I have already posted a full transcription of my presentation of L’IMMANENCE DES VÉRITÉS, but I never transcribed Badiou’s comments. So I shall remedy that here.
Here are Badiou’s comments in French first, then in English:
« Je vous remercie de cet hommage particulièrement intense, parce que le fait d’aller jusqu’à déterminer la capacité en quelque sorte subjectivement productive d’un livre de philosophie c’est évidemment le plus grand compliment qu’on puisse recevoir.
En outre j’étais très touché que vous montriez à propos de Deleuze, parce qu’il y a eu beaucoup d’interprétations négatives là-dessus, que j’ai considéré Deleuze comme l’autre voie principale, la plus importante parmi mes contemporains et que c’est bien pour ça que je lui ai consacré un livre entier.
Vous avez au fond éclairé cette dialectique de la proximité en même temps de l’écart de façon tout à fait frappante ».
My translation:
« I thank you for this particularly intense homage, because to truly go to the point of determining what one could call the subjectively productive capacity of a work of philosophy is obviously the greatest compliment that one can receive.
Further, I was very touched that you showed concerning Deleuze, because there have been many negative interpretations on this subject, that I have considered Deleuze to be the principal alternative path, the most important one amongst my contemporaries, and that is the real reason that I devoted a whole book to him.
Fundamentally, you have elucidated this dialectic of proximity and at the same time of separation in a very striking manner ».
In these brief remarks Badiou elucidates his relation to Deleuze in quite positive terms. He endorses, at least provisionally, the Deleuzian concept of the production of subjectivity applied to his own book. He expresses his absolute admiration of Deleuze and rejects negative interpretations of that relation. Lastly, he qualifies that relation as a dialectic of proximity and separation rather than a unilateral analytic of separation:
AGENT SWARM 