Badiou

Still vey much on the foothills of his thought, I'm getting increasingly intrigued by the work of Alain Badiou. Having borrowed 'Being and Event' from the Uni library I made a start reading the introduction. Very dense and quite hard to understand, particularly for someone who is not very well read in the world of philosophy, like myself. However, on reading Christopher Norris's fairly recent 'how to read' book, it's starting to make some kind of sense. One area which Badiou doesn't seem to have said much about is education, which is interesting and, me being me, it strikes me that there's an awful lot to think about along these lines which might be quite productive both in terms of my doctorate, but perhaps in my wider thinking as well. One of the things which I really love about philosophy is the time it affords ontological questions - until recently, that is, when everything is suddenly meaningless and a bit pointless through the 'linguistic turn'. Now I like a bit of Derrida as much as the next man, but I'm very attracted to Badiou's refusal to drop questions of ontology, against all the odds, and as relativism starts to seep into the common consciousness.

Blogging Regularly . . .

Having started a doctorate programme, I need to improve my writing skills - it's surprising when I think about it how little I write in order to write. Reports and spreadsheets yes, but writing to convey a deeper point is reasonably new No doubt that's what they were trying to inculcate during school, but it just didn't go in in that way. Someone said recently that regular blogging would help my writing style . . . Well, let's see! As you'll know if you're a regular reader of my blog - ha ha - that regularly in blogging terms is really not my strong point! Anyway, let's give it a go . . . The basic intention is to keep a bit of a 'worm cast' of what I've been reading, or at least some of the more mentionable ideas which have floated to the surface following reading or other experiences.