The political regime of global capitalism reduces the world to an
endless network of numbers within numbers, but how many of us really
understand what numbers are? Without such an understanding, how can we
challenge the regime of number? In Number and Numbers Alain Badiou
offers an philosophically penetrating account with a powerful
political subtext of the attempts that have been made over the last
century to define the special status of number. Badiou argues that
number cannot be defined by the multiform calculative uses to which
numbers are put, nor is it exhausted by the various species described
by number theory. Drawing on the mathematical theory of surreal
numbers, he develops a unified theory of Number as a particular form
of being, an infinite expanse to which our access remains limited.
This understanding of Number as being harbours important philosophical
truths about the structure of the world in which we live. In Badiou's
view, only by rigorously thinking through Number can philosophy offer
us some hope of breaking through the dense and apparently impenetrable
capitalist fabric of numerical relations. For this will finally allow
us to point to that which cannot be numbered: the possibility of an
event that would deliver us from our unthinking subordination of
number.
Les mer
Produktdetaljer
ISBN
9781509534067
Publisert
2018
Utgave
1. utgave
Utgiver
Vendor
Polity
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Digital bok
Forfatter