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Badiou, political nihilism, and a small-scale solution

In "Badiou, Political Nihilism, and a Small-Scale Solution", I argue that Badious presentation of politics, exclusively on a large scale that of the nation-state betrays his underlying set-theoretic ontology. The consequence of presenting politics on this scale is that political events, opportunities for genuine political engagement, are extremely rare. This leaves potential political actors with little reason to believe they will have the opportunity to engage in politics. The absence of meaningful engagement, along with Badious unique conception of truth, gives rise to the problem of political nihilism. But, just as sets are both composed of sets and couched within others, situations too should be viewed as scalable. Re-presenting politics on a multiplicity of scales overcomes the worry about nihilism, while better capturing the real complexity and texture of political commitments.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:AEU.10048/1254
Date11 1900
CreatorsVizeau, Brent
ContributorsMorin, Marie-Eve (Philosophy), Burch, Robert (Philosophy), Nichols, Robert (Philosophy/Political Science), den Heyer, Kent (Education)
Source SetsLibrary and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeThesis
Format450063 bytes, application/pdf

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