Volume 12, Issue 2, Fall/Automne 2008
Tzuchien Tho
Pages 70-92
The Consistency of Inconsistency
Alain Badiou and the Limits of Mathematical Ontology
Alain Badiou’s reception in the English-speaking world has centred on his project of a “mathematical ontology” undertaken in Being and Event. Its reception has raised serious concerns about how mathematics could be relevant to concrete situations. Caution must be taken in applying mathematics to concrete situations
and, without making explicit the equivocal senses of “consistency” as it operates in Badiou’s thought, this caution cannot be precisely applied. By examining Being and Event as well as looking backwards at his first philosophical work, The Concept of Model, some key distinctions on the meaning of “consistency” will be clarified.