A Modern Day Mathematical Platonist

“More relevantly to this piece, Badiou has a strong mathematical background. He’s the son of the mathematician Raymond Badiou (1905–1996). And, according to Badiou himself, by 1967 he ‘already had a solid grounding in mathematics and logic.’ Badiou again describes his own history when he tells us that he studied ‘contemporary mathematics in greater depths by taking the first two years of university math.’ He then goes on to say that ‘[t]his was from 1956 to 1958, my first two years at the École Normale Supérieure.’”

“Various critics have a problem with Badiou’s philosophy of mathematics. For example, the English philosopher Roger Scruton (who died in January this year) questioned Badiou’s knowledge of the foundations of mathematics”