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From Logic to anthropology: affirmative dialectics Alain Badiou The fundamental problem in the philosophical field today is to find something like a new logic. We cannot start out from considerations on politics, life, creation or action. We must first describe a new logic, or, more precisely, a new dialectics. This was that way that Plato took. And after all it was the one Marx proposed too. Marxs work is not to begin with a new historical ision, a new theory of class struggle, and so on, but instead a new general logic, which he de eloped in the wake of !egelian dialectics. Marx was perhaps the first, possibly after Plato, to forge an explicit relation between re olutionary politics and a new dialectical framework. "ur problem today is the same. To be sure, after two centuries of successes and failures in re olutionary politics and, in particular, after the failure of the #tate$form of socialism, we necessarily ha e something to rectify. %ut we also ha e to find a new logic, a new philosophical proposition that is ade&uate to all forms of creati e no elty. Thus, the difficult &uestion of dialectical and of non$dialectical relations is a pressing one. "ur problem, if you will, is the problem of negati ity. When the logical framework of political action is of the classical dialectical type, negation is what is fundamental. The de elopment of political struggle is fundamentally something like a 're olt against, an 'opposition to, or a 'negation of. And the newness ( the creation of the new #tate, or of the new law ( is always a result of the process of negation. This is the !egelian framework) you ha e a relation between affirmation and negation, construction and negation, in which negation is the real principle of mo ement and the real principle of creation. And so the ery definition of the re olutionary class is to be against the present #tate or against the present law in the precise sense that re olutionary consciousness,

as *enin would say, is basically the consciousness that one stands in a relation of negation to the existing order. %ut this ision as such cannot be sustained today. We are li ing through a sort of crisis of trust in the power of negati ity. And we ha e known two forms of this crisis. Adorno thought that the classical !egelian dialectics was way too affirmati e, o erly subordinated to the potency of the Totality and of the "ne. !e proposes a sort of hyper$ negati ity, the name of which is '+egati e ,ialectics. Today we know that by proceeding in this way, all we ultimately end up with is an ethics of compassion, a ision where the hero of our consciousness is the suffering human body, the pure ictim. And we know as well that this moralism is perfectly ade&uate to capitalist domination pursued under the mask of democracy. +egri and Althusser, on the other hand, ha e argued that !egelian dialectics was o erly negati e, way too sub-ecti e and all too indifferent to the absolute potency of +ature, *ife, or mo ement of !istory. They find in #pino.a a model of philosophy that is ultimately de oid of negation. Today we know that by proceeding in this way we are left with an acceptation of the dominant order, in accordance with the con iction that this order is full of newness and creati ity and that in the end modern capitalism is the immediate strength working, beyond /mpire, toward a sort of communism. What all my work has sought to do is to propose a new dialectical framework, but neither ia a return to the young Marx or !egel, nor ia the negati e dialectics of Adorno, which is like an aesthetics of human rights, nor ia the affirmati e construction proposed by +egri, which destroys all forms of dialecticism and amounts to a sort of +iet.schean 0ay #cience of !istory.

1 think the problem today is to find a way to re erse classical dialectical logic inside of itself, so that affirmation, or the positi e proposition, comes before negation instead of after it. ,ifferently put, in some sense, my attempt has been to find a dialectical framework where something of the future comes before the negati e present. 12m not ad ocating a suppression of the relation between affirmation and negation ( re olt and class struggle certainly remain essential ( nor a pacifistic orientation or the like. The &uestion is not whether we need to struggle or to oppose3 more precisely, it concerns the relation between negation and affirmation. #o when 1 say that there is something non$dialectical, whether with regard to Paul or to the field of concrete political analysis, 1 am putting forward the same idea formally speaking. We ha e to try to understand the exact conditions under which we are able to ha e something like a possibility of concrete negation. And this can only be achie ed, it seems to me, in the field of primiti e affirmation, through something that is primiti ely affirmati e and not negati e. To use my own terminology) it is a &uestion of e ent and sub-ect. What 1 am ultimately saying is ery simple. 4irst, that to open up a new situation, a new possibility, it is essential that there be a new creati ity of time and a new creati ity of the situation. There has to be something that is an actual opening, which is what 1 name 'e ent. What is an e ent5 An e ent is simply that which interrupts the law, the rules and the structure of the situation by creating a new possibility. #o an e ent is not in the first place the creation of a new situation3 rather, it is the creation of a new possibility, which is not the same thing. 1n fact, the e ent takes place in a situation that remains the same, but this same situation is inside the new possibility. 4or Paul, for example, the e ent is the resurrection of 6hrist, and this e ent does not directly change anything in the 7oman /mpire. #o the general situation, which is the 7oman /mpire, remains the same. %ut inside the situation an e ent transpires, thus opening a new possibility. Things are the same in the political field. 1n May 89:; in Paris, for instance, no real change occurred in the general situation of the state) ,e 0aulle

remained in power and the go ernment continued to operate, with its police and so on. %ut a new possibility opened, and this is what 1 mean by e ent. After that there comes the possibility of realising the conse&uences of this new possibility, the elaboration of which amounts to the creation of a new sub-ecti e body. A new sub-ecti e body is the realisation of the possibility opened by the e ent in concrete form, and is thus the de elopment of some conse&uences of the new possibility. Among these conse&uences different forms of negation are of course to be found) struggle, re olt, new possibilities of being against something, the destruction of some part of the law and so on. %ut these forms of negation are conse&uences of the birth of the new sub-ecti ity, not the other way around) the new sub-ecti ity is not a conse&uence of the negation. #o, this logic is actually non$dialectical ( in !egels and Marxs sense ( since it does not start with the creati ity of negation as such, though the site of negati ity is certainly included in the conse&uences of something which is affirmati e. With this, 1 can return to a book 1 wrote many years ago about Paul, the Apostle Paul. This book was written to put forward a clear example of this new logic, that is, of a new logic for all truth procedures, those in the political field included. Paul offers a ery clear example of how to think through the relation between an e ent and a new sub-ecti ity ( this was my main point. Paul pro ides a new, ery acute perspecti e on how this logic operates in the field of law, and specifically in the new sub-ects relation to the old law. 1ndeed, Paul explains ery clearly that, whene er an e ent occurs that truly amounts to the creation of a new possibility in the situation, a new body must first be created and a new sub-ecti ity affirmed, prior to all negation or negati e conse&uences. The first thing to do is to create, to affirm the new sub-ecti ity. What, then, stands at the ery beginning of the new sub-ecti ity and the new sub-ecti e body5 1t is the group of people that affirms that there really is a new possibility ( they affirm the affirmation. 1n the case of 6hristianity, they affirm the resurrection. 4ollowing

such an affirmation will be many practical and symbolic conse&uences for the situation at hand. 1t is interesting to see in the example of Paul that the ery beginning of something new is always something like a pure affirmation of the new possibility as such. There is a resurrection and you ha e to affirm it< And when you affirm the resurrection and organise that sort of affirmation ( because affirmation occurs with others and is directed toward others ( you create something absolutely new, not in the form of a negation of what exists but in the form of the newness inside of what exists. And so we no longer ha e negation, on the one hand, and affirmation, on the other. 1nstead, there is affirmation and di ision, or the creation that grounds the independence of the new sub-ect from within the situation of the old. This is the general orientation of the new logic. Within this orientation, it becomes possible to propose a no el examination of all the old words in such$and$such a field of knowledge or action. As an exercise, 1 propose we discuss the word 'democracy. The word democracy is indeed the common term of all ideological dispositions of imperialist states today, in fact of pretty much all the reactionary states. #o we must declare a first rupture by saying that we do not accept their ideological line, since it ultimately amounts to the idea that their 'democracy cannot be resisted except if one is a terrorist, an ally in despotism and so on. This means, howe er, that we are in a situation where we ha e to clarify for oursel es not only the content of the concept but also whether we want to use the word. 1s there a possible good use of the word 'democracy today5 That is my sub-ecti e &uestion. 1t is not exactly a theoretical one. Why5 %ecause 1 can always name 'democracy something else. There can be both good and bad uses of the word democracy today. And there is probably something genuinely confusing about the use of the word itself insofar as one generally understands it immediately in terms of its present meaning, which is basically that which is gi en it by all the reactionary forces in the world today.

1n the end 1 ha e decided to keep the word. 1t is generally a good thing to retain a word, for the reason that there is something problematic about leftists saying, for example, '1 am not interested in =democracy> at all, because it has become practically meaningless. "n the other hand, it is true that when you talk about democracy you continue to operate on the terrain of the common ideology. The situation is difficult, because we ha e to criticise the actual 'democracies in one sense and in another to criticise the political propaganda made of the term 'democracy today. 1f we do not do this we will become paralysed. 1n a first case we could say) 'yes, we are in a democracy, but democracy can do something else3 howe er, this would ultimately put us in a defensi e position, which is the opposite of my conception, since my position in ol es starting with an affirmation and not at all with a defensi e posture. #o, if we are stick to the word, we must di ide the signification of the word classically and differentiate between good democracy and bad democracy, between the reactionary conception of democracy and the progressi e conception of democracy. %ut what is the basis of that di ision5 1n classical Marxism, there is a clear basis upon which to di ide e erything, namely according to class distinction. We can distinguish popular democracy from bourgeois democracy, or perhaps, to be more contemporary, from yuppie democracy. And the possibility of that sort of di ision is also the possibility of thinking democracy as something other than a form of state. 1t is a distinction not only between popular democracy and yuppie democracy, but between true democracy and democracy as a form of state, as a form of oppressi e state, as a class state. %ut this strict duality is not con incing in the framework of a new dialectical thinking. 1t is too easy to determine popular democracy negati ely as being all that the state democracy is not. To escape the game of negation and the negation of negation, 1 shall now present three understandings of democracy ( not a di ision into two, but into three. That is always my trick. When 1 run into a difficulty with a di ision in two, 1 create a di ision in three. And this is

why, in general fashion, as 0iorgio Agamben was the first to remark, 1 ultimately ha e, for e ery problem, four terms. !egel has three terms, because after the negation and the negation of negation, there is the totality of the process, the becoming of absolute knowledge, as a third term. %ut for me, after two different affirmations ( the conser ati e one and the affirmation of the new possibility ( there are two different negations. This is because the conser ati e negation of no elty by the reaction is not the same as the negati e part ( which is directed against the conser ati e position ( of the new affirmation. "n the &uestion of democracy, 1 gi e the three primiti e terms. 4irst, there is democracy as a form of state, which is actually democracy in its commonplace meaning, that is, representati e democracy or parliamentarian ideology. #econdly, there is democracy understood as mo ement or a 'democracy of places, which is not democracy in the directly political sense, but perhaps more in the historical sense. #o when democracy takes place, it is democracy in the form of an e ent. This is the sense of democracy in the work of ?ac&ues 7anci@re, for example. 4or 7anci@re, as for me, democracy is the acti ation of the principle of e&uality. When the principle of e&uality is really acti e, you ha e some ersion of our understanding of democracy) that is, democracy as the irruption of collecti e e&uality in a concrete form, which can be protest or insurrection, or popular assembly, or any other form in which e&uality is effecti ely acti e. #o, this understanding itself has many forms, but we can perfectly understand exactly what this form of democracy is, and it is in fact a recurrent form of re olutionary democracy. %ut as you know it is actually rather the form of a sudden emergence in history, and ultimately of the e ent, than the form of the conse&uences of an e ent, or of the creation of a new political body. As such e en if the moment of re olutionary rupture is a true meaning of democracy, it is not exactly the political concept of that meaning. 1 think it is a much more historical concept of democracy, that is to say, a concept that stands in relation to the e ent. And so we ha e to find a third sense of democracy, one which is

properly the democracy of the determination of the new political sub-ect as such. This is my ultimate conception. ,emocracy for me is another name for the elaboration of the conse&uences of collecti e action and for determining the new political sub-ect. #o in the end we ha e four terms) classical representati e democracy, which is a form of state power3 mass democracy, which is of an historical nature3 democracy as a political sub-ect3 and, finally, the process of progressi e anishing of the state, which is the historical and negati e inscription of politics in !istory, under the name of communism. Thus, for the clear classical opposition between the dominant false democracy and the true popular democracy, we thus substitute a sort of complex, with three places ( state, re olutionary e ent, and politics ( and three processes ( affirmation of the peoples access to politics outside the #tate, negation of this access by the #tate, and the ictory of peoples political organisation. And as a totalisation of the complete complex, a point of communism by concrete results, or all results furnishing proof of the weakness of the state, and finally also of the possibility of its anishing. Another example is precisely the relationship between politics and power. 6lassically, the goal of political action is to sei.e power, to destroy the state machinery of the enemies. The word used to name that is the master name of all political classicism) re olution. Today, at the beginning of a new political constitution, at the beginning of a new sub-ecti e body, it is not possible to be inside the state or, more generally, to aim for power. The word 're olution can no longer be our master name. We must, then, stand entirely outside of state power. %ut the state always remains in the field of political &uestions and in the space of action. 1f our political sub-ecti ity is not inside the state, if on the contrary it lies outside it, then the state is nonetheless within the field of our action. To take a concrete example from my own experience) if we are to do something about workers who are without papers, say,

African immigrants, and we want to organise and change things in this field, then we will &uickly find that the state is in our space. We will ha e to confront new laws and state decisions. And we will ha e to create something that will come face$to$face with the state ( that is not inside the state, but face$to$face with it. #o, we will ha e to ha e a 'discussion with the state, or otherwise organise arious forms of disruption. 1n any case, we will ha e to prescribe something concerning the state from outside it. We will ha e to prescribe something that establishes a relation with the state. And the ma-or difficulty will be to maintain the possibility of being outside while prescribing something that concerns the inside. 1n the de elopment of politics, then, there is a sort of topological difficulty, namely, the relation between the outside and the inside. %ecause the state is always in iting you inside and asking that you not be outside. 1 ha e had many ery concrete experiences of this. A good instance is when 1 ha e gone with workers to discuss matters with some minister or other, because the state refuses their 'regularisation. And the state representati e will always ask, 'Who are you5 And we always answer, 'We are a political organisation with people. And the reply is always, '"k, but who are you5< The problem is simple) to be somebody is to be inside the state, otherwise you cannot be heard at all. #o there are two possible outcomes) either there will finally be a discussion and some political outcome3 or else there will be no room for discussion because we are nobody. "nce more, the precise &uestion here is one of affirmation) how can we be somebody without being on the inside5 We must affirm our existence, our principles, our action, always from outside. 1 know that some critics of my thought, who also aim to represent the possibility of a complete transformation of our situation, ob-ect that 1 am too far 'outside any such process) that 12m ultimately a 'prophet and not really an acti e player in the immanent and concrete world. 1 completely disagree with this sort of ob-ection because in its theoretical analysis of

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global society it forgets the real logic of prescription and finally the necessity of ha ing a new conception of affirmati e dialectics. Without the 4rench re olution, without the great re olt of workers in 4rance, without the real and concrete mo ement of the Parisian proletariat, Marx certainly would ne er ha e fathomed this concept of the proletariat. The mo ement is not one from the concept of the proletariat to the proletarian mo ement. The real becoming is from workers re olt to the new proposition. #o in the end the true discussion is not at all about the concrete analysis of global society, but about our relation to the state. The real &uestion is whether to be outside or inside the state. The fundamental idea is that to be in the new affirmati e dialectical framework, you must be outside the state, because inside the state, you remain precisely within the negati e figure of opposition. And thus, once more, what comes first is negati ity, the appearance of negati ity. 1 want to insist on the fact that the new logical framework is not only a ision of politics, or e en a ision of some particular practices. 1t prescribes, much more generally, a sort of anthropology. 1 think that we are first of all animals. 1 speak of human animals and li ing bodies and in contrast to all classical humanism 1 include a lot of things in our definition of animals. 1t is a definition ultimately encompasses all our concrete existence as such, not including anything else or any supplement. 1ndeed, capitalist anthropology is, 1 think, the con iction that humanity fundamentally comprises nothing other than self$interested animals. That is a ery important point. 1 think we ha e to engage in some propaganda on this point. Modern capitalism is always speaking about human rights, democracy, freedom and so on, but we can in fact see ery concretely that under all these names there lies nothing other than human animals with interests, who are to be happy with products, and its sub-ect is something like the animal$facing$the$market. This is indeed its definition of the human. We thus ha e a hierarchy, with at its bottom the poor who stand facing the market but ha e no means, and at

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its top the rich who also stand facing the market but who ha e far greater means. And the protection of all this is really nothing other than capitalist anthropology. +ow, the possibility of being something other than animals in this sense actually concerns the becoming sub-ect of a human animal. And it is through the incorporation of a new body that, as something other than standing before the market, you can become something like a sub-ect. '1nfinite is another name for this process, because what we ha e with this kind of incorporation is an affirmation of a new possibility with infinite conse&uences. The new possibility has infinite conse&uences ( such is always the case. #o, we can say that human rights, which rights are the sub-ect2s rights, are in fact the rights of the infinite. ?ean$4ranAois *yotard was the first to coin this expression in his most important book, The Diffrend, and it is the one that 1 ha e adopted too. %ut what, ultimately, is the anthropological &uestion5 1 propose to say that this &uestion runs as follows) what exactly is humankind, the human being, in its singularity5 We know that there exists today a species of human animal defined by its inclusion in the global market. '!umanity, by contrast, may be called the capacity to become the sub-ect of an e ent, of something that happens. That is, the capacity to accept the possibility of incorporation within a new sub-ecti e body, and to draw the practical conse&uences in the situation of incorporation, which is a matter of the becoming of the new sub-ect. And in the becoming of the sub-ect, beyond the support of all that which comprises one or some human animals, there is something infinite, a new creation of something infinite, and for me the name of this infinite something is) truth. We can say, then, that the incorporation of the sub-ect is the incorporation of some human animals in something like a process of truth. And that is the global field of what we can name humanity or human beings in the context of affirmati e dialectics.

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1 ultimately agree with the young Marx on one point) only in the successi e creation of new forms of sub-ects is there something like a generic humanity, because generic humanity is infinite humanity ( its the same thing ( and the human animal facing the market is not at all generic3 it is absolutely particular. All that leads to a new hypothesis about the sub-ect, which is also a new hypothesis about human life, about what it means for humans to li e. 1n my book Logics of the Worlds, 1 contrast human rights in their ordinary meaning with the rights of the infinite, by opposing to today2s 'democratic materialism the pro-ect of a 'dialectical materialism, which is a possible name for affirmati e dialectics. What makes these forms of materialism antithetical are their respecti e understandings of human life) either there is nothing other than languages and bodies, or else there is a third term, something like the production of 'truths that cut through the hegemony of our animal existence. The title of the conclusion of Logics of the Worlds is) 'What is it to li e5 This clearly amounts in the end to the &uestion of anthropology. 1n fact, there are two completely different conceptions of human life. The first reduces human life to common animal life) the satisfaction of all natural desires, happiness, security, and so on. The second one is what we are speaking of) human life has to be identified with incorporation into a truth$body. #o a human being is properly 'li ing only when he or she is the agent of a passage from particularity to uni ersality, from a local process to genericity, from a singular world to an eternal truth. All these passages operate under a new 1dea, which is, for a concrete indi idual, the mediation between his or her practical singularity and the common or generic relationship to uni ersality. 4or example, in politics, the name for this 1dea, which is the mediation between the concrete situation of political action and a form of eternal truth, is) communism.

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1t might be that this conception is somewhat heroic. And we know that many philosophers now affirm that the time for heroism has passed. %ut perhaps Althusser was right to claim that philosophy has no history. The fact that an idea is old fashioned is not, for the philosopher, an ob-ection to this idea. 1n any case, e en if the conception is a bit heroic, 1 affirm before you) its mine. And on this point 1, certainly, am too old to change.