A admirer of Lucretius encounters an heir of Plato. The former ironically notes the danger of being consumed by the system, much like Kierkegaard was by Hegel. Yet, Jean-Claude Milner and Alain Badiou continue their controversial dialogue in this book after years of silence. In 2000, the two French intellectuals had a falling out. The catalyst was an article by Alain Badiou in the newspaper Libération, in which he criticized Benny Lévy, the former private secretary of Jean-Paul Sartre and Milner's friend. Badiou condemned Lévy's trajectory "from Moses to Mao and from Mao to Moses," as well as the skeptical assessment that some French Maoists, including Milner, made of the "red years" following May '68. It took eight years for Badiou and Milner to slowly resume contact, and another four before Philippe Petit managed to bring them together.