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Alain Badiou

In Praise of Love Hardcover – November 27, 2012

by Alain Badiou (Author), Peter Bush (Translator)

112 ratings

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The renowned French philosopher’s “ode to love’s power to unite in the face of eternity, and its optimism in the face of pain” (Publishers Weekly).

In a world rife with consumerism, where online dating promises risk-free romance and love is all too often seen as a mere variant of desire and hedonism, Alain Badiou believes that love is under threat. Taking to heart Rimbaud’s famous line “love needs reinventing,” In Praise of Love is the celebrated French intellectual’s passionate treatise in defense of love.

For Badiou, love is an existential project, a constantly unfolding quest for truth. This quest begins with the chance encounter, an event that forever changes two individuals, challenging them “to see the world from the point of view of two rather than one.” This, Badiou believes, is love’s most essential transforming power.

Through thought-provoking dialogue edited from a conversation between Badiou and Truong, a vibrant cast of thinkers are invoked: Kierkegaard, Plato, de Beauvoir, Proust, and more, create a new narrative of love in the face of twenty-first-century modernity. Moving, zealous, and wise, Badiou’s “paean to the anticapitalist, antiessentialist, unifying power of love” urges us not to fear it but to see it as a magnificent undertaking that compels us to explore others and to move away from an obsession with ourselves (Publishers Weekly).

“Finally, the cure for the pornographic, utilitarian exchange of favors to which love has been reduced in America. Alain Badiou is our philosopher of love.” ―Simon Critchley, author of The Faith of the Faithless

Print length

112 pages
Language

English
Publisher

The New Press
Publication date

November 27, 2012
Dimensions

5 x 0.5 x 7.2 inches
ISBN-10

1595588779
ISBN-13

978-1595588777
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Editorial Reviews

Review

Praise for In Praise of Love:

"In just a few short chapters, Badiou lays bare his concern for love's well being in the age of consumerism and online dating."
―JSTOR Daily

"Finally, the cure for the pornographic, utilitarian exchange of favors to which love has been reduced in America. Alain Badiou is our philosopher of love."
―Simon Critchley, Hans Jonas Professor at The New School for Social Research, author of The Faith of the Faithless

"Elegant and deeply human, In Praise of Love is a conversational but erudite retort to the antiseptic promises of online dating sites for 'safe love' without risk, the romantic notion that love is the ecstatic melding of two into one, and the philosophical skepticism that love is little more than a cover story for sexual lust."
―Pamela Haag, Ph.D., author of Marriage Confidential: Love in the Post-Romantic Age, columnist at Big Think magazine

Praise for Alain Badiou:
"A figure like Plato or Hegel walks here among us!"
―Slavoj Zizek

"An heir to Jean-Paul Sartre and Louis Althusser."
―New Statesman

About the Author

Born in Rabat, Morocco, in 1937, Alain Badiou is a leading French philosopher. He is the author of The Meaning of Sarkozy, Being and Event, Ethics: An Essay on the Understanding of Evil, and The Communist Hypothesis. He lives in Paris. Nicholas Truong is a writer, journalist, and regular contributor to the French daily Le Monde. Peter Bush is an award-winning literary translator. He lives in Barcelona.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ The New Press; 3rd Printing edition (November 27, 2012)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 112 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1595588779
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1595588777
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 6 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5 x 0.5 x 7.2 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #273,803 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #313 in Social Philosophy
- #512 in Consciousness & Thought Philosophy
- #1,144 in Philosophy of Ethics & Morality

Customer Reviews:
112 ratings

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Customer reviews

5 star		59%
4 star		20%
3 star		9%
2 star		8%
1 star		4%

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Top reviews from the United States

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Cubamerican

In Praise of Love

Reviewed in the United States on September 22, 2012

Verified Purchase

A concise and thoughtful philosophical treatise on love from a communist French philosopher/playwright. For Badiou love is a thought not a feeling, providing a perspective previously explored by Scott Peck in "The Road Less Traveled". He decries internet dating as safe love and reminds us that love sees the difference in people and embraces them. With love seemingly lost in our world, reading this book is a worthwhile reminder that we must will ourselves to love.

15 people found this helpful

Helpful

Marquito

A Great Read. A Perfect Gift.

Reviewed in the United States on July 24, 2019

Verified Purchase

Excellent book. I’ve read it twice through and took a third pass to revisit passages that spoke to me. It presents a unique perspective on love. It’s philosophical to be sure, but highly accessible at the same time.

3 people found this helpful

Helpful

Christina Haupt

To love unconditionally and embrace difference

Reviewed in the United States on January 18, 2019

Verified Purchase

Alain Badiou once again captures me. Eloquently written, with a poetic and simultaneously realistic perspective on what it means to love and be loved we dive into the world of this frighteningly complex emotion.

One person found this helpful

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WR Winn

An interview or a series of blogposts

Reviewed in the United States on May 18, 2020

Verified Purchase

Not a seriously considered philosophical work on love.

Reviewed in the United States on August 16, 2017

Verified Purchase

Gorgeous glorious thoughtful- what we need to think about in a world of anxiety and antagonism - so uplifting. Highly recommend

2 people found this helpful

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F. Pinto

Four Stars

Reviewed in the United States on June 28, 2016

Verified Purchase

Lovely little book.

2 people found this helpful

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abbeysbooks

Badiou and the reinvention of love.

Reviewed in the United States on September 13, 2014

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We must re-invent love is Badiou's message. How do we do that? He tries to suggest ways of thinking about it.

One person found this helpful

Helpful

Haley A Larsen

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United States on February 22, 2015

Verified Purchase

One of my favorite works of modern philosophy.

One person found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

christoff

Love is at risk in today's world - from all sides. It is worth fighting for. Highly recommended book!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 12, 2017

Verified Purchase

The beginning of love is a separation. Love is the acknowledgement of my need. Love is the admission that being alone is not an option. That the other is necessary. And this other, no matter what gender, is always distinguished from myself. One is not identical with the other. The other one was from the beginning in this world as a difference.

The theory of the market assumes that every person is merely pursuing his own interests. In the days of neoliberalism, this idea has now penetrated all the pores of society and has also affected love affairs. Badiou stresses the importance of love as a counter-proof to the thesis of the omnipotence of self-interest. Love also shows that "one can experience the world differently than through a lonely consciousness and experience it differently".

Badiou sees the love threatened from both sides and understands its defense or even reinvention as a "philosophical task". This love is not simply an encounter and relationship between two individuals, but "a construction, a life that is no longer going from the point of view of the one, but of the two."

How can love be realized in the long run? This is the decisive question of Badiou. He understands it as a "stubborn adventure, the adventurous side is necessary, but the stubbornness is no less."

But, of course, an upright love does not protect itself from the disaster. A separation can break into every love, there is no protection. The uncertainty always remains, as long as one under love is something different from a comprehensive collision insurance. There is no love without risk for Badiou - only from admitting the unpredictable LOVE gains its intensity on the on the stage of the two.

6 people found this helpful

Leslie Gardner

accessible and important

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 5, 2014

Verified Purchase

exploring this just before marriage of my sister, i realised how apt this book is - how much our knowing each other is a matter of the moment we meet, and the confluence of space and time, and perception of there being someone else apart from ourself out there ... i ended up reading a portion at her wedding! accessible and allusive writing, it is not dry philosophy by any means but gets across several essential ideas of this important philosopher - one of the most important of our time

3 people found this helpful

MFly

In Praise of In Praise of

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 8, 2014

Verified Purchase

Loved it, Badiou can be difficult to read but the interview form here worked very well. I love his ideas particularly his thoughts on risk in love and that internet dating sites falsely try to make us feel that there can be love without risk.

The notion of love being a value that we take build and take forward from a first significant encounter or moment was surprising as I wouldn't have expected him to hold up romantic love as a starting point.

3 people found this helpful

This and That

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 21, 2016

Verified Purchase

arrived on time and as described. Thanks.

Amazon Customer

It is great to read a philosopher on these issues with a ...

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 11, 2016

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