One day, something completely unforeseen occurs, breaking all existing rules. It comes from outside the world, beyond what we know, yet takes place here and now. We might call it “absolute exteriority,” “radical chance,” or even a miracle. Alain Badiou advocated this concept, both in ontology and politics. He sought to preserve the possibility of novelty in an era where everything seemed condemned to paralysis. The allure of this thesis was powerful during the period of the “end of history.” However, the sudden transformation of our world does not preclude associating the new with the worst.
The “event” is a captivating image, especially in politics, where all emancipatory efforts have failed and the world appears to have lost its inherent vitality. Its appeal lies in its aesthetic nature: it represents the final dream of a powerless subject, devoid of reason and action. It is akin to waiting for Godot.
Though the idea may seem new and revolutionary, it has roots in Kantian philosophy. In a letter to Rosenstock-Huessy (later known as “The Urzelle of the Star of Redemption“), Franz Rosenzweig claimed that Kant was the greatest philosopher of all time for characterizing freedom as a Wunder (wonder) in the Erscheinungswelt (phenomenal world). Freedom is a miracle, as it is separate from the material and causal world. One may question whether Kant’s distinction between nature and spirit is methodological or ontological. Regardless, the only respectable science at the time was physics, which followed Newtonian mechanics—a causal and deterministic theory. Yet Kant recognized that life existed in a liminal space between the deterministic world of bodies and the free realm of spirit.
In the 21st century, however, it is impossible to be a Kantian in this original sense—interpreting subjectivity (or language, or mind) as a miracle, absolutely apart from nature. The link between matter and information, and their shared connection to randomness, has blurred the divide between matter and form, mind and spirit, and nature and consciousness. Matter has evolved into spirit. Neither pure chance nor pure determinism offers a satisfactory explanation for this evolutionary process. Indeed, in the unfolding of our cosmos, we observe both continuity and disruption. Yet neither is absolute.
Emergence does not erase existing laws. We speak of evolution because there is always some continuity. But this continuity is neither simple nor straightforward. The true question is how a law-abiding universe can allow for the emergence of chance, leading to the creation of new patterns, beings, relationships, and levels of organization.
It is a challenge to accept that there is any freedom at all in physics, as particles are bound by strict rules, and even chance is subject to statistical distribution. This leads to a description of the system’s phase space, encompassing all possible states. However, the phenomenologist may argue that this picture of the universe is a product of thought and science, and that it is hard to accept that science is a necessary aspect of nature. Based on this assumption, we must assert that the cosmos inherently possesses self-awareness, for science should also be a necessary product of nature.
This raises two challenges. First, what exactly is “knowledge,” and how does it relate to fundamental particles and their interactions? Yet current science is not even capable of reconciling quantum and relativistic physics. How could it possibly explain consciousness emerging from matter? It simply cannot. Not yet, at least.
Additionally, if the universe knows itself through us, then the knower and the known become one and the same, as in life (known as autopoiesis) and knowledge (recognized as self-consciousness). “Materialism” or “physicalism” turns into pure idealism.
Conversely, the thesis that the mind and nature are radically different runs into the classical problem of interaction between heterogeneous elements. How can nature produce effects on the mind? It can’t, because we have accepted a separation as our first postulate. We can only resort to parallelism (as in Spinoza), occasionalism (as in Malebranche), or pre-established harmony (as in Leibniz).
Trivial monism and dualism fail for symmetrical reasons. We need continuity between mind and matter, but not trivial continuity. Topology has provided us with a sophisticated toolset to distinguish between different types of continuity. We call it trivial when a topology describes a space where all “paths” between any two points can be continuously deformed into one another. It is not necessary to go into technicalities. Let’s say that all points in space are interchangeable, as well as all the paths leading from one to the other. We call a topology “discrete” when spaces are completely isolated, rendering it impossible to establish paths among them. But there is a third possibility: non-trivially connected spaces, i.e., spaces where not all paths are equal. These are spaces with holes. Again, technicalities are not necessary. The only lesson is that there is something between pure continuity and pure discontinuity.
Yes: “nature,” “mind,” “spirit,” “matter,” etc., are concepts. Concepts are like spaces. Frege said that concepts (Begriffe) were like neighborhoods (Bezirke). The task of the logician was to create well-defined concepts, i.e., spaces with well-defined borders or boundaries. This would avoid ambiguities. Individuals either belong to a concept (or class or set) or they don’t.
But we employ various types of concepts. We use fuzzy sets to measure the “resemblance” between words or images. We accept that many words are ambiguous but effective—such as “come closer” or “let’s do something.” Are they still concepts? Sure, if we consider them as spaces, as some “set” of possibilities for a certain situation.
This is what Wittgenstein tried to show in his Philosophical Investigations, or what Friedrich Waismann expressed with his idea of “open texture”—concepts with “holes.”
“Nature,” “mind,” “body,” and “matter” are spaces in a broad sense. They describe different states or possibilities. However, our real problem is how to connect two spaces without merging them—how to show a relationship between two spaces, A and B, without reducing one to the other or uniting them in a third term, C. How are “nature” and “mind” topologically glued? What type(s) of links do they exhibit? What type of nontrivial continuity is at stake?
The concept of an event is dualistic. It implies two ruptures. First, between the world/nature (necessary) and the subject (free). Secondly, there is a divide between the pre-subject (an animal, at best) and the “true” subject—he or she who experiences the radically new. This describes a discrete topology, where all links (nature and culture, animal humanity and subjectivity) have been suppressed. This is why an event is considered a miracle: only because nature, the world, and the “normal” are degraded to “ontic” regions—either the eternally equal reign of nature or the eternally predictable world of custom.
But this is a poor understanding of nature. Both conservatives and progressive constructivists tend to think that “nature” means order, law, necessity, control, and predictability. However, the science of biology—situated between the study of intelligent beings and mindless molecules—paints a very different picture.
Consider the example of DNA. Following Watson and Crick’s groundbreaking discovery, many scientists believed that genes were analogous to computer code, a series of instructions. They understood codification as a direct, one-to-one translation of genes into proteins, similar to a bijective function. However, after decades of further research, scientists recognized the complex interactions between genes and the environment, as well as the intricate relationship between chance and necessity.
Darwinian biology reveals that genes serve as the physical substrate for transmitting information between generations. They are also a source of variation. Pure chance is responsible for gene mutations, which bring about phenotypical changes. However, the complex interaction between genes and their respective environments makes it implausible that random changes alone could account for viable phenotypical modifications.
Not only are the effects of most genetic variations negligible, but even the significant ones operate within a complex network of interactions. It has been found that cells possess the ability to correct errors in protein coding, and that global developmental mechanisms exist—not just at the level of individual gene expression. For example, if a morula loses several cells, it can restore its spherical shape without affecting the final organism.
The new in nature never arises from the random roll of the dice. It always results from chance within a structured environment. The improbable shapes of the universe do not emerge directly from the indeterminate. The first cells on the planet were not totipotent—they were “open” to evolution only in a very abstract sense. Only evolved organisms can turn stem cells into muscle, blood, or brain cells.
Continuity and discontinuity are rather subjective appreciations, for there is always a mixture of both in the evolution of matter—“spirit” included. Radical continuity is trivial and cannot explain the complexity of our universe.
The idea of creation out of nothing was an invention of early Christian theology. It emerged in the confrontation between the Semitic God and the Greek cosmos. But it is not necessary for either tradition. Where everything is possible with no conditions, it is abstract but concretely impossible. It is a strange prejudice to think that the new only emerges out of nothingness and that the concrete only reproduces itself identically.
Chance is indispensable for variability and the emergence of the new. The “event” is typically understood as a change occurring in the midst of sameness and trivial repetition—a rupture within predictability. It is often assumed that normality does not change, as if it were subject to a transcendental order, and that change is rare.
However, according to neo-Darwinism, variability is not a rare occurrence but rather the norm. Changes are significant not in themselves but because of the (chaotic) consequences they may produce. Some small changes can yield enormous outcomes. Big changes, on the contrary, though not ruled out, may compromise the integrity of the entire system.
Additionally, a local change, such as a gene mutation, is not determined prior to its phenotypic expression and its concrete uses and consequences within a specific environment.
Badiou’s ontology has nothing to do with concrete beings. The old and the new are considered only in terms of set theory: they either belong to a set or they do not. Being counted is the only trait of “beings.” But beings are not only counted, not merely bearers of properties—they are concrete individuals interacting with other individuals in concrete contexts. Political history is made of such singular and complex interactions, which cannot be captured by “counting” or by satisfying a function.
There is an additional problem. The “radically new” has no contact with other elements because it does not share properties; it is almost unsayable—“nothingness” for the world. However, as with all transcendental phenomena, miracles are fundamentally incompatible with the world, as they violate all possible connections with other things within it. Miracles exhaust themselves as they occur. They must remain exceptional and separate from the world. Yet, because they have consequences in the world, they become part of it.
The problem lies in radically opposing immanence and transcendence, thereby denying the world the possibility of transcending itself. This is neither immanence nor transcendence. We might call it introscendence.
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