Alain Badiou. Questions Concerning The Infinite. 2011.

Alain Badiou. Questions Concerning The Infinite. in: EGS Lecture. Summer 2011.

I have divided the questions in four parts. First, questions concerning the three sequences, so the beginning of the session. After that questions concerning, in fact, the second choice to go beyond the third sequence, so the question of the philosophy of life, so the question of Nietzsche, Delezue, Spinoza and this form of choice. Third, questions concerning the infinities of infinities, or more technical questions concerning the infinite. And, four, other questions, questions which are not near our discussion. Sometimes I don’t identify the answer by the name of the…so, this one, anybody recognize? [Badiou holds up a student’s paper with a question written on it.] It’s you? Okay. And this one? It’s you? Okay.

So the first question, “What is the relationship between hubris and science in the three sequences?” It’s you? Okay. You…I read the questions, and you say, “It’s mine,” a clear rule, a personal responsibility concerning the question. I think that the relationship between hubris and science is a good question because we know that the question of an excess inside the scientific knowledge is really a question today of the second sequences under the first two, the idea that with science we constitute, human beings constitute a knowledge without really any control fo the effects fo this knowledge. And so I think the question has two dimensions, first, the question which is not exactly the question of science, but of the effects of science. And so it’s much more the question of technique or something like that. And the relationship between hubris and technique is a different question in some sense because we have directly with technique a question which is the transformation of nature, the transformation of the world, the transformation of life, people and so on. So maybe there is a difficulty to control the technical application of science, but it’s not exactly a scientific question because the organization of scientific questions is not of scientific nature. It is of social nature.

So the question finally would be the relationship between hubris and some form of social organization of the effects of science. And it’s a clear and classical question. Is there a social organization where we can have a real control concerning the technological and concrete effects of scientific knowledge? Probably today there is a sort of capitalistic appropriation of science, science inside the movement of capitalism, inside the production of new things on the market and so on. And certainly this appropriation can be an hubris in some sense. Why? Because if the goal is totally external to knowledge, of the disinterested sense of knowledge, we have something without control. In fact the contemporary appropriation of science is dominated by the question of money once more, the question of profit. And it’s not a scientific question at all. It’s a purely social question. And when we have some forms of technological development and so on there is always behind all that a question of organization of the capital itself. So in the first part of the questions, this part is clear, we can speak of hubris when the effect of science seems to be out of scientific control, our of rational control, and should be irrational because they are not, precisely, inside scientific norm.

But there is another part of the question, which is in relationship to the question to the idea of totality. Maybe in science itself, this time, and not only in the effect of science, we can have the idea of a complete knowledge, of an achieved knowledge, of a total knowledge. And probably this desire of a complete knowledge can be a form f subjective hubris because in some sense it’s an idea which is in relationship to the One once more, the idea of science between the big One of knowledge, of complete knowledge. And so the question is here really a question inside what we can name subjective, scientific subjectivity. Is scientific subjectivity a form of desire of totality? And the desire of totality is practically always a form of the desire of power. If you accept the different forms of scientific research you accept the fact that science is an infinite task and not a task with the end in the form of a complete knowledge. We are not in the form of hubris. But, in fact, it can exist. It has existed, an hubris in the scientific subjectivity, itself in the form of the desire of a complete knowledge. That is the desire also of a form of the end of science. If science is achieved, science is complete. And so the ethical norm here is to accept the truth in fact, which is that there is no complete knowledge. It’s a phantasm, an imaginary figure. There is always new problems. And so the real existence of science is not the totality but the continuation inside, naturally, that is another question, a relationship to novelty with events and so on. But all this is precisely much more the existence of rupture in the becoming of science than the existence of a complete and total knowledge.

So, you know, the second question is also concerning hubris. I go immediately to this questions: “If hubris is the downfall of the tragic figure in the first sequence, and the tragedy of Christ was the crucifixion in the second sequence, then was Christ’s return to Jerusalem on Palm Sunday an act of hubris which Christ was punished for, ‘Father, why have you forsaken me?’” It’s a subtle question in some sense, a subtle question. In some sense the question is the question of the tragic, of tragedy, at the beginning of the question. The question is can we say that there exists a tragedy of Christ, in fact, before a question of the hubris of Christ? I think, you know, we can object to the idea that the death of Christ, the crucifixion is of a tragic nature in the sense of the old Greek tragic nature. And why? Because it’s a fact, in some sense, something dramatic, something violent, something horrible with torture, death and so on, but in another sense, the signification of all that is the redemptive nature of the death of the Christ. The center of the idea of tragedy is the lesson of the crime, the lesson of hubris is death, crime and destruction. The old Greek tragedy is the relationship between hubris and disaster, but the story of Christ is the not the relation of maybe hubris and disaster. It’s the realization of the redemption of humanity by a subjective identity of God to humanity itself because God was, between us, in the middle first, in the form of a human. So my first remark would be that in any case, we cannot say that the death of the Christ is of a tragic nature. A very important point because if we say that, we must say also that the Christian tragic is completely different from the classical tragic, that [it] is a completely new form of tragedy because [it is] a tragedy the end of which is redemption and not at all the punishment, you know? Because in tragedy we have the punishment of hubris, but in the death of Christ we have nothing like that. We have the complete achievement of the identification of God to the form of a human.

That is the first point. And the second point is, in any case, is there an hubris of the Christ? Maybe it’s a different question because maybe there is an hubris of the Christ and after that the crucifixion is not a punishment of hubris because it’s a redemption of humanity. But is there, in the life of Christ, something like an hubris? It’s an interesting question. We have no means to decide without a very close reading of the Bible, of the life of Christ. Maybe there is a moment of what we can describe like, in some sense, a negative hubris. We have said that hubris was to have faith in a new access to the infinite, to the totality, the hubris of tyranny, the hubris of the king, the hubris of the general of an army, and so on, the hubris of the conquest of the world, something like that. But the moment of weakness of the Christ is when he is thinking that he is without any access to the infinite, when he is in the idea that his relationship to the father, the God has been destroyed, has disappeared. And so the moment of the weakness of the Christ is not at all when he is in the desire of power, conquest and so on, but it is the reverse. It is a moment where he is completely reduced to a poor human condition and has lost the fundamental relationship to the father, so to the infinite after all. And so we can name maybe this sort of…anxiety, in fact, anxiety, the moment of weakness of Christ, anxiety to be separated form the father, to be abandoned by the father. But this anxiety is certainly a fall. Certainly there is something like a true weakness of the subjectivity of Christ during this moment.

And so, to conclude this subtle question, first, probably we cannot exactly identity the crucifixion of the Christ to a classical tragedy. I don’t think so, maybe a new form of tragedy, of the tragic. And after that we can identity the moment of weakness, of the wondering of Christ, not at all to a form of hubris in the classical sense, but much more in the form of despair. So, you are satisfied? You say, in fact.

After all we can open a struggle also, with Bree Wooten for example. With Bree Wooten, I have a very long text, a very interesting text, which is not properly a question, which is the organization of a critical point of view concerning, finally, my relationship to finitude, something like that. And so by a very true interpretation of some passages of Nietzsche, for example, but I can extract from all that at the end a real question, and I read the question: “I would like to hear more about how you understand the relation between infinity, equality and subtraction as well as the destiny of a body when the One is completely separated from finitude. I am also curious as to why you think being could be so vulgar as to prescribe possible finites and separate a body from what it can do in the first place, as in Plato, and also why you think our task should not be to make finitude clearer in order to generate the new.” So it’s a very strong question in the framework of the desire of a new classicism, in fact, a new classicism which is also a new reading of the old classicism with, in fact, the idea that first there is no close relationship or necessary relationship between finitude on one side and finite possibilities, that finitude can be a form of perfection by itself, that finitude can be a complete correspondence between being and existence without restriction, without saying that by doing that, in the space of finitude, you separate a body from what it can do in the first place. So it’s a very strong defense, or another approach of all that, which would be to make finitude clearer, to clarify our finitude to generate the new and not to go beyond or outside the finitude in the dialectical direction of something which is under the name of “infinite” maybe.

So, what I think is we cannot do that…wait, to finish the question, because it’s a part of the text, there is a point in the text which is important to understand completely the question, which is that…how I can summarize this difficult point?...which is an anti-dialectical vision, the idea that the dialectical vision is always to go outside the true place of the action of the body and that, in fact, when you are in the dialectical position you are reading the first sequence form the point of view of the second sequence. So you are on the side of the Christ finally. And it is why, naturally, as you know the war of Nietzsche is the war against Christianity. Why the war of Nietzsche is against Christianity is because, precisely, for Nietzsche we must return to Greece because after the Christian age, or in the Christian age, we cannot understand really what was the first sequence. And so the question is also to say that I, and many others, presuppose the second sequence in my reading of the first sequence, and we must restitute the first sequence to its authenticity, which cannot be a dialectical authenticity because the idea of a dramatic correlation between finite and the infinite and so on, all that is a characteristic of the Christian age. So the idea is that when I speak of the first sequence I speak of something completely difference of the first sequence when it is described by Nietzsche. And so the attempt of Nietzsche is to produce a possible return to the first sequence, an eternal return to the first sequence in the real strengths of the sequence and not across or with the help of the dialectical thinking of the second sequence.

And so, to summarize, the questions doesn’t say something like that, but it’s the truth of the question…I am a Christian finally, for Nietzsche. I am a Christian because I am inside a thinking of the first sequence and of finitude, which is, finally, of Christian nature. So in the end it’s a real discussion. But I think the question…in some sense it’s true – I accept. We are after the Christian age, the modern age, and we cannot return to a pure origin of finitude. But the most interesting point is not this acceptation of the historical destiny of a vision. The most important point is that the finitude in the first sequence is the finitude without any clear representation of the infinite. That is the point. And so it’s not a history of religion, all that. It’s first a history of mathematics. But why the Greeks have no idea of the infinite? Certainly because they are not in the cultural context of monotheism. They ignore, in fact, the Bible, the Jews and so on. There is a religious content in fact. But for the history of the western world, it’s not the negative aspects of the Greeks which are of importance, the mythology, the gods and so on are, for us, consequences because what is of importance? It’s the invention of a new rationalism, naturally. It is this point which is today active, the point of the invention of a new rationalism, that is, the invention of a new access to being across not only a sacred demonstration, declaration of king and queen and priest and so on, but across a discussion of definition and concepts. That is the birth of something, certainly. We can have judgments concerning this birth, but inside this birth there is precisely exclusion of the infinite because the realm of mathematics for the Greeks is limited to numbers and figures, geometry and arithmetic. And when there has been a problem concerning irrational numbers Greeks have solved the question by the reduction of all that to geometry.

So in some sense, the characterization of finitude, the intellectual characterization of finitude in the Greek world is not the completeness of finitude, but much more the absence of the infinite, the absence that is the consideration of a real infinite like something imaginary. And there exist only some limited attempts in Greek thinking to go beyond this absence, beyond the pure limitation, which we can find effectively in the idea of the Good of Plato or the God of Aristotle and some other place like that, which are something like limited anticipations of the second sequence inside the first. So today we perfectly know that it’s absolutely rational to think with the infinite and that it’s not necessary for thinking with the infinite to think with something like a transcendent god. We know all that, and it is why we cannot return to the Greek world. We cannot return to the Greek world because we have differential calculus, infinity belonging to sets of Cantor and so on and so on. We are in a context, in a general intellectual context, and in some sense there is something reactive in Nietzsche, much more than progressive. There is something reactive which is a desire of a moment where we are not in relationship to the infinite, a moment where our finitude can be a pure affirmation. And it’s why we must go not on the side of intellectual thinking, science and so on, but on the side of violence of life.

So my ultimate point would be that we must do with the infinite today. We have no choice. The pure return to the perfection of finitude is a dream, is a beautiful dream, I know, an aesthetic dream. It’s the idea that the existence must be a finitude as clear as a work of art. But the infinite is here. And it is why it’s really the dream of a poetic of life, the poetry of life, something like that. And it is why, in fact, Nietzsche was a poet. But I must say that this dream is for me too a temptation, and it’s a philosophical temptation to return to the Greeks. And why it’s a philosophical temptation? Because in the realm of finitude we have immediate connection between the question of being and the question of existence. We have the idea of a possible harmony, a possible perfection of the relationship between the two, and so the idea that our body can be not separated, in fact, of its proper possibilities. If we introduce into all the dialectical relationship of finitude and the infinite we have another situation, a situation where probably the pure affirmation of our existence as perfection is much more difficult. And it is why when we say, and we all say, all philosophers say philosophy is, the goal of philosophy is to find what is the true life, what is the good life, when we say that we are immediately in the temptation of perfect finitude. And we see the Greek sculpture and the Greek tragedy also as something which is in some sense perfection, but it’s a perfection of the first sequence. We are also, we are at a point of history.

I think Nietzsche was certainly true with one question. There is an anticipation in Nietzsche of the end of the third sequence, something like that. But probably, very often, the first form of the end of something is the nostalgia of something before. And all the sequence between Nietzsche and today is haunted by a nostalgia of Greek. That is in fact the nostalgia of perfect finitude. And the positive aspect of all that is that in fact we must go beyond the third sequence, but we must do with what exists, what is here now, not only in products, things, a form of life and so on, but also in what is the forms of rational thinking today. And we have a new status of the infinite. That is the point. From cantor we have a new status of the infinite, which is not theological, not in fact, which indicates the possibility of thinking with the infinite outside the religious framework. It was, I have said that, it was the anxiety of Cantor, the writing of Cantor to the pope to have the benediction for all that. And in fact the church gives the benediction for all that. The church today is giving its benediction to practically everything. It’s a form of weakness. But I must conclude by saying all what Bree Wooten has written in the question, inside all that, is very, very important.

So the question after that is in relationship to the three sequences. How can we pronounce “Cvejeticanin, Srdjan”? What is…we can say your name? [Badiou gestures to student]. It’s very difficult to say a name with the idea that we say something which is completely different from the name.

It’s Srdjan, Srdjan like a doctor, like a surgeon.Okay. It’s a technical, theological question. So we are on the completely other side than with the question concerning Nietzsche. It’s very interesting. [Badiou reads student’s question]. “Could you elaborate on the relation between finitude and infinite in the Christian event when we consider the doctrine of transubstantiation rather than consubstantiality of God and son?” It’s a…we return on the other side to the dialectical question, precisely, after the attempt to restitute the perfection, the possible clarification of perfection of finitude, we return to the very beginning of the dialectical thinking inside the relationship between finite and the infinite inside the Christian event. To understand this point we must clarify the dialectical distinction between consubstantiality and transubstantiation first. In fact, if we have a dialectical vision of something, here of the Christ, we have two possibilities of a description of this vision, a static one and a dynamic one. The static vision is to say that there is coexistence of two different things, two contradictory things in the same thing. So to say that being itself is divided, by it’s proper nature, between two different natures. So we have in the static vision the idea that the One has a two inside it, or, if you want, that the two is the law of the One. It’s a thinking of the One, but it’s a thinking of the One as a contradiction. So you affirm that the nature, the substance of God, of the Father, is the same as the substance of the Christ, and Father and son is a metaphor, a poetic metaphor of this identity. The Father is finally identical to the son, but it’s the point of view of substance, that is, of what is the true and static and fundamental being of God is to assume that the nature of God and the nature of the son are the same. So the One is simultaneously infinite and finite.

Naturally after that we can say that the infinite is the condition of possibility of the becoming finite, but we go to the second interpretation. In this vision the dialectical vision is to recognize that all what exists is contradictory and to see in every phenomena the specific contradiction. And, for example, God in the Christian vision is unity of the Father and the son, which are contradictory terms because one if infinite and the other is finite. But after that we can say that also society, modern society is a unity of two contradictory terms, for example, bourgeoisie and proletariat. It’s why we have the second sequence from the Christ to Marx. Abstractly we have the recognition of the contradiction. But it’s the static vision.

The dynamic vision of dialectics is somewhat different in the idea that the potency of the infinite is to become finite. So it’s the becoming which is of interest and not the difference of the terms. So the infinite, the Christ can become finite. So there is transubstantiation because one substance is able to go trans, beyond, its proper identity. And in the other sense it’s possible that something finite realizes the presence of something infinite. That is the case with the host in the Catholic ceremony. The host is a finite object of the world, but at a certain moment of the ceremony, there is a form of dialectical miracle, something like that, which is the real presence of God inside the finitude of the material object which is the host. So in that sort of dynamic vision, the point is not the strict duality in the unity of the things, but the dynamic point is the movement of the contradiction, that is, the transformation of one of the two terms into the other and with the possibility not only from the infinite to the finite, but also, and it’s much more interesting, from the finite to the infinite. And we can say that transubstantiation is a real truth of consubstantiality. It’s the dynamic truth of consubstantiality exactly like in Marxist ontology. We can describe two places. We can describe the condition of the workers and so on, and we can describe the activities of bourgeoisie. That is the first static point, but finally the most interesting is to analyze the struggle of classes. That is the point where one class is becoming in front of the other and finally suppresses or replaces the other.

So this question is really a fundamental question concerning all the dialectical process, the dialectical relationship between the infinite and the finite. And you say the extreme point of that is the Christian vision because all that is under, maintains the law of the One. The law of the One is…the relationship between the Father and the son is the determination of the potency of the One. If we separate the One and the infinite we have something different. And it’s why we have question five, the same writer, “Could you elaborate further the distinction between the Hegelian and Cantorian conceptions of infinities?” This question is a very philosophical one because it’s a question of the dialectical vision of infinity in Hegel and another vision of infinity, which begins with Cantor. It’s not very simple. It’s a technical question too. It’s not very simple. If we read different texts, the numerous texts of Hegel concerning the infinite it’s not an easy reading, to find a philosophical text so obscure and so difficult. But we can say some clear words as possible.

For Hegel, there does not exist a separate form of the infinite. That is the point. And for Cantor, there exists finally something like a separate form of the infinite because we can define what is exactly an infinite multiplicity, an infinite set, and infinite set is not at all a finite set. So the answer is possibly to say only this point. Clearly in Hegel something infinite is never separated form the finite and is a result of the movement. And for Cantor there is really a new world of the infinite in the form of a separation. But we can examine the point more precisely. In Hegel we have, I think, three different definitions, three different possible definitions of the infinite, or, much more precisely, three levels of the existence of the infinite. We have first what Hegel names a false infinite, and the beginning of the true infinite is the false infinite, naturally. So the false infinite as always in Hegel is not at all something which doesn’t exist. No. It’s the form of the infinite in the negative context of falsity, but the false for Hegel exists as truth exists. What is a false infinite? It’s exactly our series of natural numbers of yesterday. The false infinite is the pure continuation. So the false infinite is exactly the without-limit. So the false infinite is purely the repetition of the finite, the possible repetition of the finite without limit. Naturally, in Hegel we find the idea that without-limit is not a positive characterization. So the without-limit does not exist. What exists is the repetition. And so when we say that all that is infinite, there is an infinity of numbers, we say something which is false, which is not appropriate to what exists really in the situation, and what exists is a continuation of the finite and not at all something really infinite. So that is a false infinite.

After that we have the abstract infinite. The abstract infinite is the new mathematical infinite at the time of Hegel that we find in differential calculus and in new mathematical analysis. Hegel knew all that. He knew the new mathematics of his time. Here we find something infinite, which is not the continuation of a process but which is the limit of a process, is infinite a point which is the limit of a repetition as the limit of a series, in fact, in differential calculus. So something like that. We have a point here, and we have, much more, near the point and at the end the difference between two terms of the series is practically zero because we are absolutely near the limit point. You know this is not exactly the question of numbers and omega because we can have the idea to be near the limit point. Near omega has no sense at all. You take a very, very monstrous number is not nearer omega than something…so it’s, when we have that sort of series the point really is the limit point. That is, the difference between the limit point and the term of the series can be more and more small. And so this infinite is really approximated by the finite in the form of something which is more and more near the limit point.

But for Hegel this is not a false infinite because we have really something which exists, the limit point, but it’s purely abstract because the determination of the limit is, in fact, a determination of negative nature too because we cannot go to the limit. We are more and more near the limit. But we cannot go to the limit itself. So the limit is really infinite in some sense, but we have no real access to this infinity, which is like something which is inaccessible. The limit is the infinite but in the sense of inaccessibility. And so the definition of that sort of infinite is of purely mathematical nature, and it is why, finally, it is purely abstract.

And after that we have the true infinite, which is always not a pure limit but a result, a production of the finite. That is finally what Hegel names the absolute Idea, which realizes the immanent truth of the finite by successive steps. So the idea of Hegel is that the infinite, when it is not the false infinite or the abstract infinite, which exist, which are really on the way of the conception of the infinite, the infinite is only the truth of the finite, the realization of the truth of the finite. And so it’s the One in some sense, the absolute Idea, but not the One in the form of separation of the finite, but the finite realizing its proper idea. It’s an historical production of something like a consciousness of the finite itself. And Hegel has a very important and obscure formula in some sense, the infinite is in fact the absolute not only as substance but also as a subject, a fundamental formula. Realization of the absolute which is realization of the true infinite is the realization of what exists, but not only in the passive form of substance but also in the active form of subject. And it’s the imperative of the Phenomonology of Spirit of Hegel. We find the sentence “we must think the absolute not only as a substance but also as a subject.” It is why for Hegel there is always a subjective nature of the infinite, which is like a recollection of the sense and truth of the finite but not in the form of a transendency. So it’s maybe the first rational attempt after Spinoza to define an immanent God under the name of subjective absolute.

And in Cantor we have something completely different naturally. In Cantor we have the possibility to think of something infinite in a separate form without any connection to the One, and so which is not properly absolute precisely because we shall have a multiplicity, a great multiplicity of different infinities. But all that is clear. The general lesson is that with Cantor we have probably a stopping point of a part of dialectical thinking. The relationship between the finite and the infinite is not of dialectical nature in Cantor. It’s a real separation. We shall see that tomorrow. and for Hegel the infinite is the historical result of the movement of the finite. And this historical result is also the truth of the finite. And in Cantor we have a return to the separation in some sense with the problem of a separation between the infinite and the One without a classical return to finitude.

And the last question concerning the three sequences after all that…a question of…I read the new question. There is another question which is in the same scope as the last probably. [Badiou reads student’s question]. “Is it possible,” but I don’t know the writer to the question, “Is it possible to account for cosmological events, big bang, through creative repetition of the true infinite?” You? [Badiou gestures to student]. I clearly understand the question because it’s common today to speak of some events of cosmological nature in fact because we can observe…it’s an absolute change with the first sequence. In the first sequence, the world, the stars and so on, the planets are an image of stability and eternity. They are an image of the complete closed form of the world, and the movement of the stars, the movements of the planets was a sort of symbol of what, at the difference of human life, human nature and so on, is always the same. But now we know its not the case. We observe terrible catastrophes, destruction of stars, explosions and so on, and the universe is not at all the sort of great peace of the ancient world. It is a sort of anarchy with terrible facts and so on. And so it is why the idea of discontinuity, rupture, completely new things is expanded today to the universe and not only to the poor living existence of human beings. So we can examine the question of cosmological events through creative repetition, [which] can in fact be a true concept. There is something repetitive in the cosmological movements because we are in the movement of planets. There is a mathematic of all that. But in some sense there is a rupture which is the creation of something new.

The difficulty of this point is that we know these cosmological events first by retroactive construction, the case of the big bang. The big bang is much more a hypothesis than an event in fact today, and very often by indirect observation, observation of traces of something, of cosmological noise, of effects of something. It’s very difficult for us to speak of a direct observation because of the time. We observe the interplay between space and time when we observe something of cosmological nature in something very often millions and millions of years before because there is this very new fact because the signal has a certain speed and is not immediate. It’s a fact that the speed of light is not infinite. So we have the thing very often a very long time after the supposed event. So there is not for us a pure present of the event, like an historical event, like an artistic event. We are not agents of that sort of event because there is indirect observation of retroactive construction. So cosmological events are the result of deductive activities, scientific activities. Or, precisely, we affirm that an event can be the result of a calculation. So there is a difference of principle between a cosmological event, which is a construction in fact, maybe a true construction but for something which is past for a very long time, and what we name an event properly, which is precisely something which is a rupture in the historical time without any possibility to calculate this rupture.

This is the first point. So maybe we can say that it’s, for us, an hypothesis that in the cosmos there exists something like events in the proper sense. It’s an hypothesis. And precisely an event in the normal sense cannot be an hypothesis. It is, no the contrary, a pure happening. And if we say something like the big bang is a happening, we must say it in a very different sense because, finally, you see we have always historians of the cosmos, much more than contemporary. You write with some physical documents, you write the history of the cosmos, and we have events in the sense of the narrative of the cosmos.

The second point is that there exists enormous [audio unclear]. We know that the most important part of the couple material-energy, which constitutes the real of the world, is today beyond all possible access by our experience. We know that practically the most important part of the universe cannot be known by us because it’s something like black matter, anti-matter, black energy, but in the scientific jargon black signifies [that] we don’t know. Black material, black energy signifies only that we don’t know and we cannot know for the moment. So not only cosmological events are hypothesis of cosmological events, but the background of all that is we know very few, a very limited part of the universe as it is, and we don’t understand some fundamental facts. We know, for example, there exists by necessity matter and anti-matter, and we don’t know why. We don’t observe anti-matter. It’s something like half of the universe has disappeared without any hypothesis concerning this disappearance. It’s only to say that what is really the universe, the cosmos, the cosmological level, is for the moment something like a very limited knowledge.

So we continue. It’s possible to continue another ten minutes? Alohr, a new question, we enter in the second part of the questions, questions concerning the second choice to go beyond the third sequence, so two important questions concerning, finally, Spinoza, Deleuze, and so on. Tal Shamir, first, [Badiou reads student’s question] “Could you please explain your comment why there is not the possibility for creativity in the blind process of life within Spinoza and Deleuze’s systems?” And the question of Eric Lorge, “Why cannot a new concept of life, God, immanence, like Spinoza and Deleuze, be a supreme consciousness and a neutral chemical reaction. Why must it be transcendent for you?” So, two questions concerning the discussion, the very complex discussion between my orientation and the orientation of Spinoza and, in some sense, Deleuze, but in Nietzsche too and so on. But first I don’t say that a new concept of life-God must be transcendent. I accept absolutely the hypothesis, like a new concept of God, of life, to be immanent. The discussion is not between transendence and immanence for the moment. There is no irrationality in the affirmation of the existence of the One in an immanent form. And if we have the point of the immanent determination of the One, certainly the consequences can be of a different nature. We can affirm that this immanent God is a supreme consciousness. It’s not the case in Spinoza and neither in Deleuze. We can affirm that it’s a pure material process with a sort of immanent center and so on.

So the discussion is not at this level, the contestation of the rationality of this supposition. The discussion is that by life, immanence, it is signified something like the process of the One. That is the question, and it’s always this process which finally is truly infinite. The creativity of the life is the proper infinity of all limited actualization of this process. It’s clear because it’s the general example in Bergson or Deleuze. The creativity of life is that actualization of life is the infinite virtualization of forms with realization in the form of animals, bodies and so on, of limited figure of this potency. So we find here really without any discussion a relationship between the One and the multiple, which is a creative relation between the One and the multiple in the immanent creativity of the One, which is actualized, realized in some finite form, and the point is, for me, not by itself that sort of relationship between the infinite and the finite, but the fact that it’s always in the form of a connection between the One and the infinite, and so first that there is only one form of true infinity, which is named by Deleuze the One-All. there is no choice by Deleuze between the One and the totality, and it’s the same thing in Spinoza after all. God in Spinoza is the One and also the whole. Or, if you want, we can say that God is same thing as nature, this fundamental identification between God and nature is the immanentization of God, of God as the One and as the infinite and is inside nature and not outside. We have, in fact, an immanent God which is the concrete realization between the One and the infinite with the classical effect that there is only One-All, what is also in the technical vision of Deleuze the univocity of being.

So the choice here, which is much more interesting than the polemics, is to maintain the relationship, the identity between the One and the infinite with the price you pay that you have a totality at the end. We have a totality at the end, which is precisely the concrete existence. The totality is the One-All. We have totality of Spinoza’s substance. We have a totality which is precisely the realization of the intimate connection between the One and the infinite, and in this totality we have no place for something like a contradiction, development, multiplicity inside the infinite as such. In Deleuze the infinite in fact is the general virtuality of what is actualized in the One-All. That is the point of the choice, and so I think, I maintain that in this vision we cannot have true creativity in my sense, naturally, because creativity, for me, is under the condition of the possibility of a rupture, but a true rupture cannot be assumed if you have the creativity, if the law of creativity is the totality itself. That is the point. If the totality realized inside the One, all the virtualities of the totality, it’s creativity in the sense of repetition, creativity in the sense of immanent creativity, which is purely and simply the existence of the All-One. The All-One is the development, the existence of forms, of new things and so on, but it’s not the creativity in the possibility of a local new, which is the expression of the totality. It’s the point. Creativity can be the expression of totality itself. It’s the position of many great thinkers from Spinoza first, under the historics before, until Deleuze. But, for example, if we, the conclusion for Deleuze is that, strictly speaking, there exists only One event. He writes that explicitly. And it’s true because it exists only the evental capacity of the totality as such. So only all events are ontologically repetition, expression, of the fundamental event, which is the creative nature of the totality.

And so I don’t agree with all that. I cannot say something else because there is always a limit in the critiques. If there is no limit we realize a general harmony without difficulty. And I don’t…because I think that we must have another vision of creativity, and we can have another vision of creativity, which is that something which is purely local, localized, without any relationship to a global creativity can create something. That is the point. So it’s a theory of discontinuity. So the point is here is creativity always a relationship to a totality and so to a form of continuity of the creative activity? Is something creative, can be or not, a purely local disposition? So we have opposite problems. In fact, you see, to Spinoza, to Deleuze, to Nietzsche, the difficulty is to explain why there exists something which is not of creative nature, naturally, because the totality itself is of creative nature. So the difficulty to explain why we have so suddenness, repetitions, and so on, why there is locally something like an interruption of the creativity of life. And it is why the history of Nietzsche is the history of negation, why there exists reactive forces, and why there exists the Christ and so on, and its forms of alienation and negativity.

For me this is not the problem at all. The problem is why and hoe can exist creativity in a world, which is absolutely neutral without any totality. I don’t see the world and the cosmos and so on as a creative totality. I see it is a purely neutral combination of multiplicities, and the laws of the world are absolutely arbitrary. There exists gravitation and so on, and all that is without any signification for our creativity after all. There is a certain number of planets, and we have poems concerning the moon and the sun, but the moon and the sun don’t wait for poems. It’s very simple, but it’s true. So when we create something, for example, a magnificent poem concerning the moon it’s not because there is something creative in the moon, not at all, neither in the moon, neither in the earth, neither in the relationship. The creativity is a local one where somebody in the relationship to the existence of the moon, certainly, proposes something which is absolutely new concerning this relationship. But this relationship is not inscribed in the totality itself. The totality itself, finally, is something neutral. I don’t affirm that the totality is negative. I think that the totality, the cosmos or as you want, is neither positive nor negative. There is something indifferent in the world as it is in the totality, but locally we can assume the creation of something new. You can observe an event. You can have consequences of something new and to do, to create the creativity.

There is really two different thinkings, that what we can do, which is universal taking this word, what we can do, which is universal, so which is really interesting for everybody at the end, is prepared somewhere. It’s a conception of the virtual existence of the creativity in the totality. But I think that it’s not the case. There is rupture and there is true beginning. There is true beginnings, true discontinuities, and after that we observe, rupture, discontinuity, we can do something with the discontinuity or nothing. It’s a pure proposition. But there is no general affirmation of all what exists. In Nietzsche we find the idea of a big “yes” to the world, but it’s not my vision to say a big “yes” to what exists, a big “no” very often, and sometimes a big “yes.” But the idea to go to a point where we are in the joy of the eternal return of the same and that…it’s naturally, if the totality is creative by itself, we must have the joy of the eternal return of the same, that is, the return of the affirmative dimension of the totality. I agree with that, but under the condition, the first condition, that finally we have in the natural totality something which is the fusion of the One and the infinite and of the potentiality of all that. But if not, if the vision of the world is that the world is composed of multiplicities and multiplicities, and all that under it’s proper laws completely indifferent to our destiny, I cannot desire to say a big “yes” to the eternal return of the same. I hope, I desire, that the world as it is does not return to the same. It’s true.

I understand the poetry of the thinking of Nietzsche and Deleuze. There is something poetic because poetry is always to find new words to say the world as it is. Poetry is in the search of new reasons to agree of the existence. There is something in poetry which is affirmative. And so it’s a poetic philosophy to search, in fact, in the world itself, in being itself, new reasons to find a new form of joy, a new form of affirmation, and at its poetic level, it’s also a temptation. I agree with that because I love poetry, but as my master Plato has said from the beginning, philosophy is cautious concerning poetry. Philosophy is cautious. It was not an idea against poetry. Everybody knows that Plato loves first poetry and writes poetry and that in the texts of Plato himself we find many passages which are purely poetic. But inside that we cannot go directly without any critique, without any observation, without saying what, in mathematics and so on, what are the political questions and all that. We cannot say that there exists a good totality, which poetically dictates our vision. It’s a lyrical possibility. It’s not a philosophical possibility. And it is why we must separate philosophy from poetry. After that we can return to poetry as a condition. We can understand that in poetry something is said which is very important. But first we must separate. And so it was a necessity for Plato because everybody was educated by poetry. Homer was the great teacher of Greece. Everybody knows absolutely the Iliad and so on, and the separation was also a didactic problem, a problem of education, if we want philosophy we must separate philosophy. We must accept that to say something we must have first a discussion of concepts, and the magnificent vision of poetry is a temptation, but the philosophic price is always a new conception of totality, the beautiful totality. In many complex forms, maybe the virtual of Deleuze, maybe the eternal return of the same of Nietzsche, maybe the cosmos of the historics, but finally we have summarized that. It’s very beautiful, but maybe philosophy is not here to be beautiful, but to be true. Okay, we stop here.