Courage before the Event: The Force of Affects

Abstract

The paper deals extensively with the question of the emergence of the radically New in Badiou from Being and Event, Ethics, Handbook of Inaesthetics, to Logics of Worlds, from the perspective of affects. It exhaustively presents many of the open dilemmas regarding Badiou's theory of affects, and subsequently also discusses other critical readings of Badiou on these topics, i.e. Žižek's reading of Badiou's theory of points and Kacem's understanding of affects. It finally concludes presupposing that Badiouian states are not as solid as they often appear to be, that this same margin of incalculability, rather than spurring doubt or hopelessness, should be seen as cause for optimism.