The dissertation is devoted to the discourses of the event which affirm the event between the requirements of fidelity and the threats of renunciation. The paper substantiates the definition of the event as a split that is being named, determines the specifics of post-event situations through the concept of conflict of fidelity interpretations, explores the poetics of the discourses of the event and their political effectiveness.
The problem of uncertainty of the ontological status of the event is actualized every time after the event takes place because of the impossibility to define objectively whether what happened was an event indeed. Revolution, meeting, tragedy seem to form a kind of unity only from a certain biased perspective. This self-referentiality of the event causes a shift of research focus from the event itself to the discourses of the event. The Ukrainian context of confronting discourses against the war background and the global context of the pandemic discussions amplify the acute relevance of the study of the discourses of the event.
The dissertation aim is to understand the discourses as those affirming the event between the demands of fidelity and the threats of renunciation. The dissertation object is the discourses of the event, the dissertation subject is the discourses of the event between fidelity and renunciation. The work identifies four tasks being consistently performed in four dissertation chapters:
– to conduct a comparative analysis of the philosophy of the event by Martin Heidegger, Gilles Deleuze, Alain Badiou;
– to explore the discursive field of assertion of the event and justify the need to introduce the philosophical concept of «patois»;
– to study the poetics of the discourses of the event in the contradiction of fidelity and renunciation and to conceptualize «translating» as a tactic of acratic discourses;
– to determine the political effectiveness of the discourses of the event: their shortcomings, temptations and role in the manifestation of the community.
The author’s theoretical and methodological position is based on the philosophy of the event by Badiou and its interpretation by Slavoj Žižek.
Žižek, interpreting Badiou’s philosophy of the event in Jacques Lacan’s categories, defines the event as a traumatic encounter with the Real, and its naming as a linguistic inscription of this meeting. Using this interpretation of the event, we propose to define the event as a split that is being named. In this case, the split is understood as a collision with the Real, and by naming – a symbolization of this split. The dissertation defines four kinds of events: an encounter, a solidarity, an inspiration, a tragedy.
The paper hypothesizes and substantiates the idea that the discourses of the event are always between fidelity and renunciation due to the impossibility of absolute fidelity. Discourses that care for the fidelity to the event may operate according to two tendencies – either the creation of a new order or the constant renewal of the split. Those acratic discourses that oppose the normalization of language are defined in the paper as patois, realization of nomadic fidelity of patois is defined as continual translating tactics. Based on the analysis of the poetics of acratic discourses of the event, the following features of patois are identified – incompleteness, imperfection, discontinuity.
In analysing the political effectiveness of the discourses of the event, three figures of evil according to Badiou were considered – betrayal, simulacrum, disaster. They are supplemented by the definition of four figures of allurement which offer four types of unambiguous solutions to the contradictions of fidelity: historization, memorization, ritual reproduction, broadcasting. These allurements are opposed by the tactics of constructing unnamed communities.
The scientific novelty of the obtained results is specified in the following statements:
– the ideas of Badiou and Žižek on the self-referentiality of the event were further developed being supplemented by the definition of the event as a split that is being named,
– Badiou’s classification of events is specified,
– the unattainability of absolute fidelity without renunciation for the discourses of the event is proved,
– strategies of enabling fidelity and tactics of preservation of impossible fidelity are formulated,
– the political effectiveness of the discourses of the event is analysed.
– for the first time the concept of «patois» was introduced into scientific circulation.
The results of the research can be used in the educational process and for further development of this topic in the theoretical direction of the philosophy of events or in the practical direction of discourse analysis.
Keywords: Alain Badiou, fidelity, discourses of the event, renunciation, naming, language, unnamed, poetics of patois, translating, Real, representation of the event, split, Slavoj Žižek, community, philosophy of the event.
