Alain Badiou: Philosophy of Truths

Philosophy of Truths: International Symposium on the Work of Alain Badiou

October 30th to 31st, 2014
French Institute in Prague, movie theater “KINO 35” , Štěpánská 35, Prague 1
Free entry, Simultaneous interpretation available: Czech, French, and English

Conference speakers: Alain Badiou, Bruno Besana, Jana Berankova, Giuseppe Bianco, Petra Ceferin, Oliver Feltham, Michael Hauser, Rob Jackson, Jelica Šumič Riha, Rado Riha, Tomáš Pivoda, Petr Vopěnka, Frank Ruda, Jan Völker

PHILOSOPHY OF TRUTHS: ALL VIDEO RECORDINGS

Alain Badiou offers an important corrective to the current state of philosophy. He admits that, as others claimed, there are “only bodies and languages,” but he adds: “except there are also truths.” According to Badiou, truths are eternal and universal, although they appear locally when an event overturns a given situation. Badiou’s “except there are” is of considerable importance for the contemporary era: it leads thought out of the impasse of postmodernism, of finitude and of a “democratic materialism.” His conception of truths is supported by the consistency and the breath of Badiou's thought (which includes mathematical ontology, set theory as well as Lacanian psychoanalysis and contemporary logic) and constitutes one of the most important philosophical projects of our time.
The symposium “Philosophy of truths” will analyze the richness of Alain Badiou's philosophy and its potential contribution to understanding Central and post-communist Europe. The symposium will further address the relations between Badiou's thought and other disciplines such as aesthetics, politics, and architecture.
In connection with the symposium Alain Badiou will deliver two lectures in Prague: one for a broader public on October 29th in Prague’s Municipal Library, the second within the framework of the conference on October 30th.

The event is held under the auspices of the Dean of the Charles University in Prague Prof. MUDR. Tomáš Zima, DrSc., MBA

30. 10. 2014

9:05 Jelica Šumič Riha: Philosophy as an Education by Truths
10:00 Rado Riha: Badiou, Kant, and the Materialism of the Idea
10:50: Giuseppe Bianco: Totalize and Map: “Inverse Trajectory” (1962 – 1982)

13:30 Oliver Feltham: Badiou and the Arche-Theatre of Action
14:20 Jana Beránková: What Does the Word “Architecture” Mean?
15:00 Petra Ceferin: Constructing an Architectural Object
15:45 Michael Hauser: Re-formation procedures and Central Europe
16:25 Petr Vopěnka: Prague’s way of set theory: from Bolzano to the present times

18:30 Alain Badiou: What is a Truth?

31.10.2014

10:05 Tomáš Pivoda: Can philosophy turn into art and art into philosophy? The inaesthetics of „Ister“
10:50 Rob Jackson: Alain Badiou and Georg Lukács: Subjectivity and Philosophy
11:30 Bruno Besana: Practically: Plato Reversed, Twisted, Emptied
14:30 Jan Völker: On What There Is. Philosophy and Sophistry
15:30 Frank Ruda: How to Prepare? For a Comic (Badiousian) Fatalism

philosophy of truths: program and abstracts