…every figure of the type “fold”, “interval”, “enlacement”, “serration”, “fractal”, or even “chaos” has a corresponding schema in a certain family of sets.

Badiou, The Clamour of Being

The question is then, what figure can the adversary produce that is not comprehensible on the basis of some given (or constructible) schema? To put it another way: what is it that vitalism says there is, that is truly in excess of what the non-vitalist ontologist (let’s call him the scientist) can say exists?

Position the vitalist and the scientist as hysteric and analyst. The hysteric says: something lives in me that exceeds your powers of formalisation and analysis. Just you try and name it! The analyst says (presenting some schema which seems to fit the visible symptoms): perhaps it’s this? The hysteric: no, that’s not it! Try again…

My dislike of vitalism is based I think on the suspicion that it sets up a game of this type, a game that can be played indefinitely without the scientist ever “winning” no matter how successful he is in analysing each symptom as it comes. In one respect it’s a productive game: the scientist has to use all his cunning to develop and present new schemas, to rationalise what is put in front of him. But it’s nevertheless a game in which the privilege of negation always lies with the vitalist: no, once again your sterile concepts have failed to capture the abundant complexity and variation of Life!

Ultimately, only one party in this game is doing anything constructive; and he could do it just as well without the other’s involvement.