Democratic Materialism and Materialist Dialectics. In Revolutionary Democracy, 2026-01-02.

Alain Badiou’s article addresses the crisis of postmodern society, which he characterizes as “democratic materialism.” In the author’s view, the existence of individuals in the modern world is reduced to the existence of their bodies. This thesis is supported by the “materialist” tendency of contemporary art to record bodily manifestations in detail. Another telling feature of the modern world is multiculturalism, which is manifested, among other things, in tolerance toward other languages. Badiou defines his own philosophical position as “materialist dialectics,” tracing its origins back to the work of René Descartes. The central idea of materialist dialectics is the claim that truths exist non-substantially and possess a unique ontological status.