Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Profanation in Spinoza and Badiou
T2 - religion and truth
AU - Diken, Bulent
PY - 2016/5/1
Y1 - 2016/5/1
N2 - This article focuses on two different styles of profanation in Spinoza and Badiou. Notwithstanding the significant differences between them, their shared desire for profanation testifies to an interesting convergence. I deal with this convergence in divergence as a case of disjunctive synthesis through a comparison of the different understandings of religion in Spinoza and Badiou’s truth procedures. It is commonly held that Spinoza operates with three understandings of religion (superstition, the universal faith, and the true religion). But I argue that Spinoza’s thought opens up the space for a fourth understanding of ‘religion’ (which can accommodate instrumental reason and which, for the same reason, can be compared to Benjamin’s ‘capitalism as religion’). Then I discuss the formal similarity between Spinoza’s four religions and Badiou’s four truth procedures. I illustrate this discussion through two diagrams. I claim that Badiou’s truth procedures could be perceived as the Spinozist diagram’s re-entry into itself.
AB - This article focuses on two different styles of profanation in Spinoza and Badiou. Notwithstanding the significant differences between them, their shared desire for profanation testifies to an interesting convergence. I deal with this convergence in divergence as a case of disjunctive synthesis through a comparison of the different understandings of religion in Spinoza and Badiou’s truth procedures. It is commonly held that Spinoza operates with three understandings of religion (superstition, the universal faith, and the true religion). But I argue that Spinoza’s thought opens up the space for a fourth understanding of ‘religion’ (which can accommodate instrumental reason and which, for the same reason, can be compared to Benjamin’s ‘capitalism as religion’). Then I discuss the formal similarity between Spinoza’s four religions and Badiou’s four truth procedures. I illustrate this discussion through two diagrams. I claim that Badiou’s truth procedures could be perceived as the Spinozist diagram’s re-entry into itself.
KW - Badiou
KW - philosophy
KW - profanation
KW - religion
KW - revelation
KW - Spinoza
KW - truth procedures
U2 - 10.1177/0263276415583141
DO - 10.1177/0263276415583141
M3 - Journal article
VL - 33
SP - 27
EP - 50
JO - Theory, Culture and Society
JF - Theory, Culture and Society
SN - 0263-2764
IS - 3
ER -