Reading Summary of Meditation 8 -
This meditation specifically expounds on that which is guaranteed by the Axiom of the Powerset--a recounting of the count, or, metastructure. In truth, this Meditation will provide the technical and metaphorical terms for unpacking Badiou's social-political schema. We shall focus our review by examining the following terms: State of the Situation, Normal Term, Singular Term, and Excrescent Term.
Badiou writes, "The thesis that all presentation is structured twice may appear to be completely a priori. But what it amounts to, in the end, is something that each and everybody observes, and which is philosophically astonishing: the being of presentation is inconsistent multiplicity, but despite this, it is never chaotic. All I am saying is this: it is on the basis of Chaos not being the form of the donation of being that one is obliged to think that there is a reduplication of the the count-as-one. The prohibition of any presentation of the void can only be immediate and constant if this vanishing point of consistent multiplicity--which is precisely its consistency as operational result--is, in turn, stopped up, or closed, by a count-as-one of the operation itself, a count of the count, a metastructure...I would add that the investigation of any effective situation (any region of structured presentation), whether it be natural or historical, reveals the real operation of the second count. On this point, concrete analysis converges with the philosophical theme: all situations are structured twice. This also means: there is always both presentation and representation. To think this point is to think the requisites of the errancy of the void, of the non-presentation of inconsistency, and of the danger that being-qua-being represents; haunting presentation" (p94).
The first term in this Meditation which is of importance is State of the Situation. It should be read as a metaphorical nod to Badiou's affinity with politics to term the count-as-one of any structured presentation: the State. Utilizing the set-theoretical language from Meditation Seven, one may think the State (as governmental entity) as re-presenting presentation as such. Thus in Badiou's schema the governmental State is a metastructure, a count of the count. Two obstacles are quickly at hand when terming the State as "metastructure." First, "If this metastructure did nothing other than count the terms of the situation it would be indistinguishable from structure itself, whose entire role is such" (p95). One must here remember the distinction between belonging and inclusion, a distinction which allows us to think the state--metastructure-- as gathering all inclusions into the count. But, if all inclusions, were counted in the re-count, it would be because they belong as terms of the situation. If they are not counted, it is because they do not "exist." The second obstacle is that: "defining it as the count of the count alone is not sufficient either, or rather, it must be accorded that the latter can solely be a final result of the operations of the state. A structure is precisely not a term of the situation , and as such it cannot be counted. A structure exhausts itself in its effect, which is that there is oneness" (p95). It should be most helpful to allow Badiou to explain why this is problematic: " ...the problem with this idea is that structure could well be capable of conferring the one upon everything found within it that is composed from compositions. Our entire artifice is based on the distinction between belonging and inclusion. But why not pose that any composition of consistent multiplicities is, in turn, consistent, which is to say granted one-existence in the situation? And that by consequence inclusion implies belonging?" (p97). It is at this point Badiou invokes the Theorem of the Point of Excess from Meditation Seven. As one will recall, this theorem states: "there are always sub-multiples which despite being included in a situation as compositions of multiplicities, cannot be counted in that situation as terms, and which therefore do not exist....'sub-multiple'--must be recognized as the place in which the void may receive the latent form of being; because there are always parts which in-exist in a situation, and which are thus subtracted from the one" (p97).
This meditation specifically expounds on that which is guaranteed by the Axiom of the Powerset--a recounting of the count, or, metastructure. In truth, this Meditation will provide the technical and metaphorical terms for unpacking Badiou's social-political schema. We shall focus our review by examining the following terms: State of the Situation, Normal Term, Singular Term, and Excrescent Term.
Badiou writes, "The thesis that all presentation is structured twice may appear to be completely a priori. But what it amounts to, in the end, is something that each and everybody observes, and which is philosophically astonishing: the being of presentation is inconsistent multiplicity, but despite this, it is never chaotic. All I am saying is this: it is on the basis of Chaos not being the form of the donation of being that one is obliged to think that there is a reduplication of the the count-as-one. The prohibition of any presentation of the void can only be immediate and constant if this vanishing point of consistent multiplicity--which is precisely its consistency as operational result--is, in turn, stopped up, or closed, by a count-as-one of the operation itself, a count of the count, a metastructure...I would add that the investigation of any effective situation (any region of structured presentation), whether it be natural or historical, reveals the real operation of the second count. On this point, concrete analysis converges with the philosophical theme: all situations are structured twice. This also means: there is always both presentation and representation. To think this point is to think the requisites of the errancy of the void, of the non-presentation of inconsistency, and of the danger that being-qua-being represents; haunting presentation" (p94).
The first term in this Meditation which is of importance is State of the Situation. It should be read as a metaphorical nod to Badiou's affinity with politics to term the count-as-one of any structured presentation: the State. Utilizing the set-theoretical language from Meditation Seven, one may think the State (as governmental entity) as re-presenting presentation as such. Thus in Badiou's schema the governmental State is a metastructure, a count of the count. Two obstacles are quickly at hand when terming the State as "metastructure." First, "If this metastructure did nothing other than count the terms of the situation it would be indistinguishable from structure itself, whose entire role is such" (p95). One must here remember the distinction between belonging and inclusion, a distinction which allows us to think the state--metastructure-- as gathering all inclusions into the count. But, if all inclusions, were counted in the re-count, it would be because they belong as terms of the situation. If they are not counted, it is because they do not "exist." The second obstacle is that: "defining it as the count of the count alone is not sufficient either, or rather, it must be accorded that the latter can solely be a final result of the operations of the state. A structure is precisely not a term of the situation , and as such it cannot be counted. A structure exhausts itself in its effect, which is that there is oneness" (p95). It should be most helpful to allow Badiou to explain why this is problematic: " ...the problem with this idea is that structure could well be capable of conferring the one upon everything found within it that is composed from compositions. Our entire artifice is based on the distinction between belonging and inclusion. But why not pose that any composition of consistent multiplicities is, in turn, consistent, which is to say granted one-existence in the situation? And that by consequence inclusion implies belonging?" (p97). It is at this point Badiou invokes the Theorem of the Point of Excess from Meditation Seven. As one will recall, this theorem states: "there are always sub-multiples which despite being included in a situation as compositions of multiplicities, cannot be counted in that situation as terms, and which therefore do not exist....'sub-multiple'--must be recognized as the place in which the void may receive the latent form of being; because there are always parts which in-exist in a situation, and which are thus subtracted from the one" (p97).
