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/lp/university-of-north-carolina-press/wagering-on-happiness-philosophical-affect-in-badiou-6yhY3yvY7W
- Publisher
- University of North Carolina Press
- Copyright
- Copyright © Copyright © Society for Comparative Literature and the Arts
- ISSN
- 1559-0887
Abstract
Jeffrey r. Di Leo Wagering on Happiness Philosophical Ae ff ct in Badiou Know happiness. —Samuel Beckett Happiness has a bad reputation in contemporary theory. We live in a milieu where it both has been coopted by indust an ry d rejected by psychoanalysis. Regarded as central to the efficient operation of neoliberal capitalism, it is widely eyed with suspicion and distrust: as a fantasy of late capitalism to be overcome rather than championed. But one key theorist, the French philosopher, Alain Badiou, has re- cently decided to go against the dismissive tide in contemporary theory regarding happiness and not just come to its defense, but to make happiness the ae ff ct on which political action is founded. Badiou achieves this by formulating a metaphysics of happiness that is rooted in ae ff ct theory, particularly as introduced by Baruch Spinoza, the seventeenth cen- tury Jewish philosopher of SpanisP h- or tuguese descent. Spinoza saw the emotions as something that could be studied in the same way that we study geometry or physics. Happiness, for Spinoza, is linked with freeing ourselves from the bondage of our passive emotions, and the attainment of knowledge of our place in the
Journal
The Comparatist – University of North Carolina Press
Published: Nov 11, 2021