Local Materialism, Global Idealism? Badiou, Hegel, and the Question of Beginning

Abstract

Badiou's criticism of Hegel could be summarized as follows: “local materialism, global idealism”. Whereas Badiou approves of those fragments of Hegel's system that display a certain “materialist” tendency, he is critical of its overall “idealist” drift towards totalization, self-sufficiency, and circularity. It is argued that it is in fact this unrelenting commitment to the Whole, so severely under attack by Badiou, which provides the basis for the affinity between himself and Hegel, in so far as both philosophies are committed to the question of the beginning.