the task of the month

The main task of the month is to try to figure out how best to present Meillassoux’s L’inexistence divine, as well as which excerpts are the best to include in the appendix to my book.

What you don’t get in L’inexistence divine is the lengthy critique of correlationism. What you do get is plenty of new material on the virtual god, but also some new and interesting formulations of points he’s made elsewhere. For instance, he goes into more detail in this manuscript on what he makes of Cantor, and what he sees as the limitations of topology and other branches of mathematics. While that part won’t be long enough to satisfy a professional mathematician, that’s not his audience: we’re his audience, and it’s very helpful material for us.

It takes a considerable amount of courage for Meillassoux to write a book like this. He’s pretty far out there on a limb, without too much company.

There’s never really been a thorough survey so far of the differences between Badiou and Meillassoux. (The similarities are easier to see.) But in L’inexistence divine, the Meillassoux-Hume connection becomes even more prominent than before, and I’m not sure you could say nearly that much about a Badiou-Hume dialogue.