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Manifesto for Philosophy, published in France in 1989 and in Norman Madarsz's translation to English in 1999, begins with a question: Is philosophy dead? The question is relevant because the claim that philosophy is dead is made often, by many philosophers. Badiou cites Lyotard's article titled “Philosophy as architecture is ruined.” He points out that Deleuze's last great book is about cinema and quotes Lacoue-Labarthe saying “One must no longer be in desire of philosophy” (p 28). The reasons for the all-but-complete turning away from philosophy are several. Philosophy is bankrupt because (since Nietzsche) God and the idea of the One that it stands for is dead, the category of the subject has been deconstructed, and the concept of truth has been disqualified from determining any reasonable discourse. Perhaps underlying it all, according to Badiou, philosophy is burdened to the point of extinction by the trauma of encountering the historic through Heidegger's thought, his National-Socialist involvement, and the un-explainable horrors of WWII. Faced with the task of explaining the world after the Holocaust and the role that philosophy may have played in generating ideas that made it possible, the philosophers determined that they could not do the job. But why philosophers, asks Badiou? “Neither scientists, a god many times in the dock, nor the military, nor even politicians have considered that the massacres of the century affected them as a body.” For some reason, “… our philosophers, taking on the burden of the century… have decided to plead guilty” (p 28).
Badiou does not offer a historical explanation for why this is the case. From a philosophical perspective, he suggests that the problem is in the idea that “everything is the concern of philosophy” (p 29). It is not, Badiou argues. Philosophy is not supposed to explain Auschwitz. This is the role of “an other order of thought,” (for example, the order of historicity) (p 30). At bottom, philosophy is facing a dile