“I am freeing the system from its transcendental fixations.”
“Nowhere do I argue that unlimited pluralism is the ultimate goal, on the contrary. Neither does Latour nor Feyerabend. My point is that the self-limitation of the system to only four truth procedures is completely unsupported. It bespeaks a lack of ontological imagination.”
“the form of his thought involves posing a halting point to the process of enquiry in the form of numbers (4 procedures, 2 of love) as transcendental posits rather than the results of inquiry, whether the investigation be empirical or conceptual.”
“Latour talks in terms of “veridiction”, more precisely of “modes of veridiction”. This is a very different concept than Badiou’s “truth procedures”. But this very difference allows us to compare and evaluate systems rather than being struck dumb by the imposing presence of a single view.”
“The advantage of disposing of fully worked out alternatives is true of Badiou’s ontology compared to Heidegger’s. Badiou’s concept of Being is very different from Heidegger’s concept. But by enlarging the conceptual field with a fully worked out alternative he has brought Heidegger’s monologue back into the dialogical field.”
“Above all, I want dialogue between alternative systems. I do not want to fall into the molar opposition of systems (Deleuze, Badiou, Latour) conceived as take it or leave it totalities.”
“I am quite conscious of the differences, nay the incommensurability, between Badiou’s and Latour’s systems. I argue however that there is a meta-commensurability between them in that both are forms of ontological pluralism, exploring different options within that common meta-problematic or research programme. This is the common measure that I propose: ontological and epistemological pluralism.”
“Badiou’s project presents itself as speculative, and to that extent un-empirical, philosophy.”
“On the other hand Latour’s project presents itself as empirical metaphysics. Yet on this blog I have been arguing that Latour’s system is far less empirical than he claims, and that it contains speculative elements at key junctures.”
“Similarly, Badiou’s edifice of speculative philosophy in so far as it involves configuring the contemporary space of compossibility of truths inevitably contains an empirical aspect.”
“Badiou does not deduce his truths, he encounters them.”
“Thus the self-images of these two philosophies impose obstacles of only a relative nature, the difference in approach is not absolute but one of degree.”