Table of Contents

AcknowledgementsINTRODUCTIONThe Category of Formalization: From Epistemological Break to Truth ProcedureI. Ideology and Epistemological BreakII. Formalization: Subtraction and ForcingIII. On Objectless MaterialismsIV. Structural MaterialismV. Ontological MaterialismVI. 'The Chief Defect of All Hitherto Existing Materialism'VII. From Machinic Psychosis to Subjective Fidelity: 'Marque et manque,' and L'etre et l'evenementVIII. The Structure of Philosophical Intervention, and its Use of Formal InscriptionIX. Note on the TranslationTHE CONCEPT OF MODELForeword1. A few Preliminaries Concerning Ideology2. On the Theses to be Defended in the Sequel3. On Certain Uses of Models thatare Not in Question Here4. On a Purely Ideological Use of the Word 'Model'5. The Scientific Concept of Model andthe Neo-positivist Doctrine of Science6. Construction of the Concept of Model7. Construction of the Concept of Model8. Construction of theConcept of Model9. The Category of Model andMathematical Experimentation10. The Category of Model and theHistorical Time of Mathematical ProductionAppendix1: The goal2: Description of the apparatus PS3: Every theorem of PS is purely logical4: Deduction theorem5: The relative consistency of certain extensions of PS6: The scope of the completeness theorem7: The lindenbaum lemma8: The completeness theorem[Supplement]AN INTERVIEW WITH ALAIN BADIOUThe Concept of Model, Forty Years Later: An Interview with Alain BadiouBibliographyAbout the Authors

About the Author

Alain Badiou was born in Rabat, Morocco in 1937. He studied at the Ecole Normale Superieure in the 1950s and, from 1969 until 1999, taught at the University of Paris VIII (Vincennes-Saint Denis) before returning to ENS as the Chair of the philosophy department. Much of Badiou's life has been shaped by his dedication to the consequences of the May 1968 revolt in Paris. Long a leading member of Union des jeunesses communistes de France (marxistes-leninistes), he remains, with Sylvain Lazarus and Natacha Michel, at the centre of L'Organisation Politique, a post-party organization concerned with direct popular intervention in a wide range of issues, including immigration, labor, and housing. Alain Badiou is the author of several successful novels and plays, as well as more than a dozen philosophical works.Zachary Luke Fraser teaches in the Contemporary Studies and History of Science and Technology Programmes at the University of King's College in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where he lives with his wife, Shan Mackenzie-Fraser, and their four children, two dogs and two cats. He has written extensively on Alain Badiou and Jean-Paul Sartre, and is the author of "The Law of the Subject" in The Praxis of Alain Badiou, also published by re.press. His current research is taking place through the Philosophy and the History of Science and Technology departments at Dalhousie University and King's College, where he is working towards a logical formalization of the archaeology of knowledge.Tzuchien Tho is a graduate student of Philosophy at the University of Georgia (USA) and University of Paris X. He is currently writing a dissertation of Leibniz and working on questions surrounding infinitesimals, Platonism and early modern mathematics and metaphysics.

Reviews

"This excellent translation of Alain Badiou's first book, The Concept of Model, is important on two counts. First, it constitutes a significant contribution to the philosophy of science (and to the philosophy of mathematics in particular), in which Badiou critically engages with the logical empiricist tradition which exerted such a profound influence on Anglo-American philosophy of science. Second, it sheds light on the epistemological considerations that eventually led to Badiou's subsequent but much misunderstood identification of ontology with mathematics. This book is not only indispensable for those seeking to understand Badiou's philosophical project, it should also be of considerable interest to anyone interested in investigating points of contact between the 'analytic' and 'continental' traditions." - Ray Brassier, Middlesex University