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January 22, 2005
Zero and lack
This has been the most difficult part so far to translate (and, of course, comes with my usual caveat lector clause attached) since it is Badiou's reading of a text saturated with lacanian sophistry/profundity (delete as applicable).
It will be heartening to the reader to know in advance (as I didn't) that although Badiou gives the thesis which would correlate number with the 'suturing placeholder of lack' a serious and attentive reading, this is only in order to finally dismiss its relevance to the thinking of number per se. That his elegant argument in doing also serves to bring into focus yet more his own insistence on the independence of the being of number (independence, even, from truth; independence, certainly, from functionality) is in itself an argument for taking the time to read this chapter (to say nothing of my self-inflicted suffering in making it - hopefully - comprehensible in english ;)
Very happily, part 4 returns to mathematicians, namely Dedekind.
Posted by undercurrent at January 22, 2005 05:18 PM
Comments
Noticed you'd done this a few days ago - unlike the Houellebecq book, am pretty sure no one has published/or will soon publish an English translation of this yet - you could check if Clinamen or anyone might want it. I think Umbra (US journal) may have printed extracts from it, but if you were bothered about trying to find a publisher, you might well be the first!
Thanks for the effort, btw, is very useful to have English translations alongside the original.
Posted by: infinite thought at January 24, 2005 10:44 PM
yeah, if you can send me any useful email addresses it would be appreciated, might as well give it a try after all this work!
I had originally thought this would be something of a specialist oddity, but the further you go, the more deeply it seems to go to the heart of Badiou's thought (at least, all the bits that interest me...) All this, and a textbook on set theory too!
Posted by: u/c at February 4, 2005 10:00 AM