Abstract
The aim of this paper is to show that insofar as it is possible to isolate a theory of space in Badiou's ontology it is incomplete and fragmented along at least three possible motifs: ruptured space, flat space, and dense space. From the presence of these motifs, I argue that the radical contingency Badiou seeks to give his concept of event is, in fact, closer to randomness. Randomness is predicted upon regulative patterns, however minimal they might be. This leads me to argue that there is a latent nonvitalist morphogenetic idea to the emergence of subjectivity in Badiou, which I call ‘formationism’: that is, an event-specific form is concomitant to the subject's naming of an event. This leads me to test Badiou's choice-based theory of subject against three other perspectives in the work of Jocelyn Benoist, Gilles Châtelet, and Jean Petitot. Finally, I contrast the concept of event with the reading Barbara Cassin gives in kairos, which submits ontology to an exclusionist charge. The upshot of this critique holds as much for an empowered reading of rhetoric against formal logic as it does for securing the contribution made by sophists to ontology.
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