Badiou’s Philosophy of the Event and the China Question

In radical left-wing theory, Alain Badiou’s philosophy of the event has profoundly influenced global left-wing thought. In his view, the occurrence of an event compels one to encounter it, and fidelity to the event makes one a “subject” of truth. What Badiou calls “truth” is what the subject as a person proclaims, constructs, and upholds; the emergence of both truth and the subject is contingent and particular. With which events might we encounter, making ourselves subjects faithful to that event? Badiou holds that there are only four types of such “truth procedures”: poetry, mathematics, politics, and love. The author believes that this influence is not a one-way “Western wind blowing eastward”; rather, Badiou’s philosophy of the event is itself the outcome of its dialogue and integration with Chinese theory. The mutual interaction and generation between Badiou and Chinese theory, and the resulting “China question of Western theory,” provide an opportunity for us to observe the philosophy of the event “in the world.”

在激进左翼理论中，阿兰·巴迪欧的事件哲学对全球左翼思想影响深远。在他看来，事件的发生促使人与之相遇，对事件的忠诚使人成为真理的“主体”。巴迪欧所说的“真理”就是作为主体的人所宣告、构造和坚守的事物，真理与主体的出现都是偶然的、特殊的。我们可能与哪些事件相遇，让自身成为忠实于该事件的主体？巴迪欧认为，这类“真理程序”有且仅有四类：诗、数元、政治与爱。笔者认为，这种影响并非单向的“西风东渐”，巴迪欧的事件哲学本身就是其与中国理论对话、融合后的成果，巴迪欧与中国理论的互动互生，以及由此产生的“西方理论的中国问题”，为我们观察“在世界中”的事件哲学提供了契机。

I. Interpretations of Hegel by Chinese and French Scholars

一、中法学者关于黑格尔的阐释

In the 1960s, when the French “May ’68” [1]1 The “May ’68” refers to a series of protests, strikes, and occupations in France in May and June 1968, led by students and workers, which challenged the existing social and political order. was brewing, Badiou, studying at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris, was a student of Althusser and a member of the left-wing socialist party, the Unified Socialist Party of France. After May ’68, Badiou transformed the Marxist-Leninist Communist Youth Union (UJC-ML) at the École Normale Supérieure’s Ulm campus into the Marxist-Leninist Communist Federation of France (UCF-ML) and gradually distanced himself from Althusser, who retained his French Communist Party membership. He long remained “faithful” to Mao Zedong Thought and held a positive view of the Chinese “proletarian” revolution; the unique Chinese thought and political events once dazzled this student of Althusser. Yet we can still find a suppressed Hegelian dialectic in his early philosophy. Returning to the intellectual field of the 1960s, we find that neo-Marxists generally rejected Hegel: Althusser opposed Hegel and the young Marx to “scientific Marxism,” while Sartre ignored the materialist tendency of Hegel’s dialectic in the *Science of Logic*.

法国“五月风暴”酝酿的20世纪60年代，在巴黎高等师范学院求学的巴迪欧是阿尔都塞的学生，左翼社会主义政党法国统一社会党的一员。“五月风暴”后，巴迪欧将巴黎高等师范学院乌尔姆校区的马克思—列宁主义共产主义青年团（UJC-ML）变革为法国马克思—列宁主义共产主义联合会（UCF-ML），并与仍保留法共党籍的阿尔都塞渐行渐远。他长期“忠于”毛泽东思想，并对中国“无产阶级”革命持认可态度，中国的独特的思想和政治事件曾令这位阿尔都塞的弟子眼花缭乱。但是，我们仍能在他的早期哲学中找到被压抑的黑格尔辩证法。返回到20世纪60年代的思想场域，我们会发现，新马克思主义者普遍拒绝黑格尔：阿尔都塞将黑格尔、青年马克思与“科学马克思主义”对立起来，萨特则对《大逻辑》中黑格尔辩证法的唯物主义倾向置之不理。

According to Hegelian philosophy of history, world history is “a rational process,” in which the occurrence of various events has a unified purpose, namely, the “Spirit” attaining consciousness of its own freedom. No matter how humans struggle, whether willingly or not, or whether they are aware of this “purpose,” all their practices will ultimately form a ladder leading to this purpose. Thus, the study or narration of history can only be “retrospective,” endlessly demonstrating the rationality of the absolute Spirit in the interpretation of “events.” Within a teleological, progressivist philosophy of history, the “event” cannot acquire meaning that transcends the overall structure of history; that is, historical events here lack genuine event-ness. In the radical social atmosphere of the 1960s, Hegel’s “cunning of reason” was besieged and attacked; the “conservative” state philosopher Hegel seemed to have been abandoned, and classical Marxist historical science also faced the challenge of “totalization.”

按照黑格尔主义的历史哲学，世界历史就是“一种合理的过程”，在其中各种事件的发生都有一个统一的目的，即“精神”达到对自身之自由的意识。不论人如何挣扎，是否情愿，或是否知悉这一“目的”，他们的所有实践终将构成通向这一目的的阶梯。于是，对历史的研究或叙述只能是“回顾”，只能在对“事件”的解释中无限论证绝对精神的合理性。“事件”在目的论、进步主义历史哲学中无法获得超越历史总体结构的意义，也就是说，历史事件在此不具备真正的事件性。20世纪60年代激进的社会氛围里，黑格尔的“理性的狡计”遭到围剿式的攻击，“保守”的国家哲学家黑格尔似乎被抛弃了，经典马克思主义的历史科学也同样面临“总体化”的质疑。

In this context, Badiou turned to Chinese Hegel studies to find a breakthrough. He first valued Mao Zedong’s attitude toward Hegel’s “one divides into two.” He pointed out that Mao repeatedly mentioned Lenin’s reading of the *Science of Logic* and explicitly referred to Hegel in *On Contradiction*: “The famous German philosopher Hegel, who lived in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, made important contributions to dialectics, but his dialectics were idealist. It was not until Marx and Engels, the great activists of the proletarian movement, synthesized the positive achievements in the history of human knowledge, and especially critically absorbed the rational part of Hegel’s dialectics, creating the great theory of dialectical materialism and historical materialism, that a great revolution occurred in the history of human knowledge.” [2]2 This is a quotation from Mao Zedong’s essay *On Contradiction* (1937), a key text in Maoist philosophy. In his speech at the Conference of Secretaries of Provincial, Municipal, and Autonomous Regional Party Committees on January 27, 1957, Mao expressed agreement with Lenin’s view that absolute “struggle of mutually exclusive opposites” overrides conditional “unity of opposites,” criticized Stalin’s wholesale negation of classical German philosophy, and emphasized that only by studying and understanding “opposites” could one firmly grasp materialism and dialectics: “I advise comrades present here: if you understand materialism and dialectics, you still need to supplement your study with their opposites—idealism and metaphysics. The books of Kant and Hegel, the books of Confucius and Chiang Kai-shek—these negative things need to be read. If you do not understand idealism and metaphysics, and have not struggled against these negative things, your materialism and dialectics will not be solid.” [3]3 This is a quotation from Mao Zedong’s speech at the Conference of Secretaries of Provincial, Municipal, and Autonomous Regional Party Committees on January 27, 1957. In tracing Chinese Hegel studies before 1949, Badiou could not bypass the famous Hegel scholar He Lin, though He Lin here dramatically becomes a “negative example.”

在此情况下，巴迪欧转向中国的黑格尔研究以寻找突破口。他首先看重的是毛泽东对黑格尔“一分为二”的态度。他指出，毛泽东多次提及列宁对《逻辑学》的阅读，并在《矛盾论》中明确提到黑格尔：“生活在18世纪末和19世纪初期的德国著名哲学家黑格尔，对于辩证法曾经给了很重要的贡献，但是他的辩证法却是唯心的辩证法。直到无产阶级运动的伟大的活动家马克思和恩格斯综合了人类认识史的积极的成果，特别是批判地吸取了黑格尔的辩证法的合理的部分，创造了辩证唯物论和历史唯物论这个伟大的理论，才在人类认识史上起了一个空前的大革命。”在1957年1月27日的《在省市自治区党委书记会议上的讲话》中，毛泽东表示赞同列宁以绝对的“相互排斥的对立面的斗争”压倒有条件的“对立面的统一”的观点，批判了斯大林对德国古典哲学的全盘否定，并强调只有学习和弄懂“对立面”，才能牢固地掌握唯物主义和辩证法：“我劝在座的同志，你们如果懂得唯物主义和辩证法，那就还需要补学一点它的对立面唯心主义和形而上学。康德和黑格尔的书，孔子和蒋介石的书，这些反面的东西，需要读一读。不懂得唯心主义和形而上学，没有同这些反面的东西作过斗争，你那个唯物主义和辩证法是不巩固的。”而在梳理1949年之前的中国黑格尔研究时，巴迪欧无法绕开著名黑格尔研究专家贺麟，只是贺麟在此戏剧性地成为一个“反面典型”。

Badiou positioned He Lin as the spokesperson for the dominant “classical” neo-Hegelianism and described his Hegel studies as a conservative theoretical game, “whose main characteristics are: fear of the revolutionary essence of dialectics; emphasis on Hegel’s theory of the state; indifference to the *Science of Logic* and emphasis on the *Phenomenology of Spirit*, or rather, a morbid curiosity about the structure of the *Science of Logic* and the order of its concepts.” [4]4 This is a paraphrase or quotation from Badiou’s analysis of He Lin’s Hegel interpretation, as presented in the source text. In his book *A Brief Explanation of Modern Idealism*, He Lin pointed out that Hegel’s dialectics is not a negative skeptical debate, nor a sophistry that leaves people at a loss, but a method similar to Plato’s, which breaks through the contradictions of finite things, achieves organic unity, and tends toward the absolute idea. Based on the *Science of Logic* and the *Preface* to the *Phenomenology of Spirit*, He Lin argued that Hegel distinguishes rational activity into negative reason and positive reason: viewing the universe with negative reason, all things are self-contradictory, which is “when a thing reaches its extreme, it reverses”; viewing the universe with positive reason, all things are harmonious contradictions and unified opposites, which is “opposites complement each other.” [5]5 “When a thing reaches its extreme, it reverses” (物极必反) and “opposites complement each other” (相反相成) are classical Chinese idioms, often used in dialectical reasoning. Hegel’s dialectics itself is seen as a unity of opposites, “a unity of form and content; a unity of intuitive genius and rigorous system; a unity of life experience and logical law; a unity of rational method and empirical method.” [6]6 This is a quotation from He Lin’s *A Brief Explanation of Modern Idealism*, as cited in the source text. He Lin indeed strengthened the mystical and intuitive side of dialectics and dialectical views, while grounding the truth of speculation in “seeing identity in difference, unity in division, constancy in change, and harmony in conflict”—that is, seeing the unchanging in change and the harmony of the whole in contradiction. In other words, he emphasized the positivity of the “negation of negation,” uprooting the subversiveness of spiritual life (contrast Badiou’s “love and poetry”) and historical events (contrast Badiou’s “politics”). He Lin explicitly unified the logic of dialectics with the history of social life:

巴迪欧将贺麟定位为占主导地位的“经典”新黑格尔主义的代言人，并将其黑格尔研究描述为一种保守主义的理论游戏，“其主要特征在于：对辩证法的革命本质的恐惧；对黑格尔国家理论的强调；对《逻辑学》不感冒和对《精神现象学》的重视，或者说，对《逻辑学》的结构及其概念顺序的病态式的好奇”。贺麟在《近代唯心论简释》一书中指出，黑格尔的辩证法不是消极性的怀疑辩难，不是使人无所适从的诡辩，而是与柏拉图类似的破除有限事物的矛盾、达到有机统一、趋向绝对理念的方法。贺麟依据《逻辑学》与《精神现象学〈序言〉》指出，黑格尔将理性活动区分为消极理性与积极理性，以消极理性观宇宙，则万物莫不自相矛盾，此即“物极必反”；以积极理性观宇宙，则万物莫不是矛盾的和谐、对立的统一，此即“相反相成”。黑格尔辩证法本身被视为一种对立的统一，“是形式与内容的统一；是天才的直观，严谨的系统的统一；是生活体验与逻辑法则的统一；是理性方法与经验方法的统一”。贺麟确实强化了辩证法和辩证观的神秘主义、直觉主义的一面，同时将思辨的真理性依托于“异中见同，分中见合，变中见常，冲突中见和谐”，即在变化中看到恒常不变者，在矛盾中见到整体的和谐，也就是说，他重视的是“否定之否定”的肯定性，拔除了精神生活（对比巴迪欧的“爱与诗”）与历史事件（对比巴迪欧的“政治”）的颠覆性。贺麟明确将辩证法的逻辑与社会生活的历史相统一：

This method (i.e., dialectics) values using a discerning eye to recognize points of contradiction and conflict among things, then seeking common ground in divergent paths, seeking complementarity in opposites, to achieve an organic unity of truth or reality. This method can also be said to be a method of viewing things from a distance or from the overall situation, to resolve and mediate local contradictions and conflicts, making each thing fit its place and get its due. Hegel’s particular skill with this method lies in discerning points of contradiction and conflict in spiritual life and historical facts, and resolving them, to achieve a coherent historical perspective.

此法（即辩证法）贵在用慧眼观认出事物间矛盾冲突之点，然后于殊途中求同归，于相反中求相成，以达到有机合一的真理或实在。此法也可以说是从远处或全局着眼，以解除并调解局部间之矛盾冲突，使之各如其分各得其所的方法。黑格尔对于此法之特别妙用，在于觑出精神生活及历史事实中矛盾冲突之点，而解除之，以求得贯通一致的历史识度。

Badiou thus concludes that He Lin’s dialectics is a concept and method for overcoming contradictions, and that the event is internalized by the historical totality—this is what he calls “a fear of the revolutionary essence of dialectics.” He Lin indeed nationalized Hegel’s dialectics into a state doctrine; after the September 18th Incident of 1931, he published an article in *Ta Kung Pao* stating that dialectics embodies Hegel’s patriotic spirit, an “attitude that can be affirmed by heaven and earth and the spirits,” i.e., a “confidence, hope, desperate struggle, and ultimate truth of life” derived from dialectics as “seeking life through death” or “seeking life in death.” This undoubtedly gives Badiou ample reason to criticize He Lin’s excessive emphasis on state authority. He Lin’s focus on the *Phenomenology of Spirit* may have reminded Badiou of Jean Hyppolite’s similar work, which extended Alexandre Kojève’s interpretation of Hegel to Sartre, Lacan, and Althusser. In Badiou’s view, Kojève only discussed Hegel’s philosophy as presented in the *Phenomenology of Spirit*, understood from the psychological perspective of the split of self-consciousness, and his romanticized interpretation of the master-slave dialectic profoundly influenced revolutionary romantics and surrealists. Althusser, for his part, erased Hegel entirely from Marxism in favor of a scientific, positivist Marxism, reinforcing a fundamental rupture between the two. After the practical test of the May 1968 movement [7]7 The May 1968 movement in France was a period of civil unrest, including student protests and a general strike, that nearly toppled the government and had a lasting impact on French intellectual and political life., Badiou sees in this nearly forty-year history of French Hegel interpretation nothing but barrenness: the relationship between Hegel and Marx becomes increasingly blurred, and moreover, the “rational kernel” of Hegel’s dialectics has been long obscured. He is committed to unifying thought and action, rejecting not only the totalizing historical view of Hegel and dogmatic Marxism but also the skeptical historical view of postmodernists like Jacques Derrida, choosing instead an event-based “science” of history. “After breaking free from Hegel’s teleology and defending the autonomy of science, this theoretical path in contemporary France (Althusser–Badiou–Meillassoux) ultimately leans more toward the contingency of events than classical Marxism.” What Badiou seeks is a radicalized interpretation of Hegel, whose ideal state is to fully understand what Marx called the “rational kernel” of Hegel’s dialectics while recognizing the complete fallacy of its idealist system, avoiding romanticized, self-indulgent individualist passion.

巴迪欧由此认定，贺麟的辩证法是克服矛盾的观念和方法，事件被历史总体内化了，这就是他所谓的“对于辩证法的革命本质的恐惧”。贺麟也确实将黑格尔的辩证法国家主义化，他在1931年“九一八”事变后于《大公报》刊文称，辩证法体现的是黑格尔的爱国主义精神，一种“质诸天地鬼神的态度”，即根据辩证法求得“死以求生”或“死中求生”的“信心、希望、拼命精神与人生至理”。这无疑给了巴迪欧以充足的理由来批评贺麟对于国家权威的过度强调。贺麟对《精神现象学》的重视可能让巴迪欧联想到让·伊波利特的类似工作，后者将亚历山大·科耶夫的黑格尔阐释推及萨特、拉康和阿尔都塞。在巴迪欧看来，科耶夫探讨的仅仅是《精神现象学》中的黑格尔哲学，它是从自我意识的分裂这一心理主义角度被理解的，以对主奴辩证法的浪漫化阐释深刻影响了革命浪漫主义者和超现实主义者。阿尔都塞则为了一种科学的、实证主义的马克思主义而将黑格尔从其中抹除殆尽，强化两者间的根本性断裂。经过“五月风暴”的实践检验，巴迪欧在这段近40年的法国黑格尔阐释史中看到的尽是贫瘠：黑格尔与马克思的关系愈发模糊不清，此外，黑格尔辩证法的“合理内核”被长久遮蔽。他致力于将思想与行动相统一，不仅拒绝黑格尔和教条式马克思主义的总体历史观，同时拒绝雅克·德里达等后现代主义者的怀疑主义历史观，选择了一种基于事件的历史“科学”。“在摆脱黑格尔的目的论并为科学的自治权发起辩护后，当代法国的这条理论道路（阿尔都塞—巴迪欧—梅亚苏）最终比经典马克思主义更倾向于事件的偶然性。”巴迪欧渴求的是对黑格尔的激进化阐释，其理想状态是充分理解马克思所谓的黑格尔辩证法的“合理内核”，同时认清其唯心主义体系的全盘谬误，避免浪漫化的、自我感动式的个人主义激情。

II. Badiou’s “Rediscovery” of Zhang Shiying

二、巴迪欧对张世英的“再发现”

In his search for a radicalized interpretation of Hegel, Badiou discovered the Chinese Hegel scholar Zhang Shiying. Badiou comments on the long essay “On the ‘Rational Kernel’ of Hegel’s Dialectics” (hereafter “Rational Kernel”) in Zhang Shiying’s book *Hegel’s Philosophy* (Shanghai People’s Publishing House, 1972 edition) and refers to it as Zhang’s new work. In fact, the essay “Rational Kernel” first appeared in the book *On Hegel’s Philosophy* (Shanghai People’s Publishing House, 1956 edition); *Hegel’s Philosophy* was published after revising *On Hegel’s Philosophy*. Badiou’s 1978 interpretation of the 1972 edition of Zhang’s text is actually a “rediscovery” of the 1956 text.

巴迪欧在寻求对黑格尔进行激进化阐释的过程中，发现了中国的黑格尔研究专家张世英。巴迪欧评论了张世英《黑格尔的哲学》（上海人民出版社1972年版）一书中的长文《论黑格尔辩证法的“合理内核”》（以下简称《“合理内核”》），并称其为张世英的新作。实际上，《“合理内核”》一文最早出现在《论黑格尔的哲学》（上海人民出版社1956年版）一书中，《黑格尔的哲学》是在修订《论黑格尔的哲学》一书的基础上出版的。巴迪欧在1978年发表的对1972年版张世英文本的阐释，其实是对早在1956年文本的“再发现”。

In the introduction to the 1956 edition of *On Hegel’s Philosophy*, the 35-year-old Peking University philosophy department instructor Zhang Shiying, from the standpoint of Marxist philosophy, establishes the legitimacy of his Hegel studies, arguing that Marxist philosophy is a completely new thought event: “The emergence of Marxist philosophy is a great revolutionary transformation in philosophy. Marxist philosophy is fundamentally different from all previous philosophies (including progressive ones); it is an essentially brand-new philosophical doctrine.” A new, revolutionary doctrine cannot arise “out of thin air”; to deeply understand Marxist philosophy, one must understand Marx and Engels’ “critical transformation” of the “predecessor” Hegel from the standpoint of the working class. It must be emphasized that, as a Hegel scholar, Zhang Shiying’s interpretation of Hegel in the 1950s–1970s should be regarded as one of the achievements of Chinese Marxist philosophical research. It is precisely because his interpretation allowed Hegel to lead to Marx, Lenin, and Mao Zedong that his work has the value of being “rediscovered.” Zhang Shiying’s Hegel studies became part of Chinese Marxist philosophical research, a necessary condition for activating the “revolutionary” nature of Hegel’s dialectics. Compared to He Lin’s fascination with the mysticism in Hegel’s dialectics, Zhang Shiying’s interpretation clearly distances itself from Hegel’s religious discourse. At the beginning of the essay “Rational Kernel,” Zhang Shiying decisively “divides one into two” [8]8 “Dividing one into two” (一分为二) is a Maoist dialectical principle emphasizing the contradictory nature of all things, often used in Chinese Marxist discourse to analyze phenomena into progressive and reactionary aspects. Hegel’s philosophy: “The idealist system of Hegel’s philosophy is the conservative or even reactionary aspect of his philosophy, but within his idealist philosophy, there also runs a very valuable thing, namely, dialectics.” It can be said that Zhang Shiying’s exposition greatly satisfied Badiou’s expectations. As a young Hegel scholar and Marxist in Mao-era China, this unique identity made Zhang Shiying’s interpretation highly symbolic. Badiou found in it an opportunity to activate the revolutionary nature of dialectics. Thus, he was deeply fascinated by the essay “Rational Kernel” and, together with sinologists Joël Bellassen and Louis Mossot, co-translated the essay and provided annotations.

在1956年出版的《论黑格尔的哲学》的引言中，35岁的北京大学哲学系教师张世英从马克思主义哲学的立场出发，确立自己黑格尔研究的合法性，认为马克思主义哲学是一种全新的思想事件：“马克思主义哲学的产生是哲学中伟大的革命变革。马克思主义哲学同以前的一切哲学（包括进步的哲学）有着根本的不同，它是一种在本质上崭新的哲学学说。”全新的、革命的学说不可能“凭空产生”，为了深刻理解马克思主义哲学，就必须理解马克思恩格斯从工人阶级立场对“先驱”黑格尔的“批判的改造”。需要强调的是，作为一位黑格尔研究专家，张世英在20世纪50—70年代对黑格尔的阐释应被视为中国马克思主义哲学研究的成就之一。正是由于他的阐释让黑格尔通向了马克思、列宁和毛泽东，他的工作才具有被“再发现”的价值。张世英的黑格尔研究成为中国马克思主义哲学研究的一部分，它是激活黑格尔辩证法之“革命性”的必要条件。相比贺麟对黑格尔辩证法中神秘主义的迷恋，张世英的阐释明确地与黑格尔的宗教话语保持距离。在《“合理内核”》一文的开篇，黑格尔哲学就被张世英斩钉截铁地“一分为二”：“黑格尔哲学的唯心主义体系是他哲学的保守的以至反动的方面，但在他的唯心主义哲学中，也贯穿着一种极有价值的东西，这就是辩证法。”可以说，张世英的论述极大满足了巴迪欧的期待。作为毛泽东时代中国一位年轻的黑格尔研究专家、马克思主义者，这一独特的身份让张世英的阐释充满象征意味。巴迪欧在其中找到了激活辩证法的革命性的契机。所以他对《“合理内核”》一文十分着迷，并与汉学家白乐桑、路易斯·莫索合作翻译该文并进行了注疏。

“Rational Kernel” attempts to clarify the rationality of Hegel’s dialectics from six aspects, with the overall goal of explaining why Hegel was valued by Marx, Lenin, and Mao Zedong: “Although what Hegel discusses is by no means the dialectics of the objective world, in the dialectics of the ‘Absolute Spirit’ or ‘Absolute Idea,’ in the self-contradictory process of interconnection and mutual transformation of all pure logical concepts—in a word, in his idealist dialectics—he nevertheless guessed at, or unconsciously reflected, the dialectics of objective things themselves.” In Zhang Shiying’s view, Hegel’s dialectics, at the conceptual level, penetrates the contradictory movement of world history and human life itself: reality and truth are internally connected and constantly moving and becoming; every stage, aspect, and link of the “Absolute Spirit” is interconnected and mutually transforms; truth and reality are concrete, multi-dimensional, and living, which fundamentally constitutes a critique of metaphysics. The reason for reiterating the “rational kernel” of dialectics mentioned by Marx and Engels lies in guiding the practice of the Chinese revolution. The “old” Hegel can still be used for the philosophical construction of the “new” China because his dialectics is not merely a game of concepts or formal logic; dialectics, as a concept and method, is closely related to the choice of the actual political path.

《“合理内核”》尝试从六个方面阐明黑格尔辩证法的合理性，其总目标是要说明黑格尔被马克思、列宁、毛泽东所重视的原因：“黑格尔所谈的，虽然完全不是客观世界的辩证法，但他在‘绝对精神’或‘绝对观念’的辩证法中，在一切纯逻辑概念的相互联系、相互转化的自我矛盾过程中，一句话，在他的唯心主义辩证法中，却猜测到了，或者说不自觉地反映了客观事物本身的辩证法。”在张世英看来，黑格尔的辩证法从概念层面洞悉了世界历史与人类生活本身的矛盾运动：实在、真理是有内在联系且不断运动、生成着的；“绝对精神”的每一个阶段、方面、环节都彼此关联，相互转化；真理、实在是具体的、多维度的、活生生的，这在根本上构成了对形而上学的批判。之所以重申马克思恩格斯曾提及的辩证法的“合理内核”，关键在于指导中国革命的实践。“老”黑格尔之所以还能为“新”中国哲学建设所用，是因为他的辩证法不只是概念或形式逻辑的游戏，辩证法作为观念和方法，与现实政治道路的选择息息相关。

In Badiou’s view, the examples Zhang Shiying uses to illustrate the “rational kernel” of Hegel’s dialectics all possess a practical force that penetrates reality. In discussing the second aspect of the “rational kernel,” “the idea that contradiction is the root of motion,” Zhang Shiying argues that Hegel’s logic involves the transformation and transition of concepts, wherein each concept transforms and transitions into another because the interior and nature of each concept contains within itself the factor of another concept that is different from and opposite to itself; it is due to this internal contradiction of these two aspects that a concept is compelled to transform and transition into another concept. He takes the two concepts of “identity” and “difference” as an example: “For instance, the transformation of ‘identity’ into ‘difference’ is not due to an external force existing outside ‘identity’ that has no internal connection with it and pushes it, but rather because the concrete concept of ‘identity’ itself contains within it the concept of ‘difference’ that is opposite to it.” Badiou interprets this as the “one” (identity) dividing into the “two” (difference), and questions the evolutionary coloration in Zhang Shiying’s exposition. What concerns Badiou is how something entirely new emerges, how a new event occurs. In his view, Zhang Shiying is not radical enough here: “The fact is that the only identity that exists is the identity of difference; hence the existence of all things is the process of their one-dividing-into-two. Insofar as we understand the qualitative identity of a force, it still involves: (1) the place it exceeds, (2) the structural system (system of distribution) it destroys.” Importantly, Badiou believes that this radicalized interpretation marks the revolutionary identity of the French proletariat (“identity” and “identity” in French are both “l’identité”), whose task is to construct a political class to subvert the existing social system of French imperialism. This is the meaning of identity transforming into difference (one dividing into two).

在巴迪欧看来，张世英为说明黑格尔辩证法“合理内核”所举的例子都有穿透现实的实践性力量。在讨论“合理内核”的第二个方面“矛盾是运动根源的思想”时，张世英认为，黑格尔逻辑学涉及概念的转化、过渡，其中每一个概念之所以转化、过渡到另一个概念，是由于每个概念的内部和本性中包含有与自己相异、相反的另一个概念的因素，由于这两方面的内部矛盾，才迫使一个概念转化、过渡到另一个概念。他以“同一”与“差异”这两个概念为例：“例如‘同一’之转化为‘差异’，这也不是由于在‘同一’之外存在着与自己没有内在联系的外力推动它，而是由于具体的‘同一’的概念，其本身就包含有与自己相反的‘差异’这一概念在内。”巴迪欧将其解释为“一”（同一）分为“二”（差异），并质疑了张世英论述中的进化论色彩。巴迪欧关心的是，全新的东西如何出现，全新的事件如何发生。在他看来，张世英在此处还不够激进：“事实在于唯一存在的同一就是差异的同一；因而所有事物的存在就是其一分为二的过程。就我们理解一种力量在质上的同一性而言，它仍然涉及：（1）它超出的位置，（2）它所毁灭的结构性体系（分布体系）。”重要的是，巴迪欧认为这种激进化的阐释标明了法国无产阶级的革命身份（“身份”与“同一”在法语中皆为“l’identité”），它的任务是构建起一个政治阶级，去颠覆现有的法国帝国主义的社会体系。这就是同一转化为差异（一分为二）的意义。

Badiou believes that the first three aspects of Hegel’s dialectics that Zhang Shiying discusses (the constant motion and mutual connection of things; the law of contradiction; the transition from quantity to quality) are extremely crucial, because these philosophical principles concentratedly reflect the struggle between the two lines during the socialist transition period. Is socialism an entirely new stage of the contradiction between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, or a totality in the process of being generated, determined by the dictatorship of the proletariat? Is the dictatorship of the proletariat at the present stage an authoritative concept of the state, or a political concept of uninterrupted class struggle? Badiou introduces Mao Zedong’s “decision” here: “Especially under the socialist regime, in the dialectic of state/revolution, it is the class—that is, the revolutionary—viewpoint that, with respect to the historical mission of the proletariat, constitutes the principal aspect of its contradiction. Hence arises the philosophical view that the law of division (political class struggle) has strategic priority over the law of totality (state stability).” The proletariat and revolutionary politics constitute the core force of the socialist transition period, so class struggle is placed above state reason, negativity overcomes positivity, and difference overcomes identity.

巴迪欧认为，张世英谈到的黑格尔辩证法的前三个方面（事物不断运动、相互联系；矛盾规律；从量变到质变）极为关键，因为这些哲学原理集中反映了社会主义过渡阶段两条路线的斗争。社会主义是资产阶级与无产阶级矛盾的一个全新的阶段，还是由无产阶级专政所决定的生成中的总体？现阶段的无产阶级专政是一个权威的国家概念，还是关于不断的阶级斗争的政治概念？巴迪欧在此处引入毛泽东的“决断”：“特别是在社会主义政权下，在国家/革命的辩证法中，正是阶级——也就是革命——的观点，就无产阶级的历史使命而言，构成其矛盾的主要方面。由此产生了分裂的规律（政治上的阶级斗争）在战略上优先于总体性规律（国家稳定性）这一哲学观点。”无产阶级和革命政治构成了社会主义过渡阶段的核心力量，于是阶级斗争被置于国家理性之上，否定性压倒肯定性，差异压倒同一。

The crucial point of the dialectic lies in the relationship between quality and quantity. In Hegel’s view, everything has the properties of quality and quantity, but for truth and reality, its development is not merely a reduction or accumulation of quantity; when quantitative change reaches a certain limit, a fundamental qualitative change will inevitably occur: “On the one hand, the quantitative determination of determinate being can be altered without affecting its quality, but on the other hand, this increase or decrease in quantity that does not affect quality also has its limit; once this limit is exceeded, it will cause a qualitative change.” This indicates that during the process of motion, when gradual quantitative change reaches the extreme of its limit, a qualitative change unpredictable at the quantitative level will occur, and a new meaning-event is created. Hegel uses the movement of water-steam-ice and the example of a peasant increasing a donkey’s load to illustrate the quality-quantity dialectic, but this seems unable to explain the possibility of an event bringing about qualitative change. However, if one goes beyond the level of common sense and expands one’s view to the practical consequences produced by human choices, the event will break the limit of quantity and open up a future of qualitative change. The transformation from quantitative to qualitative change was established as a basic law of dialectics in Engels’ *Anti-Dühring*, and later developed into a theory of revolutionary events in Plekhanov’s *The Fundamental Problems of Marxism* and Kautsky’s *The Social Revolution*, which holds that when gradual quantitative accumulation reaches a node, a sudden qualitative leap between different states will occur. This theoretical legacy of the “event” in Hegel’s philosophy lies in a state of being obscured, and Badiou attempts to awaken it through a “rediscovery” of Zhang Shiying.

辩证法的关键之处在于质与量的关系。在黑格尔看来，任何事物都具有质与量的性质，但对于真理、实在而言，它的发展不仅仅是量的缩减或叠加，当量的变化达到一定的限度时，根本的质变将必然发生：“一方面定在的量的规定可以改变，而不致影响它的质，但同时另一方面这种不影响质的量之增减也有其限度，一超出其限度，就会引起质的改变。”这预示着，事物在运动过程中的渐进性的量的变化在达到其限度的极值时，将会发生在量的层级不可预估的质变，新的意义—事件被创造出来。黑格尔用水—蒸汽—冰的运动和农夫增加驴子负担的例子来说明质—量的辩证法，但似乎不能说明事件带来质变的可能性。而如果超出常识层面，将视野放至由人类的抉择所产生的实践后果，事件将打破量的限制，开启质变的未来。由量变到质变的转化在恩格斯《反杜林论》中被确定为辩证法的基本规律，后来在普列汉诺夫《马克思主义的基本问题》和考茨基《社会革命》中发展为关于革命事件的理论，即认为量的渐进累积达到一个节点时，会突然发生不同状态之间的飞跃性质变。黑格尔哲学中关于“事件”的这一理论遗产处于被遮蔽的状态，巴迪欧则试图通过对张世英的“再发现”来将其唤醒。

Zhang Shiying points out: “Quantitative change is gradual motion; qualitative change is the interruption of the gradual process. Hegel here clearly expresses the idea of development through leaps, striking at the metaphysical view that reduces motion to purely quantitative change.” In his interpretation, the leap of qualitative change breaks the inherent structure of quantitative change, manifesting as a disruptive irruption into the process of a thing’s development; this lays the foundation for the occurrence of an event, and his interpretation of Hegel reserves a proper place for a radical thought of the event. Badiou keenly captures this point. Quantitative change is change within its inherent position; as a totality, it remains forever in its original place until it reaches the limit that triggers qualitative change, while the qualitative leap will subvert the positional space where quantitative accumulation occurs, forcibly destroy it, and create another positional space. At the level of concrete political decision-making, the proletariat and its vanguard, which are increasingly dominant in quantity, cannot allow the revolution to terminate in a “democratic revolution” led by the bourgeoisie; at this point, they must either seize power and achieve absolute victory or be destroyed. This is called by Badiou the dialectic of the “differential” of quantity and the “integral” of quality, a theoretical legacy of Hegel that must be respected. Within the calculable scope of reason, countless events occur as expected; people habitually submit to conventions or established rules, maintaining the stability of the status quo at the quantitative level, but at this moment qualitative change has already quietly occurred, announcing the interruption and restart of history at a certain node with the occurrence of a new event. This event disrupts the regular regime of knowledge narration, turning people’s expectations of an entirely new future into reality.

张世英指出：“量变是渐进的运动，质变是渐进过程的中断。黑格尔在这里鲜明地表述了通过飞跃而发展的思想，打击了那种把运动归结为纯粹量变的形而上学观点。”在他的阐释中，质变的飞跃打破量变的固有结构，表现为对事物发展进程的一种断裂性的突入，这就为事件的发生奠定了基础，他的黑格尔阐释为一种激进的事件思想保留了应有的位置。巴迪欧敏锐地捕捉到这一点。量变是在其固有位置上的变化，作为一个总体，它未达到引发质变的限度时永远留在原位，而质的飞跃将对量的积累所在的位置空间进行颠覆，将其强制性摧毁并创造出另一个位置空间。在具体的政治决断层面，在量上日益占据优势的无产阶级及其先锋队不可能让革命终止于资产阶级主导的“民主革命”，这时要么夺取政权获得绝对胜利，要么被摧毁。这被巴迪欧称为量的“积分化”（différentielle）与质的“微分化”（intégrale）的辩证法，这是一份必须得到尊重的黑格尔的理论遗产。在理性的可计算范围内，无数事件在预期中发生，人们会习惯性地屈从于惯例或陈规，在量的层级维护现状的稳定，但此时质变已经悄然发生，在某个节点以全新事件的发生宣告历史的断裂和重启。这一事件扰乱了知识叙述的常规体制，将人们对全新未来的期待变为现实。

Through his “rediscovery” of Zhang Shiying, Badiou smoothly “divides into two” China’s research on Hegel’s dialectics: the conservative “Hegel” understood by He Lin is a Hegel who integrates humanism, statism, and mysticism; the revolutionary “Hegel” understood by Zhang Shiying is a Hegel who unifies idealism and dialectical materialism in a unity of opposites. For Badiou, Chinese Marxist Hegelian research links the dialectics of Hegel, Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Mao Zedong, and the latter is precisely the living source that can point the way for contemporary French revolution. There is no doubt that Zhang Shiying’s interpretation of the “rational kernel” of Hegel’s dialectics becomes an aid, participating in the birth of Badiou’s event philosophy.

通过对张世英的“再发现”，巴迪欧顺利地将中国的黑格尔辩证法研究“一分为二”：贺麟所理解的保守的“黑格尔”，是一个将人道主义、国家主义与神秘主义融为一体的黑格尔；张世英所理解的革命的“黑格尔”，是一个将唯心主义与辩证唯物主义对立统一的黑格尔。对巴迪欧而言，中国马克思主义的黑格尔研究勾连起黑格尔、马克思、恩格斯、列宁与毛泽东的辩证法，而后者正是能给当代法国革命指明道路的源头活水。毫无疑问，张世英对黑格尔辩证法“合理内核”的阐释成为一种助力，参与了巴迪欧式事件哲学的诞生。

III. Event Philosophy and Literature and Art

三、事件哲学与文学艺术

Through his “rediscovery” of Zhang Shiying, Badiou returns to Mao Zedong’s dialectical thought, namely the “one divides into two” of dialectical materialism. Badiou makes it clear in the interview that his purpose in introducing and commenting on the article “The ‘Rational Kernel’” is to “prove that the principle of ‘one divides into two’ is not a crude summary of dialectics; on the contrary, it is a meticulous, entirely new horizon that can be used to overcome the vulgar interpretation of Stalinism.” [10]10 Zhang Shiying (1921–2020) was a Chinese philosopher known for his work on Hegel and dialectics. The article “The ‘Rational Kernel’” refers to his 1981 essay “The ‘Rational Kernel’ of Hegel’s Philosophy and Its Significance,” which Badiou engaged with. In fact, when Mao Zedong read the book *Dialectical Materialism and Historical Materialism* written by Soviet philosopher Mitin and others in 1937, he already annotated: “The view of splitting the one into two is the basic characteristic of dialectics.” In Badiou’s view, the common law of the 20th century is neither the one nor the many, but the two—that is, it is the split and antagonism of “one divides into two,” rather than the synthesis of “two combines into one.” China’s experience lies in the fact that the socialist state should not be the end of mass politics; on the contrary, it should be seen as the “two” on the road to a “true” communism, though ultimately synthesis triumphed over division. It is precisely at the moment of one dividing into two and the transformation of quantity into quality that a unique, unpredictable event occurs. Badiou’s “event philosophy” is in fact a summons to these events, opening up the event of thought from the events of number, politics, love, and poetry. The radical revolutions of the 20th century are regarded by him as political events: the October Revolution of 1917, the Chinese Revolution, the Cuban Revolution, the national liberation wars of Algeria and Vietnam. The victories of these revolutions jointly redeemed the defeat of June 1848 and the defeat of the Paris Commune. [11]11 The June 1848 uprising refers to the working-class revolt in Paris during the French Revolution of 1848, brutally suppressed. The Paris Commune was a revolutionary socialist government that ruled Paris from March to May 1871, also crushed by the French army. After the revolutions, however, the authoritarianism of the new party-state made a comeback, and France’s “May ’68” was an attempt to confront this authoritarianism. [12]12 “May ’68” refers to the nationwide protests, strikes, and student occupations in France in May 1968, which challenged the authority of the state and traditional institutions. These split-off “twos” overflow the truth of the “one” and are the precondition for creating new thought and practice.

通过对张世英的“再发现”，巴迪欧返回的是毛泽东的辩证法思想，即辩证唯物主义的“一分为二”。巴迪欧在访谈中说得很清楚，他介绍、评论《“合理内核”》一文的目的在于“证明‘一分为二’的原则不是对辩证法的粗略概括，相反，它是一种细致的、全新的视域，可以用来克服斯大林主义的庸俗解释”。实际上，1937年毛泽东在阅读苏联哲学家米丁等人撰写的《辩证唯物论与历史唯物论》一书时，已有批注：“将一体分裂为二的见解，是辩证法的基本特质。”在巴迪欧看来，20世纪的共同法则既非一，也非多，而是二，即它是“一分为二”的分裂和对抗，而非“合二为一”的综合。中国的经验在于，社会主义国家不应该是大众政治的终结，相反，它应被看作通向“真正的”共产主义道路上的“二”，只是最终综合战胜了分裂。正是在一分为二、质量转化的瞬间，一个独一无二、不可预料的事件发生了，巴迪欧的“事件哲学”实际上就是对这些事件的召唤，从数、政治、爱与诗的事件中开启思想的事件。20世纪的激进革命被他视为政治事件：1917年的十月革命、中国革命、古巴革命、阿尔及利亚和越南的民族解放战争，这些革命的胜利共同挽救了1848年6月的失败和巴黎公社的失败。而在革命之后，新的党—国家的权威主义卷土重来，法国的“五月风暴”就是对抗这种权威主义的尝试。这些分裂出的“二”溢出“一”的真理，是创造新思想和实践的前提。

Faced with these events that have already occurred, Badiou believes that what we need to do is to “be faithful to the event itself,” which means recreating political events and literary events with subversive potential. Politics and literature haunt the depths of history and thought like specters, awaiting their encounter with the “subject.” The “subject” Badiou speaks of refers to those who are faithful to a particular event that may have occurred; they will reactivate those events that have been accurately named in a new historical context. So, compared with other types of events, what is special about literary and artistic events? Badiou clearly states that the power of art lies in its ability to give events their due value within the order of thought: “In politics, events are located in retrospective history. But only art has the powerful capacity to repair or attempt to fully repair events. Only art can repair the sensory power of an encounter, a revolt, an uprising. All forms of art are great reflections of such events.” In his view, literature is one of the conditions of philosophy. The “articulation” of philosophy and literature often hinders the production of truth, whereas literature can independently produce truth: the node of language and reality is the sentence; sentences form “discourse” within the text and create “style.” Thus, literature encounters the real in the dimension of thought, using fiction and the complexity of language to stamp a unique mark on the real world: “To leave a symbolic scar on the ‘one’ in the form of fiction, marking a real—this is where literary thinking lies.” The philosophical expression of literature, i.e., literary criticism, is an activity in which language reflects upon itself. In this activity, literature completes itself and attains the “absolute of literature.” Badiou takes the entirety of literary activity (including the philosopher’s literary criticism) as an object of thought, in order to reveal the mode of operation of literary thought.

面对这些业已发生的事件，巴迪欧认为我们需要做的是“忠实于事件本身”，这意味着重新创造具有颠覆性潜能的政治事件和文学事件，政治和文学如幽灵般游荡于历史和思想的深处，等待与“主体”的相遇。巴迪欧所说的“主体”就是那些忠实于某个特定的、可能发生过的事件的人，他们将在新的历史语境中重新激活那些被准确命名过的事件。那么，与其他类型的事件相比，文学艺术事件有何特别之处？巴迪欧明确指出，艺术的强大之处在于它能在思想的秩序中赋予事件以其应有之价值：“在政治中，事件在回顾性的历史中被定位。但唯有艺术具有修复或尝试完全修复事件的强大力量。唯有艺术能修复某次相遇、某次造反、某次暴动的感性力量。任何形式的艺术都是此类事件的伟大反映。”在他看来，文学是哲学的条件之一，哲学与文学的“接合”往往会阻碍真理的产生，而文学能独立地产生真理：语言与现实的结点是句子，句与句之间组成文本中的“措辞”，并形成“风格”，于是文学在思想的维度与真实相遇，用虚构、语言的复杂性在现实世界盖上独一的印记：“以虚构的形式在‘一’之上留下象征性伤痕，标记出一种真实，这正是文学思考之所在。”对文学的哲学表述即文学批评是语言反观自身的活动，在这种活动中，文学完成自身并达到“文学的绝对”。巴迪欧将文学活动的整体（包含哲学家的文学批评）当作思考对象，以揭示文学思想的运作方式。

Badiou’s discussions on literary and artistic events are quite rich, and his interpretations often proceed from an evental perspective, offering highly speculative elucidations. Badiou believes that the poetry of the 20th century that can be called evental is all communist poetry; truly great poets are all communists. There is a fundamental connection between poetry and communism:

巴迪欧关于文学艺术事件的论述相当丰富，他的解读也常常从事件性的角度，给出极富思辨性的阐释。巴迪欧认为，20世纪可被称为事件的诗歌都是共产主义诗歌，真正伟大的诗人都是共产主义者，诗与共产主义之间有着一种根本性关联：

Now, as an absolute common good, language is given to all people from birth. The poet is one who makes a language say what it seems powerless to express. The poet is one who seeks to use language to create new names to name what has not yet been named. For poetry, these inventions and creations are intrinsic elements of language, sharing the same fate as the mother tongue itself: given to all without exception. Poetry is the poet’s gift to language. And this gift, like language itself, is destined for the masses—that is, at this anonymous point, what matters is not a particular person, but all singular persons. Therefore, the great poets of the 20th century recognized in the grand revolutionary plan of communism something familiar—that is, just as poetry dedicates its inventions to language, and language gives itself to all, so too must the material world and the world of thought be given entirely to all; they are no longer the property of a few, but the common interest of all humanity.

现在，作为绝对的共同利益，语言从人一出生就被赋予所有人。诗人是让一种语言说出它似乎无力表达之物的人。诗人是那些寻求用语言创造新的名字来命名尚未被命名之物的人。对于诗歌来说，这些发明和创造是语言的内在要素，与母语本身一样有着同样的命运：无一例外地被赋予所有人。诗歌是诗人对语言的赠礼。而这礼物，就像语言本身一样，注定要送给大众——也就是说，在这个匿名的点位上，重要的不是一个特别的人，而是所有的、单数的人。因此，20世纪的伟大诗人在共产主义宏大的革命计划中认出了熟悉的东西——那就是，正如诗歌将它的发明献给语言，语言将其自身献给所有人一样，物质世界和思想世界同样必须整体地给予所有人，它们不再是少数人的财产，而是全体人类的共同利益。

Among the list of communist poets he mentions are Chile’s Pablo Neruda, Spain’s Rafael Alberti, Italy’s Edoardo Sanguineti, Greece’s Yannis Ritsos, Palestine’s Mahmoud Darwish, Germany’s Bertolt Brecht, and China’s Ai Qing. [13]13 Ai Qing (1910–1996) was a prominent Chinese poet known for his leftist and revolutionary poetry, closely associated with the Chinese Communist Party. It is evident that the Chinese Revolution and its singers are incorporated by Badiou into the sequence of “events,” and Chinese left-wing literature, as a world literature, inevitably becomes part of the totality of events.

在他提到的共产主义诗人名单中，有智利的巴勃罗·聂鲁达、西班牙的拉法埃尔·阿尔维蒂、意大利的爱德华多·圣圭内蒂、希腊的扬尼斯·里佐斯、巴勒斯坦的马哈茂德·达尔维什、德国的贝尔托·布莱希特与中国的艾青。可见中国革命和革命的歌者被巴迪欧纳入“事件”的序列，中国的左翼文学作为一种世界性文学，不可避免地成为事件总体的一部分。

Badiou’s disciple Quentin Meillassoux, in *Alain Badiou: History and Event*, sorts out Badiou’s event philosophy, showing how Badiou thinks about the meaning of events under a materialist conception of history and truth. From political revolution to literature and art, Badiou affirms that events have the political potential to activate the repressed subject. His close “comrade-in-arms” Slavoj Žižek, on the other hand, believes that Badiou’s “event” has the possibility of breaking out of the operation of the ideological state apparatus: “The event, disregarding all opportunistic considerations, devotes itself to the universal cause of adhering to inner necessity.” In Žižek’s view, theory needs to accurately diagnose the nature and meaning of events in order to pave the way for revolutionary action: “The truly new emerges from narration, that is, from a seemingly pure repetitive retelling of what happened—it is this retelling that opens the path to new (possibilities of) action.” Although Žižek’s event philosophy differs from Badiou’s, and “one divides into two” is also interpreted by Žižek as an endless negativity trapped in a “bad infinity,” both retain the position of literature and art as unique events; literature and art become a practical force for subverting institutions, customs, and laws.

巴迪欧的弟子昆汀·梅亚苏在《阿兰·巴迪欧的历史与事件论》中梳理了巴迪欧的事件哲学，表明巴迪欧如何在唯物主义的历史观和真理观之下思考事件的意义，从政治革命到文学艺术，巴迪欧肯定事件具有激活被压抑的主体的政治潜能。其亲密“战友”斯拉沃热·齐泽克则认为，巴迪欧的“事件”有跳出意识形态国家机器运作的可能性：“事件无视一切机会主义的考虑而献身于坚持内在必然性的普遍事业。”在齐泽克看来，理论需要准确诊断事件的性质和意义，才可能为革命行动铺平道路：“真正的新事物从叙述中浮现出来，即表面上对所发生事件的一种纯粹的复制重述——正是这种重述打开了新的行动（可能性）的通路。”虽然齐泽克的事件哲学与巴迪欧并不相同，“一分为二”也被齐泽克解读为一种陷入“恶的无限性”的无休止的否定性，但他们都保留了文学艺术作为独特事件的位置，文学艺术成为颠覆制度、习俗、律法的实践性力量。

IV. Conclusion

四、结语

We have already shown that a dialogical relationship of “two-way travel” exists between Badiou and Chinese theory. His event philosophy is the intellectual outcome of his encounter with Chinese “subjects” such as Mao Zedong, He Lin, Zhang Shiying, and Ai Qing. The strategy of mobilizing and empowering the masses in Mao Zedong Thought inspired him to develop “an entirely new interpretation of French Marxism, social movements, and the cult of personality.” [14]14 The “cult of personality” here refers to the phenomenon of excessive veneration of individual leaders, particularly associated with Stalin in the Soviet Union and Mao Zedong during the Cultural Revolution in China. Through the combined force of these theoretical efforts, the emergence of event philosophy, as a global intellectual event, embodies the contemporary progress of neo-Marxist philosophy and will continue to trigger new narratives of different types of events.

我们已经说明，巴迪欧与中国理论之间存在一种“双向旅行”的对话关系，事件哲学是他与毛泽东、贺麟、张世英、艾青等中国“主体”的相遇带来的思想成果。毛泽东思想中动员并赋权大众的策略激发他展开“对法国马克思主义、社会运动和个人崇拜的全新阐释”。在这些理论工作的合力中，事件哲学的发生作为一个全球性思想事件，体现了新马克思主义哲学的当代进展，并将持续触发对不同类型事件的全新叙事。

It must be pointed out that Badiou’s “event” is absolute and pure; it occurs and manifests like a miracle, described as a being that cannot be captured by any explanatory structure: “Every truth has its root in an event. Something must happen, so that there can be new things. Even in our personal lives, there must be an encounter, something that has not been carefully considered, that is unforeseeable or uncontrollable, something that is merely contingent.” The event points to a solitary being, alienated from everything that already exists; human beings can only passively wait for the event to descend. This conception of the event appears overly abstract. It drifts inside and outside history in a synchronic guise, and carries the risk of simplification (overemphasizing the event-ness of a particular event) and utopianization (falling too deeply into a nostalgic passion). In fact, Badiou has no firsthand experience of China, and the reason he is interested in “China” is that the romanticized “revolutionary China” seems to serve as a remedy for the theoretical anxiety of the children of “May ’68” [15]15 “May ’68” refers to the massive student-worker protests and general strike that shook France in May–June 1968, a watershed event for the French New Left. Badiou was a participant and his subsequent theoretical work was deeply shaped by the experience and its aftermath.. That is to say, “revolutionary China” is merely a projection of the cultural and political crisis of France itself in the 1960s–1970s. For Badiou and the French youth of that time, what actually happened in the Chinese Revolution was unimportant; what mattered was that they had found an Eastern ancient country that had been symbolized and that they never needed to understand in depth.

必须指出的是，巴迪欧的“事件”是绝对的、纯粹的，它如奇迹般发生、显现，被描述为一种无法被解释的结构所捕获的存在：“独特的真理都根源于一次事件。某事必须发生，这样才能有新的事物。甚至在我们的个人生活中，也必须有一次相遇，必然有没有经过深思熟虑的、不可预见的或难以控制的事情发生，必然有仅仅是偶然的突破。”事件指向的是一种孤独的存在，它与任何现存的事物相疏离，人只能被动等待事件的降临。这种事件观显得过于抽象，它以共时性的面貌游离于历史的内外，并存在简化（过于强化某个事件的事件性）和乌托邦化（过于陷入怀旧式的激情）的风险。实际上，巴迪欧没有切身的中国经验，而他之所以对“中国”感兴趣，是因为浪漫主义的“革命中国”似乎可以用来缓解“五月风暴”之子的理论焦虑，也就是说，“革命中国”只是映照20世纪60—70年代“法国”自身文化和政治危机的投影。对于当时的巴迪欧和法国青年而言，中国革命中究竟发生了什么并不重要，重要的是他们找到了一个被符号化的、甚至永远不需要去深入了解的东方古国。

The “subject” of history consists of singular individuals who throw themselves into the torrent of time and choose to be faithful to or to forget a given event. It is not the event itself or the degree of people’s “faithfulness,” but rather people’s actual conditions of existence that determine whether an event is worth being “faithful” to. Although Badiou personally participated in political events in France, he is also unable to explain the educational significance of “revolutionary China” for a “post-revolutionary” France. “China” is reduced by him to a utopia/heterotopia destined for permanent revolution. When Badiou incorporated “China” into his philosophy of the event, “différance” or “misreading” had already occurred, and when we introduce his philosophy into China and appropriate it as a hermeneutics, we should likewise be aware of its limits.

历史的“主体”是一个个单数的人，他们投身时间的洪流中，选择忠实于或遗忘某个事件。不是事件本身或人们的“忠实”程度，而是人的实际生存状况决定某个事件是否值得“忠实”。巴迪欧虽然亲身参与法国的政治事件，但也无力说明“革命中国”对“后革命”的法国的教育意义，“中国”被他简化为一个注定走向不断革命的乌托邦/异托邦。巴迪欧将“中国”纳入事件哲学的体系时，“延异”或“误读”已然发生，而当我们将其哲学引入中国并挪用为一种阐释学时，同样应该知晓它的限度所在。

Online editor: Tongxin

网络编辑：同心