On "Inaesthetics" Thought Of Alian Badiou

Alain Badiou is one of the most original French philosophes in the20th century. He is another French philosophe after Derrida who comes into the stage of the world philosophy. The creative philosophy of Badiou bases on the mathematics, specially his event philosophy is very important in the last20th century and the new century. This thesis mainly investigates Badiou’s "inaesthetics" thoughts who basis on his event philosophy, and researches the structure of "inaesthetics" thought system, which including the forming background, fundamental characteristics, philosophical foundation and the art critique practices, etc. Besides the introduction and the conclusion, this thesis divides into six chapters, and these six chapters can separates into three parts:the question part, theoretical part and practice part.The introduction explains the origin of the question, and clarifies theoretically the raison of this subject. And then makes the introduction and limitation of the research object, firstly introduces the four faces of Alain Badiou, as mathematician, philosophe, author and critic, secondly clarifies the translation of the conception of Badiou’s "inaesthetics", points that the reasonability of "非美学" and the inexactness of "反美学(anti-aesthetics)" and "内美学(intra-aesthetics)". Lastly, on the basis of classification of the current research situations about Badiou, the author states the research thought, main content, research method and the meaning of this thesis.The first part of this thesis is the question part, mainly discusses the forming background and fundamental characteristics of the "inaesthetics". Through the rethinking of’anti-aesthetics’in the first chapter and analysis of traditional aesthetic schemata in the chapter2, the author formally proposes the "inaesthetics" thought and schema of Badiou, and makes the induction and descriptions of its essential characteristics.Chapter1focuses on the problem of "anti-aesthetics", and investigates the dilemma and solutions of modern aesthetics in the postmodern context. In the postmodern context with prevalence of deconstruction and relativism, the truth crisis is becoming severe generally, and "anti-aesthetics" appears."Anti-aesthetics" presents two forms:the first one is the anti-aesthetics of modernist, characterizes as appreciation of the ugly in the modernist arts; the second one is the anti-aesthetics of post-modernism, mainly manifests as mass culture research of cross-discipline and the aestheticization of everyday life, etc. Badiou disagrees with the deconstruction of truth in the postmodern context, and he specially opposes the anti-aesthetics of Ranciere, believes in the existence of the truth, and insists on the independent qualities of art, therefore, he proposes a new schema- ’inaesthetics’in the postmodern context.Chapter2analyses the three traditional aesthetic schemata. In Handbook of Inaesthetics, Badiou takes the relation between art and truth as criterion, divides traditional aesthetics into three schemata, the authors thinks that, to a great extent, this is a rewrite of the given aesthetic history, and his’recount of aesthetic history’ cannot be underestimated. Badiou thinks that there are two kinds of relationships between art and truth, that is to say, the art could grasp the truth and the art could not grasp the truth. As for the idea that art who could grasp the truth, mainly presents as the romantic aesthetic schema, in this schema, the relation of truth to art is immanent, but this truth is universal, surpasses the arts, and chooses freely whether and which art it will open. On the basis of the classification principles and examples which Badiou holds, the author develops the analyses of romantic aesthetic schema, thinking that it could be divided into three types, they hold "Tao-Idea","being" and "prototype" respectively. As for the idea that art is incapable of truth, it is mainly divided into didactic aesthetic schema which represented by Plato, and classical aesthetic schema which represented by Aristotle. Badiou considers that the didactic aesthetic schema is incapable of truth, and it can only express the effects of truth and educate the mass. About how the arts express the effects of truth, on the foundation of the discussion of Badiou, the author separates the didactic aesthetic schema into two types:the type of straight-forwardness and the type of obscurity. In the point of classical aesthetic schema, art is incapable of truth, and it is not necessarily to pursue the truth, the function of art is abreaction and catharsis. This chapter mainly analyses the catharsis, psychoanalysis and sinicizational classical aesthetic schema which are extended from Badiou’s view. Through these above three traditional aesthetic schemata, Badiou summarizes effectively the relation between art and truth, however, the art in these three traditional aesthetic schemata is not independent, and they have been saturant already, and cannot explain the artistic creations at the present. Therefore, the "inaesthetics" is born.The third chapter explains the concept and the main features of "inaesthetics", and exploits its transcendence."Inaesthetics" schema emphasizes the independence of art to philosophy, maintains that the art is the producer of truth and against traditional aesthetic speculation, proposes to find the "intraphilosophical effects" in the arts with independent qualities. In this what Badiou calls the fourth aesthetic schema, art has its own high autonomy, it is not the vassal of truth anymore, but the condition of philosophy. This moment, art is capable of truth; the relation of truth to art is immanent, and truth that art produces has its own singularity. As the relation of truth to art, in "inaesthetics", the relation between artworks and truth is at once singular and immanent, but for the romantic aesthetic schema, the truth is immanent but not singular; in the didactic schema, the truth is singular but not immanent; in the classical schema, the truth is neither immanent nor singular. Hence, we can see the transcendences of "inaesthetics".The second part of this thesis is the theoretical part. This part investigates deeply the philosophical foundation of Badiou’s "inaesthetics", namely, the theory of truth and subject of Badiou, correspond with the chapter4and chapter5respectively.Chapter4researches on the truth theory of Badiou. In the first section mainly discusses the mathematics as the ontology, because the truth theory of Badiou integrates closely with mathematics. Badiou’s philosophy bases on the modern mathematics, he thinks that mathematics is the ontology and the science of being qua being. Badiou’s truth theory mainly originates the set theory of Cantor and Paul Cohen; he understands all the phenomenon and stats on the basis of set theory. Badiou thinks that the being qua being cannot be presented, hence, he proposes the conception of situation, and the situation is a presented multiplicity and also a presented being, which includes multiplicity, the regime of count-as-one or structure. Situation usually understood as the site which event happens. Through the difference between set and power set, the situation is divided into situation (structure) and situation stat by Badiou, he is thinking of these concepts from mathematics with putting them into the philosophical system and category. Section2discusses the event philosophy of Badiou and the realtion between event and truth. As for Badiou, not every happened thing could be called event, and event mainly existent in the event site, event site partly situated in the situation. Badiou calls the singular, instable and ab-normal multiple as event site. He also separates the being into normality, excrescence and singularity, and considers that the singularity which opposes the excrescent and normality is the natural essence of history, special the natural essence of event site. Event sitejs closely related to singularity of situation, namely, singular multiple. However, not every situation could include event site, therefore Badiou divides situation into natural situation, neutral situation and historical situation, only in the instable history situation, the event has its possibility to appear. Event is composed of a given event site and itself, it is the element that cannot appear in the situation but surpasses the count regime of the situation, although the event cannot be counted as one, but neither counted as zero, it manifests a posture of "ultra-one", concerns with the situation but surpasses it. All of above consists in the event with special characteristic. In the point of view, event is the starting point of truth. A truth is the gathering together of all the terms which will have been positively investigated by a generic procedure of fidelity supposed complete. A truth is the infinite subset of a situation, including endless traces. A truth is indiscernible:it does not fall under any determinant of the encyclopedia. He borrows the terms of Lacan:a truth bores a hole in knowledge. Badiou emphasizes that a truth is the truth of the entire situation, and the truth of situation as being. Section3 explores the generative procedure of truth. Badiou proposes that there are four types of truth generative procedures, that is to say, politics, art, science and love. He considers that a truth of art is immanent and singular, finally, it is a art configure, a generic multiple and un unnamable. An art truth is initiated by an art event, but not every artwork could become as an event.Chapter5primarily discusses the subject theory of Alain Badiou. Badiou thinks that there exist two types of traditional subject theories, that is to say, idealist subject theory and materialist subject theory. Different from the material subjective paradigm that reduces the subject to its body, idealist subjective paradigm separates the subject from its body completely, the former one equals to the religious sacrifice, and the later one belongs to vulgar enjoyment. Badiou considers that the world of today is the war between enjoyment and sacrifice, but they all direct to death; therefore, he proposes the third subject paradigm. In this new subjective paradigm, the subject and its body has a immanent difference, neither separability nor reducibility, these two combine together, but also keep their own features. What Badiou gives is a new body as the combination of these two elements. Badiou advocates the faithful subject and opposes the obscure subject and reaction subject. He remarks that the subject is the configuration that beyond the situation, but the combination of subject and its body makes it also can appear in the situation. Badiou understands that the subject situates in the trajectory of the production of truth, who sits between the event and truth, so the subject must be faithful and faithful to event. Badiou also thinks that the subject has the characteristics as instant and a consistent; hence, he divides the subject into a subjectivation and a subject-process. A subjectivation is destructive and instantaneous, which indicates that the emergence moment of subject in a situation, connecting with interruption, it could be divided into two different forms—anxiety and courage, mainly present as riot-movement and insurrection-war respectively. A subject-process is a recomposition after the deconstruction, which is enduring, and its aim is the recomposition of the situation at that moment, it is direct into superego and justice. Superego is a horrible subject process and conservative. In the opinion of Badiou, the different associations of the anxiety and courage, superego and justice could constitute different types and functions of the subject. The third part of the thesis is the practice part, namely, the chapter6. In this part, we discuss the "inaesthetic" critical practices of Alain Badiou. At first, mainly introduces Badiou’s thoughts about contemporary arts. In his heart, through the sensibility, the art constructs a new universality, and it is different from the universality caused by money, power and globalization, and artistic truth is also different from the truth produced by science, politics and love, which brings with the feature of sensibility. Artistic truth is the sudden occurrence of idea in the sensibility. The new universality of art is a new formal creation of sudden occurrence of idea in the sensibility. An art is a possibility, a force with creativeness and rebellion and liberation. Badiou hopes to create a new artistic subject, which isneither an "enjoyment" nor a "sacrifice", artistic subject leads to a creation, but not a death. Thesubject of art is not artists, its existence is artworks. Badiou considers the contemporary art as an"empire art", which presents as "the mixture of romanticism and formalism". After the summarizationof Badiou’s thoughts about art, the author takes Mallarme’s poems and Wagner’s music as exampleand explores concretely the practice stats of poetic criticism and musical criticism of Alain Badiou.His poetic critical strategies could be divided into three steps:firstly, he drags the normal poetics fromits given situation; then he uses the form of prose to describe the poem as an act process; finally, heputs it from the prose state back to the poem and experiences its real meaning. He believes thatMallarme’s poem is an artistic event, achieves an event site in the void of text, and walks on the roadto the truth generative procedure. The interpretation of Badiou towards Wagner’s music is totallydifferent from that of Nietzsche, Adorno and Lacoue-Labarthe, he thinks that Wagner’s music has norelation with the fascism and culture industry; on the contrary, Wagner’s opera is a great art in hismind, and it is an art event that can produce the truth and embody a faithful of a new artistic subject. The conclusion concerns about three questions. Firstly, as a Platonist, Badiou is alwaysmisunderstood as traditional and conservative, but he is not a traditional Platonist, but realizing thereturn and transcendence of Plato. Then, Ranciere accounts that Badiou is a twisted modernist, in fact,he is a thinker after post-modern, achieves the double surpassing of modern and post-modern. At last,illustrates the meaning and a prospect of Badiou’s thought, he almost finishes the mission of doublerecompostion of philosophy and aesthetics that Nietzsche, Foucault and Derrida did not complete intheir old ages.