Meillassoux/Badiou

There is quite a lot about “worlds” in L’Inexistence divine, which raises the obvious question of the possible influence of Badiou’s Logiques des mondes on Meillassoux’s unpublished book.

However, Meillassoux says that he never saw the manuscript of Logiques des mondes until 2005, which opens up the very real possibility of an influence running in the other direction. (Not too surprisingly, since Badiou footnotes Meillassoux five times in his book.)

The young Meillassoux purchased Being and Event immediately after its French publication in 1988. He liked the looks of it, and also gave a copy to his father (the famed anthropologist Claude Meillassoux). But as happens surprisingly often in such cases, he didn’t actually get around to reading it seriously for a few more years after purchasing it.

Quentin Meillassoux did his first serious reading of Badiou’s book in 1991, and immediately regarded it as a masterpiece. However, he was wrapped up in preparations for the agrégation at the time, and thus it wasn’t until 1992 that he read it cover to cover. By that time, he tells me, his major ideas (the necessity of contingency, the virtual God) were already in place, but Badiou opened his eyes to the power of mathematization, as well as seeming like an intellectual soul mate more generally.

There was also a strange incident of contact between Alain Badiou and Claude Meillassoux. The anthropologist Gérald Gaillard was a mutual friend of Badiou and the elder Meillassoux, admired them both, and one night invited them over for dinner.

When Claude Meillassoux died in 2005, Quentin was presented by Gaillard with a tape recording of the dinner conversation between Badiou and his own father! He had not previously known that this recording existed. The effect of hearing these tapes was thrilling and shocking, as one might imagine.