[The] book has a genuine intimacy to it … [The] text displays his urgency to say more, to be clear, to keep going, to re-invent, and to express the “true life” through a generalised fidelity to his still ongoing project.

Marx & Philosophy Review of Books

In this lucid and provocative essay, one of our greatest living thinkers inquires after the meaning of happiness. Badiou argues that projects of emancipation and liberation are the surest means to an active, non-complacent contentment, although ‘Happiness’ is as much a spirited defense of classical philosophy as it is a call to action. We need Alain Badiou more than ever.

Tom Eyers, Associate Professor, Duquesne University, USA

What defines true happiness has been a fundamental question of philosophy since at least Plato's <i>Republic</i> and Aristotle's <i>Nicomachean Ethics</i>. Alain Badiou in this little book steals it back from the self-help industry and restores it to its metaphysical grandeur.

Bruno Bosteels, Professor of Comparative Literature and Society and Latin American and Iberian Cultures, Columbia University, USA

‘All philosophy is a metaphysics of happiness…or it’s not worth an hour of trouble’ claims Alain Badiou in this lively intervention into one of the most persistent themes in philosophy: what is happiness? And what do I need to do to be happy? The desire to be happy is one of our most universal goals and yet there doesn’t seem to be any easy answers or formulas for achieving happiness. And the concept has become so commodified and corrupted to be almost unrecognizable as something worth pursuing. In light of this, should we just give up the aspiration to be happy altogether? Alain Badiou thinks not. While eschewing futile procedures for magically becoming ‘happy’, Badiou does passionately maintain that in order to be truly happy we need philosophy. And, bolder still, that a life lived philosophically is the happiest life of all!
Les mer
Acknowledgements Note on the Text/Translation Translator’s Introduction: Happiness is Revolting by A.J. Bartlett and Justin Clemens Introduction: The Metaphysics of Real HappinessI: Philosophy and the Desire of PhilosophyII: Philosophy and Antiphilosophy put to the test of happinessIII: To be happy, must we change the world?IV: Destination and Affects of PhilosophyConclusionIndex
Les mer
Major intervention by one of the world's most important living philosophers into what it means to be happy and why happiness is at the heart of philosophy.
New writing on a major topic by one of the world's most important living philosophers

Produktdetaljer

ISBN
9781474275538
Publisert
2019-02-21
Utgiver
Vendor
Bloomsbury Academic
Vekt
160 gr
Høyde
198 mm
Bredde
129 mm
Aldersnivå
U, 05
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Heftet
Antall sider
136

Forfatter

Biographical note

Alain Badiou taught at the École Normale Supérieure and at the Collège International de Philosophie in Paris, France. His most recent book The Immanence of Truths: Being and Event III is coming out in 2020 with Bloomsbury.