Ebook: Ahmed the Philosopher: Thirty-Four Short Plays for Children and Everyone Else

In Ahmed the Philosopher, readers are introduced to Alain Badiou's philosophy through a theatrical tour de force. The play presents its comic hero, the "treacherous servant" Ahmed, as a seductively quick-witted philosopher even as it casts philosophy itself as a comic performance. The comedy unfolds as a series of lessons, with each "short play" or sketch illuminating a different Badiousian concept. Yet Ahmed does more than illustrate philosophical abstractions; he embodies and vivifies the theatrical and performative aspects of philosophy, mobilizing a comic energy that exposes the emptiness and pomp of the world. Through Ahmed's example, the audience is moved to a living engagement with philosophy, discovering in it the power to break through the limits of everyday life.

An exuberantly comic introduction to the thought of one of the world’s greatest living philosophers.