy in the political field which very often accept an authoritarian framework for the collective destiny of human beings. We have something like a paradoxical relation between the three terms; democracy, politics, philosophy. We have first to go from democracy to philosophy. That was in fact the way of creation of philosophy by the ancient Greeks. The birth of philosophy is clearly dependant on the invention by the Greeks of the first form of a democratic power. But we have also to go from philosophy to politics. in fact, politics has certainly always been a major concern of the philosophers-all along the historical becoming of philosophy. But while politics is a reflexive object for philosophy, it is generally been very difficult to go from that sort of politics to democracy. If you want, democracy is a necessity before philosophy and a difficulty after philosophy. Our question is - What is changed in politics by the philosophical action, so that democracy is first of all a necessity and second of all something impossible or very difficult? And our answer will be, the difficulty lies in the relation between the democratic notion of freedom and the philosophical concept of truth. In one word, if something like a political truth exists, that truth is an obligation for every rational mind. So freedom is absolutely linked. Conversely if there is no such limitation, there is no political truth. But in that case there is no positive relationship between philosophy and politics. So the three terms; politics, democracy, and, philosophy are finally tied by the question of the truth. The obscure knot is in fact determined by the proper obscurity of the category of truth. So the problem is, what is a democratic concept of truth. What is - against relativism and skepticism - a democratic universality. What is a political rule, which applies to all of us, but without the constraint of a transcendence?

But let us begin by the beginning, by the two following points. First, Why is democracy a condition for the existence for philosophy? and two, Why is philosophy so often inappropriate to a democratic vision of politics. Philosophy has two fundamental characteristics. On the one hand it is a discourse which is not dependant on the place of the man or woman who speaks. If you prefer, philosophy is not the discourse of a king, of a priest, of a prophet, of a god. There is no guarantee for the philosophical discourse on the side of transcendence, power or sacred function. Philosophy assumes that the search for truth is open to everybody. The philosopher can be anybody. What he or she says is, if validated - not validated by his or her position but only by its contents. Or more technically, philosophical validation does not care about the subjective annunciation but about the objective wording. Philosophy is a discourse without any other legitimies and itself. But this is clearly a democratic characteristic. On the other hand philosophy is directly exposed to the judgments of others. Philosophical discourse is made of anticipation of objections and acceptance of discussions. Its axiom is equality of all minds. And this equality is a permanent tribunal for philosophical discourse. And this is clearly a democratic condition. Philosophy, by itself, is completely indifferent to social, cultural, or, religious position, of who speaks, or thinks. Philosophy accepts to hear from everybody. And philosophy is exposed to approval or to critic without preliminary selection of who approves or objects. Philosophy accepts to be for everybody. We can therefore conclude that in its very essence, philosophy is democratic. But we must not forget that philosophy, which accepts to be completely universal, in its origin as well as in its address, cannot accept to be democratic in the same sense, in its goal, its destination.

Everybody can be a philosopher, or the interlocutor of a philosopher. But it is not true that every opinion is equivalent to any other. The axiom of equality of minds is far from being an axiom of equality of opinions. From the beginning of philosophy with Plato we must distinguish, firstly between correct opinions and incorrect opinions, secondly between opinion and truth. The ultimate goal of philosophy is to clarify completely the distinction between truth and opinion, then there can obviously be no real acceptation by philosophy of the great democratic principle of the freedom of opinions. If the opinion is the exact opposite of a truth it cannot enjoy that sort of freedom. Even in the Western countries, the democratic state in fact does not tolerate all opinions. For example, in France the negation of the reality of the destruction of the Jews by the Nazis is not in the field of the freedom of opinions, there is a law which forbids to defend publicly such an opinion. More generally philosophy opposes the unity and the universality of truth to the plurality and the relativity of opinions. There is another reason that limits the democratic trend of philosophy. Philosophy is certainly exposed to the critical judgment of others, but this exposition implies a common expectation of a rule for the discussion. We have to recognize the validity of arguments. And finally we have accept the existence of a universal logic as a formal condition for the axiom of the equality of minds. It in a metaphoric sense, the mathematical dimension of philosophy. There is the freedom of our breath, but there is also the necessity of a strict common rule for the discussion. Exactly like mathematics philosophy is from everybody and for everybody, it has no specific language, but there is a strict rule for consequences.

So when philosophy examines politics it cannot, to begin with, be along the line of pure freedom, and certainly not a freedom of opinions. It deals with the question, what could be the political truth? Or, what is politics when it obeys the following two principles; first, compatibility with the philosophical principle of the equality of minds; second, compatibility with the philosophical principle of the subordination of the validity of opinions to universality of truths. So equality and universality are the characteristics of valid politics in the field of philosophy.

The classical name for it is justice. In justice equality is much more important than liberty. And universality is much more important than particularity, identity, or individuality. That is why there is a problem in the common definition of democracy as individual liberties. Richard Rorty has declared, I quote him; "Democracy is more important than philosophy". With this political principle, it is a political principle, Rorty prepares in fact the dissolution of philosophy and the cultural relativism. We have to know Plato at the very beginning of philosophy says exactly the contrary; "Philosophy is much more important than democracy". And if justice is the philosophical name for politics as a collective truth, (if justice is that sort of name, politics as a collective truth) justice is more important than freedom.

The great critique of democratic politics in Plato is slightly underused. On one side it is certainly an aristocratic personal position. But on the other side it's a real problem, the problem of a kind of organic contradiction between justice and freedom. After all, it is our situation today the price for our freedom here in the western world is the monstrous inequality. First inside our countries, but above all outside our countries. Philosophically speaking there is no justice at all in the contemporary world and maybe the absence of justice is the price we have to pay for freedom. We have obviously a paradoxical situation. Democracy is the condition for philosophy, but democracy has no direct relation to justice, and justice is the philosophical name for truth in the political field. So the relationship of the three terms; democracy, politics, philosophy, remains obscure as you can see in my first diagram, diagram one that you have. You can see on this diagram that democracy is a condition of philosophy; then that philosophy determines a new concept of politics; and that finally between the new concept of politics and the common concept of democracy there is no easy direct communication because the complexity of the concept of truth.

We have here to make detour, a classical detour by mathematics. Mathematics is probably the best paradigm of justice, as Plato very early pointed out. In mathematics we have first a kind of primitive freedom, which is the freedom of the choice of axioms. After that we have a complete determination along some logical rules. So we have solely to accept the consequences of our first choice. And this acceptation is not freedom but constraint, necessity, hard intellectual work, to find the correct proof.

In the end this is strictly universal equality in the precise sense. The proof, the proof for anybody without exception who accepts the primitive choice and the logical rules. So we have; choice, consequences, equality, universality. In fact we have here the paradigm of classical revolutionary politics, the goal of which was explicitly justice, under the generic name communism. One has first to accept a fundamental choice, that is the first freedom. The fundamental choice between the two ways and two places; revolutionary way and conservative way, proletarian or bourgeois and so on. One has then to accept the consequences of ones choice that is; organization, hard struggle, sacrifice, no freedom of opinions and style of life, but discipline. And the result is not a democratic state in the common sense, but as you know the dictatorship of proletariat in order to crush the resistance of enemies. And at the same time all that is presented as completely universal, because the goal is not the power of a particular class or group but the end of all classes and inequalities and finally the end of the state as such. in this conception, which is a conception during a long and probably finished sequence, democracy is in fact the name for two completely different sets.

It is first, as Lenin has said, democracy, a form of state, the democratic state with elections, deputies, constitutional government and so on. And secondly it is a form of mass action, it is popular or active democracy with great meetings, demonstrations, riots, insurrections and so on. In the first sense democracy has no direct relation to revolutionary politics, that is no direct relation with justice. In the second sense democracy is not a norm or a goal, it is a means. A means for popular active presence in the political field. Democracy is not the political truth, but one of the means to find the political truth. It is for example very clear in a text of probably by Mao Zedong, that I tell of which his decision in sixteen points, written during the summer of 1967 at the beginning of the cultural revolution.

In this decision Mao Zedong writes that young people, young revolutionaries young activists have to learn the distinction between truth and fantasy in the action itself, in the movement. and that is always across many troubles across divisions difficulties and struggles that we become conscious of the new political truth. And that is a sort of collective experiment of novelty beyond the state order.

So the 'great democracy' (it was the name during all of the cultural revolution, 'the great democracy') with gigantic meetings, thousands of new organizations, millions of political posters (the famous dàzìbào), violent politics, armed riots, and so on. The aim of all that is too learn. To learn the right politics, to learn the new way, to be on the way, for political truth. But for philosophy, democracy, as we have seen at the beginning of my lecture, is also a condition of a new status of discourse. A status which is without sacred place, without sacred book, without king, priest, prophet, or god as one (?) legitimacy. So we can propose a new hypothesis to fully understand the obscure relationship of philosophy, politics, and democracy.

From the point of view of philosophy, democracy is neither a norm or a law nor it is a goal. Democracy is only one of the possible means of popular emancipation. But discipline of consequences and maybe dictatorship can also be among the means of emancipation. Exactly as the constraints of mathematics have also a condition for philosophy. So we have something, like in my second diagram. In this second diagram we have no direct relation of the three terms; democracy, philosophy, and politics. It's a necessity to insert, if you want, a fourth term. My name for this term is truth, but we can find other names. For example I think that in the conception of Deleuze the name which is at the place of truth is probably life, creative life. And if we are in the disposition of Heidegger the name is being, and so on. And so there is a proper philosophical name which is something like the name "the supplementary name"... "the supplementary name" with no (with as a consequence...no) direct relationship within the three terms.

Philosophy and Truth are in relation by the concept of consequences of Truth - the consequence of an false event, if you want. Truth and politics are in relation by the concept of justice, because for philosophy justice is a name of a true politics. Politics and democracy has a relationship, as democracy is a means for a true politics, can be a means for true politics. And democracy and philosophy as in relation because democracy is a condition of philosophy itself. So we have a complex disposition in which the four terms, as in the diagram, with different relationship. And I think why you cannot go directly from philosophy to democracy, and yet democracy is a condition of philosophy.

If real democracy is a means of politics, we can also say that democracy is an event, with political consequences. Democracy is for us a pure prism, between the past, the whole memory of revolutionary politics, and the future of emancipation. It reminds me of a great American poet, Wallace Stevens. It's in an extraordinary poem that I tell of, which is 'Description Without Place'. You have to read 'Description Without Place'...it's not easy! 'Description Without Place' is for Stevens something like the definition of poetry itself. Poetry has to be a description, but precisely a description without the place of description, a description which is beyond the descriptive place. We can remark that the classical politics...classical revolutionary politics was something like an action with places...action with places. Poetry description without places, but classical revolutionary politics certainly action with places; classes, nationalities, organisation, state, and so on. Classical politics is action in a complex of places. And the classical definition of revolutionary politics is to seize the power, that the power is the place. So finally the classical definition of politics is to go in the place, to seize the place. So classical politics is an action with place, but, if we have to find a new way in politics - in a very complex distribution of truth, politics, democracy, philosophy - we probably have to find something like an action without place. This is why Wallace Stevens can be a reference here. Action without place. Action which is the transformation of something beyond the system of places. And politics without goal, like 'the seize of power'. Politics near the power sometimes, but not defined by the power, not defined by the place. And in fact in 'Description Without Place' (the poem of Stevens) we can finally mean them.

It indeed is very striking to see an American poet mention Lenin at the date of Stevens. And Stevens writes; "The high of Lenin kept the furrow shapes". Lenin for Stevens is the man who keeps the war revolutionary past in his mind, in his eye. Lenin sees the past, all the farrow shapes of the past, and that is probably the first dimension of democracy without place, to see the farrow shapes of the past. And Stevens writes also;

"...what we say of the future must portend, Be alive with its own seemings..."..."...what we say of the future...", not the past the future, "What we say of the future must portend, Be alive with its own seemings". And democracy is always something that is said of the future, and it is why it cannot be the classical definition of the democratic state. Democracy is really inside a true politics. It is always something which is said of the future. "Be alive with its own seemings" in the future, something which must "portend", something which appears...like a new life. And between the "furrow shapes" and the portending future, democracy-when it appends...when finally democracy can appends...it can be able to be. Democracy when it appends, is not exactly politics. Democracy is for the philosopher the promise of novelty in the political field. That is the vision of future in the democratic concept the promise of novelty in the political field.