Oliver Feltham
American University of Paris (ofeltham@aup.edu; Orcid: 0000-0001-8946-2014).
Abstract: The article analyzes the concept of the subject in Alain Badiou, beginning with his rereading of Descartes through Lacan. In the final meditation of Being and Event, Badiou reconstructs the subject as a finite fragment within an infinite praxis of truth, distinct both from the classical self-transparent subject and from the Lacanian subject still correlated with an object. Through his critique of the Cartesian “suture” of the symbolic order, Badiou argues that there is no unified “Big Other”. The subject instead emerges as a performative effect of fidelity to an event, in the absence of transcendent foundations. The constant risk of “deceived agency”, interpreted in terms of ideology, is addressed through the invention of new namings and historical periodizations. Subjectivation is thus conceived as a fragile, unguaranteed process, in which the subject is not a substance but an operation, lacking any predetermined placement within the symbolic order.
Keywords: Subjectivation; Cogito; Lacanian Psychoanalysis; Agency; Performativity.