[D66] The Rational Kernel of the Hegelian Dialectic

[Antid Oto]

http://re-press.org/books/the-rational-kernel-of-the-hegelian-dialectic/

The Rational Kernel of the Hegelian Dialectic
Pub. Date: December 2011
Alain Badiou
Tzuchien Tho (ed. and trans.)

Description
The Rational Kernel of the Hegelian Dialectic is the last in a trilogy of
political-philosophical essays, preceded by Theory of Contradiction and On
Ideology, written during the dark days at the end of the decade after May ‘68.
With the late 1970’s “triumphant restoration” in Europe, China and the United
States, Badiou and his collaborators return to Hegel with a Chinese twist. By
translating, annotating and providing commentary to a contemporaneous text by
Chinese Hegelian Zhang Shi Ying, Badiou and his collaborators attempt to
diagnose the status of the dialectic in their common political and philosophical
horizon. Readers of Badiou’s more recent work will find a crucial developmental
step in his work in ontology and find echoes of his current project of a
'communist hypothesis'. This translation is accompanied by a recent interview
that questions Badiou on the discrepancies between this text and his current
thought, on the nature of dialectics, negativity, modality and his understanding
of the historical, political and geographical distance that his text introduces
into the present.


Contents
I. Translator’s introduction

II. The Rational Kernel of the Hegelian Dialectic

Foreword
Introduction: Hegel in France/Hegel in China
The Rational Kernel of the Hegelian Dialectic (Zhang Shi Ying’s text and annotation)
III. Interview: From the “red years” to the communist hypothesis: Three decades
of dividing into two


Praise
'The Rational Kernel of the Hegelian Dialectic, first published as part of a
series of Maoist booklets, is perhaps the single most important statement for
anyone intent upon coming to terms with Alain Badiou’s understanding of the
dialectic. The thirteen notes written by Badiou in the margin of a text from the
Chinese philosopher Zhang Shiying are comparable only to the four-page summary
“On the Question of Dialectics” in Lenin’s Philosophical Notebooks, which also
deal with Hegel’s Logic.

Badiou’s notes do not simply annotate Zhang Shiying’s text, they also enable the
reader to reconstitute the whole field of French theory and philosophy in the
mid-1970s, when it was at the point of a complete ideological reversal and
backlash against the “red years” of 1966-1976, augured by the rise of the New
Philosophers.

Adding a highly didactic introduction as well as a fascinating interview with
the author, Tzuchien Tho here continues his labor of love as a meticulous
translator and editor of another of Badiou’s early works after The Concept of
Model, also available from re.press.'
Bruno Bosteels, author of Badiou and Politics

'Publishing The Rational Kernel of the Hegelian Dialectic today, in the
meticulous edition provided by Tzuchien Tho, has the value of an event. This
means that the great importance of this publication is not exhausted by its
historic value, by documenting the early stages of what would become one of the
most influential philosophies of our era. It has the value of an event by not
being simply a moment in a narrative of development, but as a reiteration of a
locus of thought, commitment, engagement and division. To say that this is
‘early Badiou’ is to raise the usual academic defence of periodization against
the power of intervention and universality.'
Mladen Dolar, author of A Voice and Nothing More


About the Author
Alain Badiou was born in Rabat, Morocco in 1937. He studied at the Ecole Normale
Supérieure in the 1950s and, from 1969 until 1999, taught at the University of
Paris VIII (Vincennes-Saint Denis) before returning to ENS as the Chair of the
philosophy department. Much of Badiou’s life has been shaped by his dedication
to the consequences of the May 1968 revolt in Paris. Long a leading member of
Union des jeunesses communistes de France (marxistes-léninistes), he remains,
with Sylvain Lazarus and Natacha Michel, at the centre of L’Organisation
Politique, a post-party organization concerned with direct popular intervention
in a wide range of issues, including immigration, labor, and housing. Alain
Badiou is the author of several successful novels and plays, as well as more
than a dozen philosophical works.

Tzuchien Tho has recently defended a Ph.D. dissertation on Leibniz and
infinitesimals. He has published in many areas of philosophy and has
participated in earlier translations and editions of Badiou’s texts (The Concept
of Model with ZL. Fraser also by re.press). He is currently associated
researcher at Centre International d’Etude de la Philosophie Française
Contemporaine at l’Ecole Normale Supérieure where he continues to work on
historical and contemporary intersections between mathematics and philosophy.