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This study will survey the significance of theatre in the philosophy of the contemporary French philosopher, Alain Badiou. He is probably the only philosopher in the contemporary world who still regards philosophy as a search for truth. He first mentions four domains of science, politics, art, and love, which are, in a way, reminiscent of Plato’s divisions regarding human and the world. He claims then that truths are produced only in these four domains. As regards the art of theatre, he has theses and ideas unconventional and uncommon to the worlds of art and philosophy, whose understanding requires, to a great extent, an acquaintance, even though elementary, with the main concepts of his intellectual and philosophical system. For Badiou, the event of true theatre is a kind of collective and communal creative act which creates its own specific subject, and in each staging of the theatrical text, the inner idea of the text completes. Badiou believes that theatre thinks, and, even though it is to a great extent dependent on the state, it can and should try to reveal its limitations, to create its own theatrical subject, and to form a new change by creating something new. In the end, it must be noted that the starting point of this discussion is philosophy, and this essay proceeds from Badiou’s philosophy toward the art of theatre.

The concept of Derrida’s deconstruction is generally misunderstood and there are not many scholars that succeed to come to its true understanding. It is defined usually as a destructive criticism of philosophical texts and this is obvious in Persian translations of this term. Of course, there is some kind of truth in this conception but the more important part of truth is missed in it. In this essay, we propose this claim that deconstruction is not a method or a theory, but a strategy and an act. Also we claim that deconstruction is not just negative and a powerful positive aspect can be found in it. Then, we will try to examine and prove these claims with reference to Derrida’s works and his commentators. Finally, we will conclude that the act of deconstruction is not a theory about texts and unrelated to exterior reality. It is an ethical attitude towards the world. Deconstructive knowledge would change our active attitude towards the world and our life strategy.