ANGEL AK I

journal of the theoretical humanities

volume 10 number 2 august 2005

One establishes oneself within science from the

start. One does not reconstitute it from scratch.
One does not found it.
Alain Badiou, Le Concept de modèle1

[T]here are no crises within science, nor can

there be, for science is the pure affirmation of
difference.
Alain Badiou, ‘‘Marque et manque’’ 2

i introduction ray brassier

hroughout Badiou’s work, mathematics
T enjoys a privileged status as paradigm of
science and of ‘‘scientificity’’ in general. This BADIOU’S
has been a constant, from his first significant
philosophical intervention, the 1966 article ‘‘The MATERIALIST
(Re)Commencement of Dialectical Materialism,’’3
notable for the way in which it already prefigures EPISTEMOLOGY OF
his subsequent (career-spanning) preoccupation MATHEMATICS
with the relation between set-theory and category-
theory, to his most recent work, wherein Badiou
finally establishes a philosophical connection epistemology’’ of mathematics in his first book,
between these two branches of mathematics The Concept of Model (1969). But first we shall
by arguing that the doctrine of being, laid out consider a second quote, from an interview with
via set-theory in Being and Event4 (1988), needs to Peter Hallward in 1998: ‘‘In the final analysis,
be supplemented by a doctrine of appearance that physics, which is to say the theory of matter, is
mobilizes category-theory, as Badiou does in his mathematical. It is mathematical because, as the
forthcoming Logics of Worlds.5 Two quotes, theory of the most objectified strata of the
separated by over thirty years, are indicative of presented as such, it necessarily catches hold of
Badiou’s unwavering commitment to the paradig- being-as-being through its mathematicity.’’7 This
matically scientific status of mathematics. The first latter claim encapsulates an argument about the
is from the aforementioned 1966 article: relation between mathematical ontology and the
‘‘[U]ltimately, in physics, fundamental biology, natural sciences implicit (though never explicitly
etc., mathematics is not subordinated and expres- articulated) in Badiou’s most ambitious work to
sive, but primary and productive.’’6 We shall try to date, Being and Event. Summarizing very briefly,
explain what this primacy of mathematical we can say the following: for Badiou axiomatic set-
‘‘productivity’’ entails for Badiou by examining theory is the science of being as sheer multiplicity,
his early attempt to develop a ‘‘materialist the science of the presentation of presentation

ISSN 0969-725X print/ISSN 1469-2899 online/05/020135^16 ß 2005 Taylor & Francis and the Editors of Angelaki
DOI: 10.1080/09697250500417357

135
 badiou’s materialist epistemology

(rather than of what is presented); in other words, analysis and reductionism, the nature of induc-
the science that guarantees access to presented tion, the status of scientific law, inference to the
reality.8 Thus not only does the Zermelo–Fraenkel best explanation, etc.), this is not only because
axiomatization of set-theory provide the funda- mathematics functions as a synecdoche for science
mental infrastructure to which all of mathematics in Badiou but also because his Platonist materi-
can be reduced, it is also the guarantor for the alism challenges those empiricist doxas (princi-
mathematical sciences’ access to reality. Conse- pally the distinction between ‘‘formal’’ and
quently, the implication would seem to be that, for ‘‘material’’ sciences) that, precisely because of
Badiou, the ‘‘scientificity’’ of a given science is their uninterrogated but constitutive role in the
directly proportional to its mathematization: debates that characterize ‘‘philosophy of science,’’
science is ‘‘scientific’’ precisely to the extent that have filtered down into the branch of the latter
it is mathematical. By the same token, the less a known as ‘‘philosophy of mathematics.’’11 In this
science depends upon mathematical formalization, regard, we shall find it instructive to contrast
the less scientific it is. Hence Badiou’s deferential Badiou’s materialist critique of what he regards
nods towards physics and his notorious disdain for as the ideological distinction between ‘‘real’’ and
biology, ‘‘that wild empiricism disguised as ‘‘ideal,’’ common to empiricism and idealism,
science.’’9 But surely the claim that mathematics with Quine’s celebrated intra-empiricist sub-
provides the sciences with their ultimate horizon version of the analytic/synthetic distinction.
of scientificity is damning evidence of Badiou’s Early in The Concept of Model, Badiou,
stubborn adherence to an unreconstructed (not to alluding to Althusser, reminds us that ‘‘To talk
say anachronistic) ‘‘Platonist’’ and ‘‘foundational- of science [la science] in the singular is an
ist’’ conception of science; one which privileges an ideological symptom.’’12 There are only sciences,
‘‘ideal’’ and ‘‘a priori’’ mathematical realm of in the plural. Yet the synecdochal status of
scientificity over science’s ‘‘empirical’’ and ‘‘mate- mathematics vis-à-vis the sciences seems to engen-
rial’’ dimensions, and attempts to ground the der a paradox whereby everything Badiou has
latter’s access to reality in the former?10 to say about ‘‘the sciences’’ is encoded in his
Yet, as we shall see, it is precisely such statements about one of them, mathematics. How
foundationalism, as well as all such distinctions can Badiou reconcile his materialism, which
between a priori and a posteriori, ideal and real, insists on the irreducible plurality of sciences,
formal and material, that Badiou explicitly sets out with his Platonism, which ascribes a paradigmatic
to undermine through the materialist epistemol- status to mathematics? The answer lies in under-
ogy of mathematics laid out in The Concept standing how, for Badiou, Platonism is precisely
of Model. Badiou’s materialist critique of the what recuses the empiricist distinction between
ideological substructure which tacitly governs the thought and object.13 Mathematics is neither
aforementioned continuum of distinctions merely a formalist game, the arbitrary manipula-
(formal/material, ideal/real, a priori/a posteriori) tion of intrinsically meaningless symbols, nor a
common to empiricism and idealism (indeed, for quasi-supernatural mystery presided over by a
Badiou, idealism is merely a variant of empiri- select priesthood who enjoy a privileged vantage
cism) furnishes the key required in order to make onto a transcendent realm of eternal objects. What
sense of his subsequent – and apparently start- singularizes mathematics as paradigm for science
lingly eccentric – claims on behalf of the privi- is rather the exemplary nature of its autonomous
leged status of mathematics in Being and Event. productivity. As we shall see, for Badiou, mathe-
If it is difficult to extract from Badiou’s work matical productivity (and a fortiori, scientific
a ‘‘philosophy of mathematics’’ conforming to the productivity) consists in cutting or differentiating
norms of the academic sub-discipline of the same the notational material upon which it operates.
name, or to render some of his philosophical Science is the production of stratified differences.
claims about science intelligible in terms of the We shall dissolve the apparent contradiction
debates that define the field known as ‘‘philosophy between Badiou’s ascription of a synecdochal
of science’’ (e.g., realism vs. instrumentalism, status to mathematics vis-à-vis the sciences, and

136
 brassier

his insistence on the latter’s essential plurality, by We shall begin by recapitulating Badiou’s
showing how for Badiou mathematics is not an critique of bourgeois epistemology. Ideological
a priori formal science grounding the empirical formations are structured as continuous combina-
sciences’ access to reality but rather the tions of variation on a difference whose principle is
paradigmatic instance of a productive experimen- presupposed but never given in the series which it
tal praxis. This is the materialist dimension of governs.18 It is a characteristic of such formations
Badiou’s Platonism. that their notional variants are incapable of
examining or legitimating their own underlying
principle. The unthematized variational principle
ii the formal and the empirical
governing bourgeois epistemology is the notional
In The Concept of Model, Badiou is operating difference between theoretical form and empirical
under the aegis of two fundamental distinctions: reality: science is a formal representation of its
1. The Althusserian distinction between object, whether the representation be characterized
‘‘historical materialism,’’ understood as the in terms of the effective ‘‘presence’’19 of the object,
Marxist science of history, and ‘‘dialectical materi- as is the case with empiricism, or in terms of the
alism,’’ understood as the latter’s philosophical anteriority of a formal apparatus, i.e., of the
counterpart.14 mathematical code whereby the object is repre-
2. Badiou’s own distinction between ideologi- sented, as is the case with formalism (Badiou seems
cal notions, philosophical categories, and scienti- to have structuralism specifically in mind here).
fic concepts. But in either case what must be borne in mind,
Philosophy, constituted by its reactive and/or Badiou insists, is that ‘‘[E]mpiricism and formal-
parasitic relation to scientific innovation on the ism have no other function here besides that of
one hand, and its subservience to dominant being the terms of the couple they form. What
ideological interests on the other, is defined as constitutes bourgeois epistemology is neither
the practice of an ‘‘impossible relation’’ between empiricism, nor formalism, but rather the set of
science and ideology.15 For the most part, philo- notions through which one designates first their
sophy consists in the ideological envelopment of difference, then their correlation.’’20 Thus the
science: philosophical categories denote ‘‘inexis- materialist critique of bourgeois epistemology
tent’’ objects wherein concepts and notions are must first identify the hidden theme, whose
variously combined.16 Informed by the Marxist characteristic structure is that of a differential
science of history, the task of a materialist correlation between two opposed terms, governing
philosophy (as opposed to a ‘‘philosophy of the ideological continuum of notional variants.
matter,’’ which merely synthesizes an inexistent Badiou identifies a canonical variant of this theme
category ‘‘matter’’ through the notional envelop- in the opposition between Carnap and Quine
ment of physico-biological concepts) is to expose regarding the status of the distinction between
and critique the reactionary ideologies encoded in formal and empirical sciences. In ‘‘The Logical
various ‘‘philosophizations’’ of science and to Foundations of the Unity of Science,’’21 Carnap
supplant them by materialist categories capable begins by positing the difference between formal
of being deployed in the service of revolutionary and empirical sciences before proceeding to seek
ideology (philosophy, according to a famous rules of reduction governing the conversion of the
Althusserian slogan, being ‘‘the class struggle in terms of one empirical science into another.
theory’’).17 Badiou’s aim in The Concept of Carnap argues that biological terms are convertible
Model is to isolate the scientific – i.e., logico- into physical terms: Physics provides a sufficient
mathematical – concept of model from its notional basis for the reduction of biology.22 Thus the
envelopment by the categories of bourgeois language of science can be unified in so far as a
epistemology – central to which is the distinction ‘‘physicalist’’ language provides a universal basis
between the ‘‘formal’’ and the ‘‘empirical’’ – and for reduction for all the empirical sciences. Finally,
to construct a category of model consonant with a Carnap’s project – and more generally, the logical
materialist history of the sciences. empiricist approach to the issue of the unity of

137
 badiou’s materialist epistemology

science – culminates in the question of the relation linked with any particular statements in the
between the fundamentally ‘‘physicalist’’ language interior of the field, except indirectly through
of empirical science and the ‘‘artificial’’ languages considerations of the equilibrium affecting the
of the formal sciences; in other words, the relation field as a whole.25
between the synthetic statements of the former and Thus although acknowledging the under-
the analytical statements of the latter. But this is, of determination of scientific theory by empirical
course, precisely the distinction that Quine calls evidence, Quine refuses to abjure what Donald
into question in his celebrated 1951 article ‘‘Two Davidson subsequently criticized as the ‘‘third’’
Dogmas of Empiricism.’’23 According to Quine, and ultimate dogma of empiricism: the dualism of
the notion of ‘‘analyticity’’ cannot withstand conceptual scheme and empirical content.26 In
critical scrutiny: it relies on a notion of ‘‘syno- demolishing the analytic/synthetic distinction on
nymy,’’ i.e., ‘‘sameness of meaning,’’ which in turn empiricist grounds, Quine rejects Carnap’s positi-
presupposes a theoretically transparent account of vist ‘‘double standard’’ in the treatment of
the intensional dimension of ‘‘meaning.’’ Quine scientific hypotheses on one hand, and ontological
challenges the intelligibility of the former and questions on the other.27 No hard-and-fast divid-
the possibility of the latter. While the notion of ing line can be drawn to demarcate scientific
linguistic ‘‘extension’’ or reference can be hypothesizing from ontological speculation.
rendered logically transparent, ‘‘intension’’ under- Coupled with the Quinean doctrines of the
stood as a noematic entity tethered to the linguistic indeterminacy of translation, which claims that
sign by noetic intention is simply ‘‘what reference is inscrutable unless relativized to a
[Aristotelian] essence becomes when it is divorced specific semantic coordinate system, and ontolo-
from the object of reference and wedded to the gical relativity, which insists that ‘‘to be is to be the
word.’’24 Such a dubious metaphysical doctrine value of a variable,’’ this scheme/content dualism
(‘‘the ‘idea’ idea’’) cannot provide a reliable leads Quine to embrace an epistemological relati-
warrant for the notion of analyticity. Moreover, vism according to which the difference between
Quine goes on, the dogma of the analytic/synthetic Homeric gods and protons is merely one of degree
distinction is indissociable from another empiricist rather than kind: ‘‘Both sorts of entities enter our
dogma, the dogma of reductionism, manifested in conception only as cultural posits.’’28 Whatever
Carnap’s belief in the possibility of decomposing superiority the myth of physical objects enjoys
the truth of scientific statements into a formal or over that of the Homeric gods comes down to a
linguistic component on the one hand, and a question of usefulness:
factual or empirical one on the other. Pace
Carnap, Quine insists on the intrinsically holistic As an empiricist, I continue to think of the
character of the conceptual scheme called conceptual scheme of science as a tool, ulti-
‘‘science’’ and maintains that it is impossible to mately, for predicting future experience in the
light of past experience [. . .] The myth of
separate in it the contribution of language (i.e.,
physical objects is epistemologically superior to
conceptual convention) from the contribution of most in that it has proved more efficacious than
experience (empirical data): other myths as a device for working a manage-
able structure into the flux of experience.29
The totality of our so-called knowledge or
beliefs, from the most casual matter of geogra- Thus pragmatism is revealed as the truth of
phy and history to the profoundest laws of
Quinean empiricism. Quine proposes to supplant
atomic physics and even of pure mathematics
Carnap’s logical empiricism with a pragmatism
and logic, is a man-made fabric which impinges
upon experience only along the edges [. . .] But
which plainly exposes the point at which
the total field is so underdetermined by its empiricism cannot but concede its own constitu-
boundary conditions, experience, that there is tive subordination to ideological imperatives
much latitude of choice as to what statements whose status it is incapable of problematizing.
to re-evaluate in the light of any single contrary If Quine sees no need for philosophy to investigate
experience. No particular experiences are the mechanism of conceptual correlation whereby

138
 brassier

‘‘cultural positing’’ is supposedly adjusted writing in the late 1960s, this strategy is exempli-
to ‘‘empirical usefulness,’’ this is because the fied by the conjunction between cybernetics
putative transparency of that mechanism reveals and empiricism, and, more specifically, by the
how empiricism remains conditioned by a set of integration of AI research into the programme of
ideological norms whose structure it cannot naturalized epistemology spawned by Quine.31
perceive. Thus the opposition between Carnap The goal of the latter consists in explaining the
and Quine remains internal to an empiricist congruence between the world and its scientific
problematic structured around a difference representation by elaborating a scientific theory of
between fact and form which neither can afford representation. The scientific modelling of reality
to question. In this regard, Quine’s audacious is explained in terms of neurocomputational
subversion of the analytic/synthetic distinction processes which are themselves part of science:
obscures and perpetuates the more fundamental scientific representation is integrated into
difference between formal and empirical which the science of representation (which is itself a
underlies it. Quine merely negates a distinction representation of science).32 Thus in a surprising
which Carnap seeks to reduce: ‘‘Whereas that empiricist mimesis of the serpent of absolute
reduction is essential to Carnap’s discourse, all knowledge swallowing its own tail, naturalized
that matters in Quine’s is the justification of the epistemology seeks to construct a virtuous circle
claim that it is not necessary to reduce what can wherein the congruence between fact and form is
be conveniently denied.’’30 Quine’s negation is explained through the loop whereby representa-
convenient because it leaves empiricism’s own tion is grounded in fact and fact is accounted for
ultimately empirical yet empirically imperceptible by representation. As Badiou puts it: ‘‘If science
condition of possibility untouched. For Quine, as is an imitative artifice [artisanat], the artificial
Badiou points out, it comes to the same thing imitation of this artifice is, in effect, Absolute
whether one says that the empirical is a dimension Knowledge.’’33 Thus the ideological deployment
of the formal, or the formal a dimension of the of the category of model allows empiricism to
empirical. Quine’s naturalization of epistemology progress from positivism to a pragmatist variety of
and his doctrine of the reciprocal containment of absolute idealism.
epistemology and ontology entail that the philoso- But for Badiou this pragmatist idealism and the
phical investigation into the scientific representa- empiricist representation of representation con-
tion of the world be carried out from within the comitant with it remain beholden to ideological
ontological framework provided by science doxas which, despite the latter’s reflexivity, they
itself. As we shall see in section iii, logical are incapable of registering. The idealization of
empiricism appropriates the scientific (i.e., logico- science as imitative artifice occludes its reality
mathematical) concept of model but overcodes it as process of cognitive production, which Badiou
in terms of the formal/empirical distinction in maintains should not be understood in terms of
such a way that it is no longer the formal that a confrontation between formal operations and
models the empirical (as in vulgar empiricism) a pre-existing empirical reality but rather as a
but rather the empirical that models the formal theoretical practice developing demonstrations
(as it does for Carnap). Quine’s naturalization of and proofs within a determinate historical materi-
epistemology and subversion of the analytic/ ality whose structural specificity is itself the object
synthetic distinction reveals one way of over- of a science: historical materialism. Only in light of
coming this formal/empirical dichotomy without the latter does epistemology become sensitive to
relinquishing empiricism: by grounding the the relation between science and its ineliminable
formal modelling of the empirical in an empirical ideological representation without relapsing into
modelling of the formal. In other words, by historicism (which is itself a variant of empiricism
proposing as ultimate horizon for naturalized for Badiou). Moreover, the pragmatist usage of the
epistemology the construction of a scientific category of model elides the distinction between
model of science’s model-constructing capacity cognitive production and the technical regulation
in general. For Badiou in Concept of Model, of concrete processes. This latter elision is

139
 badiou’s materialist epistemology

exemplified by economics, where the use of with naturalism and hence refuses to reintegrate
models consists in passing off the discipline’s the sciences (i.e., mathematics) into a broader
own technical subservience to conditions of evolutionary and ultimately biological narrative
production as the timeless necessity of a specific about the development of human cognitive
type of economy, whose benefits the models prowesses. For Badiou, the irreducible variety of
exemplify. Here again, Badiou insists, the task of scientific practices each harbour discontinuous
materialist epistemology consists in exposing the historicities that remain internal and immanent
representational idealization of science as imitative to each of them; historicities which cannot be
artifice by providing an account of the autonomy reabsorbed into an all-encompassing bio-
of scientific practice vis-à-vis its ideological repre- evolutionary narrative about the human organ-
sentation while acknowledging its constitutive yet ism’s ‘‘science-forming’’ faculties. In this regard,
non-empirical historicity. notwithstanding a justifiable aversion to spur-
Ultimately, every variant on the fundamental iously ‘‘totalizing’’ evolutionary narratives, and
theme of empiricism, which consists in the even though viable evolutionary accounts of the
difference between fact and form, is faced with mathematical sciences (arguably the most specta-
the problem of how to articulate the unity of that cular manifestation of human cognitive prowess)
difference. For vulgar empiricism, the unity of the remain a very distant prospect, Badiou’s apparent
duality of fact and form is posed in terms of the refusal to countenance any mediating nexus
question of the model’s reproduction or functional between natural history and the science of history
simulation of reality. Thus an extrinsic relation betrays an all-too-ideological antipathy to biology
of analogical resemblance is invoked in order to – as though in spite of Darwin, biology still
bridge the gap between the supposedly inert harboured too many residues of its Aristotelian
opacity of empirical fact on the one hand, and inception for even a heterodox Platonist to
the active construction of theoretical form on stomach. But however unappetizing the prospect
the other. Here, of course, the precise nature of the of a naturalized epistemology may be to Badiou in
desired ‘‘resemblance,’’ ‘‘simulation,’’ or ‘‘repro- its pragmatist idealist guise, once one has
duction’’ remains vague and ambiguous. For the discounted transcendentalism, as Badiou has, it
brand of pragmatist idealism spearheaded by becomes difficult to reconcile insistence on the
Quine, however, the unity of the difference can autonomy of the sciences as discrete registers of
be unearthed by sealing the gap, by replacing cognitive production with an unqualified disdain
congruence with reciprocal presupposition, for the one scientific discourse that is in a position
by supplanting ‘‘resemblance’’ and ‘‘simulation’’ to mediate between natural and cognitive produc-
with isomorphy, and by ensuring the double tion, or phusys and praxis. For is it not precisely
articulation of fact and form. No longer inert the appeal to an absolute (theological) cleavage
and passive, the structure of the empirical itself between two fundamentally different kinds
generates the form of representation that will of history, natural history and cultural history,
account for it. Here, evolutionary epistemology or hyletic history and noetic history, that Darwin
and ultimately natural history provide the revoked?
explanatory fulcrum for explaining the relation
between empirical fact and theoretical form.
iii the concept of model
As we shall see in section iv, Badiou’s own
stance in Concept of Model exhibits both surpris- Throughout this section, I will simply be reca-
ing parallels and profound divergences with pitulating the main features of Badiou’s own
Quine’s. Like Quine, Badiou insists on philoso- meticulous reconstruction of the mathematical
phy’s dependence upon science and on the concept of model. Since I am not qualified to
immanent autonomy of scientific thought. Like judge the exactitude of Badiou’s handling of
Quine, he refuses any recourse to a science- the mathematical details, I shall confine myself
transcendent philosophical foundationalism. to summary and paraphrase and reserve my
But unlike Quine, Badiou will have no truck own appraisal of Badiou’s philosophical claims

140
 brassier

to section iv, in which I shall consider the constructing the concept of model. This is that
account of the historical materiality of mathe- every deducible expression (or theorem) of the
matical productivity which Badiou proposes in system be linked to a ‘‘true’’ expression in the
light of the scientific theory of modelling outlined structure that serves as its domain of interpreta-
below. tion. Badiou emphasizes that the use of the term
‘‘true’’ in this logico-mathematical context is not
syntax and semantics intended to carry any ideological-philosophical
baggage; it is simply defined in terms of a
Badiou’s account of the difference between the functional division enforced by a formal mechan-
category and the concept of model provides the ism that invariably distinguishes between two
key to understanding how logical empiricism classes of expression: ‘‘true’’ (or ‘‘demonstrable’’
effectively recodes the distinction between the or any other equivalent scientific valence) state-
syntactical and semantic dimensions of logico- ments on the one hand; ‘‘false’’ (or ‘‘indemon-
mathematical systems in terms of the distinction strable’’ etc.) statements on the other. If every
between formal and empirical science. In a given deducible expression in the system can be made to
formal system, the set of rules specifying the correspond to a ‘‘true’’ statement in the domain of
difference between well-formed and illicit com- interpretation, then the latter is effectively a model
binations of symbols, how expressions are to be of the formal system. The reciprocal of this claim
formed and connected to or derived from one is stronger: if for every true statement in the model
another, defines the system’s syntactical aspect. there corresponds a deducible expression in the
The rules of deduction or syntax of a formal system, then the system is said to be ‘‘complete’’
system allow one to derive theorems from an initial for this particular model.35 There is, in effect, a
set of axioms. But not all the well-formed expres- whole gamut of semantic properties which can be
sions in the system can be theorems, otherwise studied using mathematics: in so doing one
every expression would be legitimate and the rules effectively catalogues the properties of the scien-
of deduction would be redundant. Thus there must tific concept of model.36
be at least one theorem which cannot be derived Logical empiricism exports this concept into
from the axioms by way of the rules of deduction. epistemology by characterizing science’s purely
This is a formal requirement necessary in order to mathematical or ‘‘formal’’ dimension as its syntac-
ensure the consistency of the system.34 Moreover, tical aspect, and by designating its experimental or
in order to verify that a syntactical construction is ‘‘material’’ aspect as a semantic interpretation of
not entirely arbitrary and that a formal system its formal dimension. Whereas science’s formal/
actually expresses a specific deductive structure, it theoretical dimension is said to be governed by the
is necessary to establish a relation of correspon- demands of consistency, its empirical/experimen-
dence between expressions of the system and tal aspect is said to necessitate an examination of
expressions belonging to a well-defined domain concrete models. Experimental apparatuses are at
of ‘‘objects.’’ Obviously, neither analogy nor once instruments for constructing such models
resemblance suffices when it comes to defining and the realm within which to deploy the rules of
this relation; what are required are well-defined correspondence between formal calculation and
rules of correspondence. Everything pertaining concrete measurement.37 The choice of scientific
to these correspondence rules will relate to the theory is constrained by the experimental model
semantics or the interpretation of the system. and correspondence rules on the one hand, and by
Given this characterization of semantics, ‘‘mean- the system and its syntactical rules on the other.
ing’’ has a purely extensional character: to talk of Thus, in Carnap’s Meaning and Necessity,38 for
the semantics or meaning of a system is to talk of example, science is structured by the interplay
its various interpretations as governed by these between the constraint of syntactic deduction
rules of correspondence. Once one has defined and the exactitude of semantic interpretation.
the rules of semantic correspondence for a But for Carnap, unlike vulgar epistemology, it is
system, one possesses the basic requirement for the empirical that functions as a model for

141
 badiou’s materialist epistemology

syntactical artifice, rather than the reverse. of model. Every well-formed expression of the
Whereas the vulgar epistemological category of system should consist of a denumerable or, in the
model is forced to rely on para-theoretical notions case of most systems, finite series of indecom-
of ‘‘resemblance,’’ logical empiricism is able to posable symbols. It is a condition for the scientific
characterize the appropriate epistemological theory of models that the formal language of the
criteria governing the relation between science’s system not be continuous. Just as the recourse
formal and empirical aspects in terms of demon- to set-theory proved necessary for the scientific
strable theoretical properties such as that of characterization of semantics, there is an unavoid-
syntax’s completeness relative to a given model. able recourse to the mathematics of whole
Nevertheless, we shall see below why this is still numbers (and to recursive arithmetic in particu-
not enough to legitimate its appropriation of the lar) in the conception of syntax. The deployment
concept of model. of a scientific concept of model necessarily
presupposes the existence (or ‘‘validity’’) of
system and structure these mathematical practices. This explains
the remark which served as the first of our
The three prerequisites for the concept of model two epigraphs by Badiou: ‘‘One establishes oneself
are: (1) a formal system comprising a (finite) set of in science from the start. One does not reconstitute
symbols (logical operators, individual constants it from scratch. One does not found it.’’
[a, b, c . . .], predicates [P, Q, R . . .], individual Third, it is important to note the intra-
variables [x, y, z . . .]) þ rules of formation þ rules syntactical distinction between the system’s logical
of deduction þ a list of axioms; (2) a structure and mathematical axioms. A logical axiom is one
which provides the domain of interpretation for whose functioning depends solely on the logical
the system, and which is defined as a non-empty connectives which figure in it and remains
set V comprising a list of individual elements unaffected by substitution of the fixed constants
and a list of subsets þ two supplementary (individual or predicative) contained in it. A
marks ‘‘True’’ and ‘‘False’’; (3) a correspondence mathematical axiom is one which singularizes at
function  mapping individual constants of the least one of the fixed constants that figure in it by
system to some element of V, and predicative separating it from at least one other; thus it is
constants of the system to some subset of V. sensitive to their substitution.
With regard to the above, there are three Given these prerequisites, the construction of
important remarks to be made. First, the use of the concept of model proceeds in the following
the concept of set is absolutely decisive. The vague way. Using the set-theoretical resources of the
notion of a ‘‘domain of objects’’ is dangerously structure and the correspondence function , one
equivocal and tainted with empiricism. Only if the defines the validity and invalidity of a well-formed
notion of interpretative domain is cashed out in expression of the system relative to the structure.
terms of the mathematical concept of set can the One then specifies the conditions under which a
concept of model be scientifically articulated. particular structure is a model for the system by
The scientific status of ‘‘semantics,’’ and hence establishing a relation between syntactic dedu-
of the concept of model, depends upon the former cibility (i.e., the fact that an expression A is a
being established within an existing branch of theorem of the system) and semantic validity (i.e.,
mathematics, so that the rules governing the the fact that A is valid for a structure, or a
interpretation of a formal mathematical system particular type of structure, or even any structure
are formulated within a (non-formal) branch of whatsoever). A ‘‘closed instance’’ of the expression
mathematics itself. A is an expression of the type A(a/x) (b/y) (c/z),
Second, the stipulation that the list of formal wherein all of A’s free variables have been replaced
symbols comprised by the system be finite means by constants. The following definition of ‘‘valid-
that they should be denumerable using natural ity’’ can then be proposed: an expression A in the
whole numbers. This is another indispensable system is valid for a structure if, for every closed
requirement for the construction of the concept instance A0 of A, one obtains A0 ¼ True for that

142
 brassier

structure. More particularly, a closed expression A experimental property whereby a purely logical
is valid if A ¼ True since it has no other closed system, all of whose axioms are logical, contains no
instances apart from itself (nothing in it is semantic indication of its models. Since every
substitutable).39 One can then use this definition structure is a model for such a system, the concept
of validity to demonstrate that if the axioms of a of model is not logically discernible from that of
system are valid, all the theorems of that system structure for it. Accordingly, it is mathematical
are also valid. In effect, since a deduction begins axioms that suspend this semantic indiscernibility
with an axiom, and subsequently comprises of logical structure by effectuating the inscription
nothing but axioms or expressions derived from of a structural gap between syntactic system and
previous expressions via the application of the semantic structure; a gap within which the concept
rules of deduction, then, if the axioms are valid, of model comes into play. Thus the concept of logic
every expression used in the deduction is also neither transcends nor subsumes mathematics; it
valid. Thus the correspondence function  which remains inseparable from the couple which it
sustains the procedures of evaluation allows us forms with the latter. The contrast between the
to infer from the syntactic concept of deduc- logical and the mathematical is a syntactical
ible statement (theorem) the semantic concept redoubling of the semantic distinction between
of statement-valid-for-a-structure. This allows structure and model. Given two structures whose
Badiou to propose the following definition of difference is indexed by the fact that one of them is
model: ‘‘A structure is the model of a formal a model for a given formal system while the other is
theory if all the axioms of that theory are valid for not, it becomes possible to classify the axioms of
that structure.’’40 the system into those that are logical and those that
are mathematical. The former index the unity of
the logical and the mathematical system and structure while the latter index their
difference.42 Thus ‘‘[a] model is the mathemati-
The distinction between logical and mathematical cally constructible concept of the differentiating
axioms can be characterized semantically in terms power of a logico-mathematical system.’’43
of the scope of their respective validities: whereas
logical axioms are valid for every structure, a
mathematical axiom is valid only for particular
experimentation and demonstration
structures. Thus, from a semantic point of view, The double occurrence of the term ‘‘mathematics’’
logic is equivalent to the ‘‘systematicity’’ of in the formulation quoted above indexes the way
structure as such, whereas mathematics is equiva- in which the means of mathematical production,
lent to the theory of the types of structure.41 But namely the conjunction of experimentation and
this is not to say that logic enjoys some putatively demonstration, are themselves mathematically
‘‘trans-historical’’ status as condition of possibility produced. This double articulation cannot be
for mathematical rationality as such; or that it must transplanted outside of mathematics or duplicated
always already be there as the condition for, rather in the relation between a supposedly formal theory
than the result of, the history of reason. In order to and its putatively material instantiation. Thus,
overcome this dichotomy between logicist trans- given the manner in which the construction of
cendentalism and historicist relativism, Badiou the concept of model depends at every step on
suggests that logic itself be conceived as doubly the double articulation between two particular
articulated between syntactic system and semantic branches of mathematics, namely recursive
structure. The opposition between history and a arithmetic and set-theory, it is profoundly
priori is circumvented by the relation of reciprocal misleading to claim, as some philosophers do,
presupposition between the logical practice inher- that the concept of model indexes formal thought’s
ent in every semantic demonstration and the relation to its (empirical/material) ‘‘exterior.’’
experimental construction of particular logical Extra-systemic (structural) inscriptions are only
systems. Thus the ‘‘trans-historicity’’ of logic can capable of providing a domain of interpretation for
be scientifically accounted for in terms of the those of the system according to a mathematical

143
 badiou’s materialist epistemology

envelopment which subordinates the former to the structure, but from structure to system, from
latter. Syntax is an arithmetical discipline; seman- model to theory and back again in ceaseless
tics a set-theoretical one.44 The theory of the dialectical interplay. The historical reality of
apparatuses of inscription conceived as mathema- mathematical production does not confront us
tical objects is arithmetical. It allows one to engage with the challenge of testing the theory through
in an ordering and inductive numbering of the the model, but of testing the model by means
experimental set-up; to evaluate its power and of the theory. The problem faced by actually
complexity through reasonings bearing on the existing mathematical practice, as opposed to its
structure of inscription which the system either epistemological idealization, consists in specifying
allows or prohibits. By way of contrast, the theory the formal theory modelled by the historical
of the usage of these apparatuses, conceived as plurality of structures, in identifying the appro-
experimental operations, classifies the regions of priate syntactic signature – i.e., the formal theory –
the mathematical material which is to be processed for a given type of structure. This is the problem of
by the apparatus; this is the aim of the concept of mathematical formalization. If ‘‘[s]emantics is an
structure, which is itself produced by the most experimental protocol,’’46 this is not, Badiou
general, most all-enveloping mathematical theory insists, because a model is an experimental realiza-
produced thus far: set-theory.45 tion of a formal system, but because, on the
The sole basis for the unity-in-difference contrary, it is a structure embodying a conceptual
of syntax and semantics lies in the intra- demonstration whose experimental verification is
mathematical relation between the arithmetical carried out by means of inscription in a formal
material and the set-theoretical material. Any syntax. The formal system is retrospectively
attempt to export the concept of model outside constituted as the experimental moment, the
the mathematical realm violates this necessarily material linkage of verification, in the wake of the
intra-mathematical relation and is thus illegiti- conceptual demonstration articulated in the model.
mate. In this regard, logical empiricism’s attempt Thus formalized syntaxes are materialized theories:
to export the mathematical concept of model into means of mathematical production just like the
epistemology is doubly illegitimate. First, because vacuum tube or particle accelerator for physics: ‘‘It
it tries to theorize science in general on the basis of is precisely because it is itself a materialized theory,
a difference between syntax and semantics that is a mathematical result, that the formal apparatus is
merely an ideological distortion of the regional and capable of entering into the process of the produc-
intra-mathematical distinction between recursive tion of mathematical knowledge; a process in which
arithmetic and set-theory. Second, because its the concept of model does not indicate an exterior
conception of empirical facts as models for to be formalized but a mathematical material to
formal theories is merely an analogon for the be tested.’’47 It is the system that is formalized
intra-mathematical correspondence between by means of the demonstration provided by
system and structure and fails to register the the model. Formalization proceeds through
crucial respect in which the modelling of a formal the experimental verification of the conceptual
system constitutes a means for experimenting demonstration provided by the model. The latter
upon and ultimately transforming the rigour or provides the material to be tested by its inscription
generality of that system. This perpetual labour in a formal system:
of intra-mathematical transformation becomes
inoperative in cases where the putative domain [T]he philosophical category of effective proce-
dure, of what is explicitly calculable through
of interpretation is not already mathematical
a series of unambiguous scriptural manipula-
and hence semantically assignable as capable of
tions, lies at the heart of all mathematical
corresponding to a syntactical apparatus. epistemology. This is because this category
Thus, contrary to what the ideological appro- distils the properly experimental aspect of
priation of the theory of modelling suggests, mathematics, that is to say, the materiality of
scientific practice does not proceed from formal its inscriptions, the montage of notations
theory to concrete model, or from system to [. . .] Mathematical demonstration is tested

144
 brassier

[s’éprouve] through the rule-governed transpar- slightest prospect of recentering the detestable
ency of inscriptions. In mathematics, inscrip- figure of Man: the sign of the nothing.’’50
tion represents the moment of verification.48 Badiou’s recurrent emphasis on the materiality
of logico-mathematical inscription in these early
Thus the formal system provides the instrument
epistemological writings seems to effect a critical
of experimental inscription required in order to
conjunction of Lacan’s theses about the agency of
verify the conceptual demonstration deployed
the letter and Derrida’s claims about the dissemi-
in the structure of the model; but this verification
in turn becomes a means of formalization. natory force of archi-writing. Logico-mathematical
Demonstration and formalization are bound inscription circumvents the metaphysical primacy
together in a material dialectic of reciprocal of the linguistic signifier via a ‘‘stratified multi-
presupposition. It is this dialectic, and the plicity’’51 of differential traces which ‘‘no signify-
mechanism of inscription upon which it depends, ing order can envelop’’;52 one which pulverizes the
that lie at the heart of Badiou’s claims about presence of the object – ‘‘Neither the thing nor the
the historical materiality of mathematical object has any more existence here than has their
production. traceless exclusion’’53 – and dissolves the unity of
the subject:
iv the historicity of mathematical [T]here is no subject of science. Infinitely
production stratified, adjusting its transitions, science is a
pure space, without a reverse or mark or place
Badiou’s reconstruction of the concept of model
of what it excludes. It is foreclosure, but
provides the basis for the construction of a
foreclosure of nothing, and so can be called
category of model which is to be mobilized the psychosis of no subject,54 hence of all; fully
within a dialectical-materialist account of the universal, shared delirium, one only has to
historicity of scientific practice. Badiou is explicit install oneself within it to become no-one,
about the structure of his argument: there can be anonymously dispersed in the hierarchy
no question of using the concept of model as the of orders. Science is an Outside without a
basis for a theory of mathematical historicity, blind-spot.55
which would amount to a transparently ideological
misappropriation of a scientific concept; rather, it Here, we encounter all the essential features of
is a question of deploying an explicitly materialist Badiou’s Platonist materialism: scientific thought
category of model on the basis of a theory of is outside, beyond the enclosure of ideological
the historicity of mathematical science already representation; not because the subject of science
implicit in Badiou’s preliminary critiques of the enjoys intuitive access to a realm of transcendent
notional uses and abuses of the concept of model. objects, but on the contrary, because the remorse-
The ‘‘materiality’’ of mathematical practice is lessly mechanical ‘‘rule governed transparency’’
not to be understood as an analogue of the of logico-mathematical inscription dissolves the
inexistent philosophical category ‘‘matter,’’ but consistency of the object and the coherence of the
rather as an index of the scriptural production of subject in the infinitely stratified multiplicity of
difference. This account of scriptural materiality scientific discourse. The immanent autonomy of
is, so to speak, the esoteric subtext of Badiou’s scientific discourse, its non-representational char-
materialist epistemology of science. It has to be acter, is a consequence of its machinic nature,
reconstructed on the basis of various suggestive since ‘‘[a] formal system is a mathematical
but elliptical hints scattered throughout Concept machine, a machine for mathematical production,
of Model and another roughly contemporaneous positioned within that production.’’56 But
(i.e., 1967–69) text, the extraordinary ‘‘Mark and the means of mathematical production are them-
Lack: About Zero.’’49 At the conclusion of the selves produced; the mathematical machine
latter, Badiou writes: ‘‘Science is the veritable or instrument is also a mathematical product,
archi-theatre of writing: traces, crossed out traces, a result: there would be no formal systems
traces of traces; movement wherein there is not the without recursive arithmetic, and no rigorous

145
 badiou’s materialist epistemology

experimental protocols for such systems without For Badiou, then, the materialist category of
set-theory. model designates formalism’s own retrospective
Yet it is because this scientific reproduction of causality upon its own scientific history, which
the means of production harbours a constitutive conjoins an object (a model) and a usage (a
historicity that science’s self-reproduction is inher- system). The historicity of formalism consists in
ently differential. Or rather, it is the inherently the ‘‘anticipatory intelligibility’’ of what it retro-
differential (dialectical) nature of scientific spectively constitutes as its own model.59
reproduction that generates its historicity. The Ultimately, the fundamental epistemological
perpetual dialectic of demonstration and experi- problem is not that of the nature of the represen-
mentation is the motor of scientific history. tative relation between the model and the
Scientific re-production is self-differentiating concrete, or between the formal and the model;
because of the way in which science itself inter- rather, ‘‘[t]he problem is that of the history of
venes within a determinate epistemological formalization.’’60 The materialist category of
conjuncture by means of formal experimentation. model proposed by Badiou designates the mesh-
Thus, for example, by proving the consistency of work of retroactions and anticipations from which
a model of axiomatic set-theory with the Axiom the history of formalization is woven; the history
of Choice and the Continuum Hypothesis, Gödel of its anticipatory cuts and its retrospective
demonstrates that these two axioms can be reconfigurations.61 The historicity of scientific
integrated into the formal theory without com- (re-)production is constituted by this differential
promising its coherence. He thereby provides a meshwork of epistemic cuts and reconfigurations.
conceptual sanction for mathematical practice: Thus there is no need to invoke empirically
‘‘In doing so, [Gödel’s experimentation] trans- arbitrary, para-theoretical ‘‘paradigm shifts’’ to
forms, not the theory, but the status of the theory account for the structural discontinuities that
within the historical process of the production of punctuate scientific history. Discontinuity is
knowledges.’’57 Given a mathematical configura- already inherent in the immanent conceptual
tion inscribed within the history of that science, to mechanisms of scientific practice, for ‘‘science is
treat it as a model of a formal system is to situate precisely that which is ceaselessly cutting itself
its specificity by transposing it beyond the narrow loose from its own indication in re-presentational
ambit of the spontaneous illusions engendered by space [i.e., ideology].’’62 This is the key to under-
its singular production and into the wider mathe- standing the second of our introductory epigraphs:
matical space constituted by the various models of ‘‘[T]here are no crises within science, nor can
the system. Consequently, the experimental appa- there be, for science is the pure affirmation of
ratus is a nexus of practices. The double articula- difference.’’
tion of formal experimentation and conceptual Contra naturalism, the ‘‘science’’ within
demonstration becomes the driving force for which Badiou recommends thought establish
science’s own epistemic interventions within itself in spite of the otiose prevarications of
determinate historical configurations. In the transcendentalism cannot be mistaken for its
history of a science, the experimental transforma- empiricist representation or conflated with an
tion of practice via a determinate formal apparatus ambient scientific worldview, a diffuse ideologi-
retrospectively assigns the status of model to those cal distillate synthesized from various
antecedent instances of practice. Conversely, scientific disciplines (such is the composition
conceptual historicity, which is to say the ‘‘produc- of Neurath’s boat); rather, it is an entirely
tive’’ value of formalism, derives both from its autonomous, ceaselessly self-differentiating
theoretical dependency as an instrument and from mode of theoretical practice
the fact that it possesses models, i.e., that invariably defined by a
it is integrated into the conditions of the produc- specific historical conjunction
tion and reproduction of knowledge: as Badiou between conceptual demon-
states: ‘‘[s]uch is the practical guarantee of formal stration and formal experi-
set-ups.’’58 mentation.

146
 brassier

notes 4 L’Être et l’événement (Paris: Seuil, 1988). An

English translation by Oliver Feltham is due to be
1 Le Concept de modèle. Introduction à une published by Continuum in 2006.
épistémologie matérialiste des mathématiques
[The Concept of Model: Introduction to a 5 Logiques des mondes (Paris: Seuil, 2005). For an
Materialist Epistemology of Mathematics] (Paris: introduction to the latter, see the ‘‘Logics of
Maspero, 1969) 42. It is important to bear in mind Appearance’’ section in Badiou’s Theoretical
that, in the context in which Badiou is writing here Writings, eds. R. Brassier and A. Toscano
(i.e., the context defined by the work of Althusser, (London: Continuum, 2004) 163^231.
Bachelard, and Canguilhem),‘‘epistemology’’ refers 6 Badiou, ‘‘Le (Re)Commencement du material-
to the ‘‘theory of science,’’ and not the ‘‘theory of isme dialectique’’ 464.
knowledge’’ as commonly understood in Anglo-
American academic philosophy. According to the 7 ‘‘Politics and Philosophy: An Interview with
latter, epistemology is concerned principally with Alain Badiou,’’ Angelaki 3.3 (1998) 127.
problems concerning the nature of rationality, 8 Cf. Being and Event, Introduction (Paris: Seuil,
belief, truth, scepticism, etc. ^ problems whose 1988) 7^27.
philosophical scope far exceeds that of ‘‘philosophy
of science’’ proper. Thus the question about ‘‘how 9 Alain Badiou,‘‘Mathematics and Philosophy: The
science represents the world’’ is subsumed by the Grand Style and the Little Style’’ in Theoretical
larger issue concerning the precise nature of the Writings, eds. R. Brassier and A.Toscano (London:
epistemic relation between mind and world. But Continuum, 2004) 16.
for Badiou, as well as for Althusser, Bachelard, 10 Daniel Smith provides a sophisticated variant
and Canguilhem, such questions cannot be the of this particular criticism whilst delivering a
concern of epistemology proper since they sharp rejoinder to Badiou’s reading of Deleuze
remain fatally enmeshed in the empiricist preju- in ‘‘Badiou and Deleuze on the Ontology of
dices of representationalism, which can only Mathematics’’ in Think Again: Alain Badiou and
obstruct proper philosophical understanding of the Future of Philosophy, ed. P. Hallward (London:
scientific theory and practice. One suspects that Continuum, 2004) 77^93. Smith elaborates on the
further investigation into the deeper conceptual Deleuzian distinction between ‘‘royal’’ and ‘‘minor’’
ramifications harboured by this seemingly trivial (or ‘‘nomad’’) science by developing a highly illumi-
nominal difference would go a long way towards nating contrast between the ‘‘axiomatizing’’ and
explaining the fundamental philosophical diver- ‘‘problematizing’’ tendencies in mathematical prac-
gence between the concerns of post-Bachelardian tice. He then uses this distinction as an interpreta-
‘‘epistemology’’ in France and those of Anglo- tive prism through which to correct what he takes
American ‘‘philosophy of science.’’ to be Badiou’s misreading of Deleuze, and criticizes
2 ‘‘Marque et manque: A propos de ze¤ro’’ [Mark the former for his narrowly ‘‘royalist’’ conception
and Lack: About Zero], Cahier pour l’analyse no. of science and his exclusively ‘‘axiomatic’’ charac-
10 (1969) 165. Badiou’s article is actually dated terization of mathematics. Yet although this
‘‘January 1967,’’ though it was not published until distinction between axiomatics and problematics
1969. ^ partially rooted in the work of Albert Lautman
^ is undoubtedly of considerable philosophical
3 ‘‘Le (Re)Commencement du mate¤rialisme dia- significance, it is doubtful that it can be used to
lectique,’’ Critique no. 240 (1966): 438 ^ 67. defend Deleuze against Badiou in the way that
Ostensibly a review article focusing on three Smith attempts to do here. One cannot help
works (Althusser’s Pour Marx (Paris: Maspero, suspecting that the distinction between ‘‘proble-
1965) and ‘‘Mate¤rialisme dialectique et mate¤rial- matics’’ and ‘‘axiomatics,’’ like that between
isme historique,’’ Cahiers Marxistes-Léninistes no. ‘‘minor’’ and ‘‘royal’’ science upon which it is based,
11 (Apr. 1966); and Lire Le Capital by Althusser, is merely a reiteration (rather than an independent
Balibar, Establet, Macherey, and Rancie¤re, 2 vols. conceptual legitimation) of the Deleuzian distinc-
(Paris: Maspero, 1965)), this early piece not only tion between intensive and extensive multiplicities
provides a magisterial critical overview of the (or open and closed, smooth and striated, virtual
Althusserian project but is also a powerfully origi- and actual, etc.); the fundamental distinction
nal philosophical intervention in its own right. around which Deleuze’s entire philosophy is

147
 badiou’s materialist epistemology

coordinated but whose necessity Badiou ^ regard- is not until 1998’s ’’Platonism and Mathematical
less of the undeniable infelicities in his reading Ontology’’ (in Theoretical Writings 49^58) that
of Deleuze ^ is surely entitled to call into ques- Badiou explains how his conception of Platonism
tion. Invoking the rights of problematics against subverts the basic distinction between thought
axiomatics in order to defend the necessity of the and object, which in Husserlian phenomenology
distinction between intensive and extensive multi- is given a more subtle characterization in terms
plicities will prove to be of no avail if the former of the correlation between ‘‘noesis’’ and ‘‘noema.’’
distinction turns out to be a restatement of the
14 The characterization of historical materialism
latter.
as a ‘‘science’’ of history is obviously contentious,
11 Indeed, there seem to be legitimate grounds for particularly in light of Badiou’s implicit identifica-
claiming that ‘‘philosophy of science’’ as we know it tion of mathematics with scientificity; moreover,
was spawned by a particular philosophical doc- it is one to which I believe he no longer subscribes,
trine: logical empiricism. Thus in his contribution but I shall not question it here. Be that as it may,
to the MIT anthology The Philosophy of Science, Badiou’s emphasis on the specific mode of concep-
co-editor Richard Boyd declares: tual ‘‘productivity’’ which he discerns in mathe-
matical practice is obviously tied to the central
Almost all work, foundational or applied, in
role of productivity in historical materialism.
English-language philosophy of science
during the present [twentieth] century has 15 Badiou, Le Concept de modèle 62.
either been produced within the tradition of
logical empiricism or has been written 16 Badiou gives three examples: the Platonic
in response to it. Indeed it is arguable category of ‘‘ideal number’’ denotes an inexistent
that philosophy of science as an academic ‘‘adjustment’’ between arithmetical concepts and
discipline is essentially a creation of logical hierarchical moral-political notions; the Kantian
empiricists and (derivatively) of the philoso- categories of ‘‘space’’ and ‘‘time’’ combine
phical controversies it sparked. (Richard Newtonian concepts with notions that are relative
Boyd, ‘‘Conf|rmation, Semantics, and the to human faculties; and the Sartrean category of
Interpretation of Scientif|c Theories’’ in ‘‘History’’ combines Marxist concepts with
The Philosophy of Science (Cambridge, MA: metaphysico-moral notions such as temporality,
MIT P,1991) 3) freedom, etc. Regarding the second of these
examples, it should go without saying that Badiou
12 Badiou, Le Concept de modèle 12. The Concept is using the term ‘‘category’’ here in a sense
of Model originated as Badiou’s contribution to entirely distinct from Kant’s and is perfectly well
a seminar series set up by Althusser entitled aware that for Kant space and time are ‘‘forms of
‘‘Cours de philosophie pour scientifiques’’ intuition’’ rather than ‘‘categories.’’
[Course in Philosophy for Scientists] at the E¤cole 17 As we shall see, the true philosophical index of
Normale Supe¤rieure during the 1967^ 68 academic
‘‘materiality’’ in this conjunction between histori-
year. Althusser’s first four lectures in the series,
cal and dialectical materialism is that of the
to which Badiou is alluding here, were entitled
‘‘productivity’’ of a given theoretical practice. As
‘‘Philosophy and the Spontaneous Philosophy of
Badiou states: ‘‘The reality of the epistemological
the Scientists’’ and can be found in his Philosophy
materialism which I am trying to introduce here is
and the Spontaneous Philosophy of the Scientists
indissociable from an effective practice of science’’
and Other Essays (London: Verso, 1990) 69^144.
(Le Concept de modèle 29).
Althusser’s fifth lecture in the same series was
entitled ‘‘Du cote¤e de la philosophie’’ [On the Side 18 Badiou, Le Concept de modèle 12.
of Philosophy] and published posthumously in
19 The use of the term ‘‘presence’’ here is perhaps
vol. II of his Écrits philosophiques et politiques
intended as an allusion to Derrida’s work, with
[Philosophical and Political Writings] (Paris: Stock/
which Badiou was certainly already familiar (cf.,
IMEC, 1997) 265^308. Badiou may also be alluding
for instance, Badiou, ‘‘Le (Re)Commencement du
to a passage here that occurs on page 277.
mate¤rialisme dialectique’’ 445); one possible impli-
13 Here we have an example of how a thesis which cation being that the deconstruction of logo-
has been central to Badiou’s work from the begin- centrism can be enlisted as part of the critique of
ning is not stated explicitly until much later.Thus it empiricist epistemology.

148
 brassier

20 Badiou, Le Concept de modèle 9. 28 Ibid. 44.

21 Reprinted in The Philosophy of Science, eds. 29 Ibid. 44.
R. Boyd, P. Gasper and J.D.Trout (Cambridge, MA:
30 Badiou, Le Concept de modèle 11.
MIT P,1991) 393^ 404.
31 A conjunction which birthed cognitive science,
22 Carnap is careful to distinguish between unifi-
and whose most distinguished contemporary
cation couched in terms of the logical reducibility
representative is arguably Daniel Dennett.
of terms, which he endorses, and unification
understood as the derivation of the laws of 32 See, for example, Paul Churchland, A
one science (e.g., biology) from those of Neurocomputational Perspective: The Nature of
another (e.g., physics), about which he expresses Mind and the Structure of Science (Cambridge,
reservations: MA: MIT P, 1989), or more recently, Jean-Pierre
Changeux, The Physiology of Truth: Neuroscience
[T]here is a common language to which both
and Human Knowledge (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
the biological and the physical laws belong
UP, 2004).
so that they can be logically compared and
connected. We can ask whether or not a 33 Badiou, Le Concept de modèle 21.
certain biological law is compatible with the
34 Badiou examines this fundamental formal
system of physical laws, and whether or not
requirement at length in the appendix to Concept
it is derivable from them. But the answer to
of Model 69^90.
these questions cannot be inferred from the
reducibility of the terms. At the present 35 In his famous theorem of 1931, Go«del demon-
state of the development of science, it is strated the incompleteness of the formal system
certainly not possible to derive the biological of arithmetic, i.e., of a formal system capable
laws from the physical ones. Some philoso- of being modelled by ‘‘classical’’ or recursive
phers believe that such a derivation is forever arithmetic, by showing how its model contains a
impossible because of the very nature of true statement for which there is no correspond-
the two f|elds. But the proofs attempted so ing deducible theorem in the system. Thus a
far for this thesis are certainly insuff|cient. system may be consistent but incomplete, or
(Carnap, ‘‘Logical Foundations of the Unity complete but inconsistent, but it cannot be both
of Science’’ in The Philosophy of Science, consistent and complete. Cf. ‘‘On Formally
eds. R. Boyd, P. Gasper, and J.D. Trout Undecidable Propositions of Principia
(Cambridge, MA: MIT P,1991) 403) Mathematica and Related Systems’’ reprinted in
Frege and Gödel: Two Fundamental Texts in
23 In From a Logical Point of View, 2nd ed. Mathematical Logic, ed. Jean Van Heijenoort
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP,1980) 20 ^ 46. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP,1970) 87^107.
24 Willard Van Orman Quine, ‘‘Two Dogmas of 36 Cf. Badiou, Le Concept de modèle 24 ^25.
Empiricism’’ in ibid. 22.
37 Cf. ibid. 25.
25 Ibid. 43.
38 Rudolf Carnap, Meaning and Necessity
26 Donald Davidson, ‘‘On the Very Idea of a (Chicago: U of Chicago P,1956).
Conceptual Scheme’’ in Enquiries into Truth and
39 Cf. Badiou, Le Concept de modèle 41.
Interpretation (Oxford: Clarendon, 1984) 183^98.
Although I cannot do so here, it would be instruc- It should be noted that this procedure is
tive to compare and contrast Davidson’s critique constructed by means of recurrence over
of Quine’s scheme/content dualism with Badiou’s the ‘‘length’’ of expressions, i.e. over the
critique of empiricism. Despite the semblance of a number of symbols which constitute them.
shared antipathy to empiricism, Badiou’s definition One begins with elementary expressions of
of the latter is wider ranging than Davidson’s and the type P(a), which are directly evaluated
I suspect the latter’s work would still seem all in the structure, by examining the eventual
belonging of a’s semantic ‘‘representative’’ to
too empiricist to Badiou.
the subset of the universe represented by
27 Quine,‘‘Two Dogmas of Empiricism’’ 45^ 46. P. One then adjusts the procedure which

149
 badiou’s materialist epistemology

allows one to evaluate an expression A on 56 Badiou, Le Concept de modèle 54.

the basis of the (supposedly acquired) evalua-
57 Ibid. 64.
tion of the shorter expressions contained in
A, or contained in its closed instances. Thus 58 Ibid. 67.
the evaluation of
B is carried out on the
59 Ibid. 67.
basis of the evaluation of B, while that
of (Ex)B is carried out on the basis of 60 Ibid. 68.
B(a/x), etc. The conviction that these rules
61 Ibid. 68.
guarantee the existence of an evaluation for
an expression of any length whatsoever 62 Badiou,‘‘Marque et manque’’ 165.
amounts to admitting the legitimacy of
reasoning by recurrence over whole
numbers (in this case, over the number of
symbols that enter into the composition of
an expression). (Badiou, Le Concept de
modèle 42)

40 Ibid. 44.
41 Ibid. 44 ^ 45.
42 Ibid. 47^ 48.
43 Ibid. 52.
44 Ibid. 55.
45 Ibid. 55^56. Significantly, Badiou also mentions
category-theory here as a potential rival to set-
theory in terms of all-enveloping generality.
46 Badiou, Le Concept de modèle 48.
47 Ibid. 58.
48 Ibid. 34.
49 Cf. n. 2 above. Not least among this text’s
many extraordinary features is its remarkably illu-
minating analysis of Go«del’s famous incomplete-
ness theorem, and its penetrating critique of
certain popular philosophical misinterpretations
of Go«del’s work.
50 Badiou,‘‘Marque et manque’’ 164.
51 Cf. ibid.
52 Ibid.163.
53 Ibid.156. Ray Brassier
Centre for Research in Modern European
54 An allusion to Jacques-Alain Miller’s claim that Philosophy
‘‘[E]very science is structured like a psychosis’’ in Middlesex University
‘‘L’Action de la structure’’ [The Action of
Trent Park
Structure], Cahiers pour l’analyse no. 9 (1968);
Bramley Road
reprinted in Miller’s Un début dans la vie (Paris:
Le Promeneur, 2001) 57^79.
London N14 4YZ
UK
55 Badiou,‘‘Marque et manque’’ 162. E-mail: [email protected]