Raising the Stakes of Perversion: A Response to T racy M c N ulty

The work of A lain B adiou attempts to refound the project of W estern philosophy by returning to the platonic celebration of mathematics as the basis for any transmissible knowledge. In “ T he N ew M an's F etish,” T racy M c N ulty shows that B adiou's return to P lato is secretly mediated by the F rench libertine tradition. B adiou derives the militant figure of mathematics less from P lato than from L autréamont—in whose “ S ongs of M aldoror” she (mathematics) appears as a stern mistress. R eading M c N ulty, within the framework of psychoanalytic debates around the clinic of perversion, I show that M c N ulty's emphasis upon this mediation, despite appearances, functions less to undermine the authority of B adiou's philosophical project than to raise the stakes of perversion. Taking B adiou's libertinism seriously makes it possible to grasp how perversion strives to formalize the death drive and thus to open politics and philosophy to the future. At the same time, M c N ulty shows that B adiou's theory of number makes it possible to rethink the distinctions between number, trope, figure, and fetish; and thus to reopen a discussion of the relationships between philosophy, psychoanalysis, and literature.