Metapolitics

About the book

In this follow-up to his highly acclaimed volume Ethics, Alain Badiou discusses the limits of political philosophy. Metapolitics argues against the idea that politics is merely an object for philosophical reflection, an approach that reduces politics to a matter of opinion, eliminating any of its truly radical and emancipatory possibilities. Badiou proposes instead a notion of politics in terms of universal truths and the affirmation of equality. He demands that the question of a possible political truth be separated from any notion of consensus or public opinion, and that political action be rethought in terms of the complex process that binds discussion to action. Starting from this analysis, Alain Badiou critically examines the thought of Sylvain Lazarus, Jacques Ranciere's writings on democratic dissensus, the role of the subject in Althusser, as well as the concept of democracy and the link between truth and justice.