Alain Badiou

Alain Badiou, born 17 January 1937, is a French philosopher, formerly chair of philosophy at the Ecole Normale Superieure and founder, with Gilles Deleuze, Michel Foucault and Jean-Francois Lyotard, of the faculty of philosophy at the Universite de Paris VIII. His work is heavily informed by philosophical applications of mathematics, particularly set theory and category theory, and his Being and Event project considers the concepts of being, truth, event and the subject through a rejection of the linguistic relativism he sees as typical of postwar French thought; unlike many of his peers he believes in universalism and truth, and his work is notable for its widespread applications of various conceptions of indifference. Badiou has been involved in a number of political organizations, regularly comments on political events, and argues for a return of communism as a political force.