This is the first complete English translation of the work that immediately followed Badiou's magnum opus, "Being and Event" in which Badiou provides an overview of what he sees as the four great conditions of philosophy - this book is therefore central to an understanding of Badiou's whole philosophical project. Alain Badiou is without doubt the most important and influential thinker working in European philosophy today. "Conditions" is the first major collection of essays written after "Being and Event", his extraordinary magnum opus. Beginning with a sustained critique of the so-called 'end of philosophy', the book goes on to propose a new definition of philosophy, one that is tested with respect to both its origin, in Plato, and its contemporary state. The essays that follow are ordered according to what Badiou sees as the four great conditions of philosophy: philosophy and poetry, philosophy and mathematics, philosophy and politics, and philosophy and love. Conditions provides an illuminating reworking of all the major theories in "Being and Event". In so doing, Badiou not only develops the complexity of the concepts central to "Being and Event" but also adds new ones to his already formidable arsenal. The essays contained within "Conditions" reveal the extraordinary and systematic nature of Badiou's philosophical enterprise.
Translated by Steven Corcoran