Badiou on Being

We begin with the infinite multiplicity: the multiplicity of multiplicities. These do not exist as such, but they have being. Being is pure multiplicity. How is this so? In the same way that the referent of a mathematical formula does not exist and yet has being. “For a multiple to be, is to belong to another multiple, whose being is already presupposed.” This referential multiple is known as a “situation”. Existence is a quality of being. As such it is in the being of existence to inscribe itself within the infinite: “Existence is the proper intensity with which a multiple inscribes itself into the infinity of a situation.” We may say then that existence is a participation in the infinite. Here we have the beginning of a discourse on logic, that is to say, a discourse on the relations between situational appearances. Here too, I believe, is the beginning of a discourse on ethics, which for Badiou, pertains to the fidelity of a subject to the [situational] Event.