Naturalising Badiou: mathematical ontology and structural realism

Gironi, Fabio 2013. Naturalising Badiou: mathematical ontology and structural realism. PhD Thesis, Cardiff University. Item availability restricted.

Preview	PDF Download (1MB) | Preview
	PDF - Supplemental Material Restricted to Repository staff only Download (80kB)

Abstract

This thesis offers a naturalist revision of Alain Badiou’s philosophy. This goal is pursued through an encounter of Badiou’s mathematical ontology and theory of truth with contemporary trends in philosophy of mathematics (mathematical structuralism) and philosophy of science (ontic structural realism). I take issue with Badiou’s inability to elucidate the link between the empirical and the ontological, and his residual reliance on a Heideggerian project of fundamental ontology, which undermines his own immanentist principles. I will argue for both a bottom-up naturalisation of Badiou’s philosophical approach to mathematics (insisting on an account mindful of the socio-biological roots of our mathematical abilities and concepts – brains to universe) and a top-down naturalisation (arguing that our best physical theories seem to indicate a collapse of the distinction between the mathematical and the non-mathematical – universe to brains). Articulating my particular understanding of what realism and naturalism should commit us to, I propose a creative fusion of Badiou’s attention to metamathematical results with a structural-informational metaphysics, proposing a ‘matherialism’ uniting the more daring speculative insights of the former with the naturalist and empiricist commitments motivating the latter.

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD)
Status:	Unpublished
Schools:	English, Communication and Philosophy
Subjects:	B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > B Philosophy (General)
Funders:	AHRC
Last Modified:	19 Mar 2016 23:34
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/56408

Actions (repository staff only)

Edit Item