Mathematics of the Transcendental

by Badiou, Alain

• ISBN13: 9781441189240
• ISBN10: 1441189246
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2014-03-13
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic

Summary

In Mathematics of the Transcendental, Alain Badiou painstakingly works through the pertinent aspects of Category Theory, demonstrating their internal logic and veracity, their derivation and distinction from Set Theory, and the 'thinking of being'. In doing so he sets out the basic onto-logical requirements of his greater and transcendental logics as articulated in his magnum opus, Logics of Worlds. This important book combines both his elaboration of the disjunctive synthesis between ontology and onto-logy (the discourses of being as such and being-appearing) from the perspective of Category Theory and the categorial basis of his philosophical conception of 'being there'.

Hitherto unpublished in either French or English, Mathematics of the Transcendental provides Badiou's readers with a much-needed complete elaboration of his understanding and use of Category Theory. The book is an essential aid to understanding the mathematical and logical basis of his theory of appearing as elaborated in Logics of Worlds and other works and is essential reading for his many followers.

Author Biography

Alex Ling is Research Lecturer in Communication and Media Studies at the University of Western Sydney, Australia.

Table of Contents

Translator's Introduction \ Preface \ Part I: Topos, or Logics of Onto-logy: An Introduction for Philosophers \ 1. General aim \ 2. First definitions \ 3. The size of a category \ 4. Limit and universality \ 5. Some fundamental concepts \ 6. Duality \ 7. Isomorphism \ 8. Exponentiation \ 9. Universe 1: closed Cartesian categories \ 10. Structures of immanence 1: philosophical grounds \ 11. Immanence 2: sub-object \ 12. Immanence 3: elements of an object \ 13. 'Elementary' clarification of exponentiation \ 14. Logic 1: central object (or sub-object classifier) \ 15. True, false, negation and more \ 16. Central object as linguistic power \ 17. Universe 2: the concept of Topos \ 18. Ontology of the void and of difference \ 19. Mono., Epi., Iso., Equa., and other arrows \ 20. Topoi as logical places \ 21. Internal algebra of 1 \ 22. Ontology of the void and excluded middle \ 23. A classical miniature \ 24. A non-classical miniature \ Part II: Being-There \ Introduction \ A. Transcendental structures \ B. Transcendental connections \ B2. Of transcendental connections and logic in its usual sense (propositional logic and first order logic of predicates)\ B3. Transcendental connections and the general theory of localisations: topology \ C. Theory of appearing and of objectivity \ D. Transcendental projections: theory of localisation \ E. Theory of relations. The status of worlds \ Index