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Laruelle and Non-Philosophy Critical Connections Laruelle and Non-Philosophy Critical Connections A series of edited collections forging new connections between contemporary critical theorists and a wide range of research areas, such as critical and cultural theory, gender studies, film, literature, music, philosophy and politics. Series Editors Ian Buchanan, University of Wollongong James Williams, University of Dundee Editorial Advisory Board Nick He\vlett Gregg Lambert Todd May John Mullarkey Paul Patton Marc Rolli Alison Ross Kathrin Thiele Frederic Worms Agamben and Colonialism edited by Marcelo Svirsky and Simone Bignall Badiou and Philosophy edited by Sean Bowden and Simon Duffy Laruelle and Non-Philosophy edited by John Mullarkey and Anthony Paul Smith Forthcoming titles in the series Ranciere and Film edited by Paul Bowman Virilio and Visual Culture edited by John Armitage and Ryan Bishop Visit the Critical Connections website at www.euppublishing.corn!series/crcs Laruelle and Non-Philosophy Edited by John Mullarkey and Anthony Paul Smith EDINBURGH University Press ©editorial matter and organisation John Mullarkey and Anthony Paul Smith, 20I2 ©The chapters their several authors, 20I2 Edinburgh University Press Ltd 22 George Square, Edinburgh EH8 9LF www.euppublishing.com Typeset in I III 3 Adobe Sa bon by Servis Filmsetting Ltd, Stockport, Cheshire, and printed and bound in the United States of America by Edwards Brothers Malloy, Inc. A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978 o 7486 4535 o (hardback) ISBN 978 o 7486 4534 3 (paperback) ISBN 978 o 7486 4536 7 (webready PDF) ISBN 978 o 7486 6476 4 (epub) ISBN 978 o 7486 6475 7 (Amazon ebook) The right of the contributors to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act I988. Contents Introduction: The Non-Philosophical Inversion: Laruelle's Knowledge Without Domination I John Mullarkey and Anthony Paul Smith I. Thinking From the One: Science and the Ancient Philosophical Figure of the One 19 Anthony Paul Smith 2. Laruelle Facing Deleuze: Immanence, Resistance and Desire 42 Marjorie Gracieuse 3· Laruelle and Ordinary Life 6o Rocco Gangle 4· The Justice of Non-Philosophy 8o Joshua Ramey 5· Laruelle and the Reality of Abstraction roo Ray Brassier 6. The Science-Thought of Laruelle and its Effects on Epistemology 122 Anne-Fran�oise Schmid 7· r + r == r: The Non-Consistency of Non- Philosophical Practice (Photo: Quantum: Fractal) 143 John Mullarkey 8. Transcendental Arguments, Axiomatic Truth, and the Difficulty of Overcoming Idealism 169 Michael]. Olson Vl Laruelle and Non-Philosophy 9· Laruelle, Anti-Capitalist I9I Alexander R. Galloway IO. Theories of the Immanent Rebellion: Non-Marxism and Non-Christianity 209 Katerina Kolozova II. Is Thinking Democratic? Or, How to Introduce Theory into Democracy 227 Fran<;ois Laruelle !2. Non-Philosophy, Weapon of Last Defence: An Interview with Fran£;ois Laruelle 238 Notes on Contributors 252 Select Bibliography 256 Index 260 Introduction: The Non-Philosophical Inversion: Laruelle's Knowledge Without Domination John Mullarkey and Anthony Paul Smith Due to this necessary mutation, we must first change the very concept of thought, in its relations to philosophy and to other forms of knowl­ edge. This is an inversion that concerns a reversal of old hierarchies, but through a formulation of a new type of primacy without relation­ ships of domination; without relations in generaP Fran�ois Laruelle is not the 'next big thing' in Continental philoso­ phy. His thought does not aim to correct, reduce, or supersede that of Derrida, or Deleuze, or Badiou. That 'same old game' of import­ ing European master-thinkers into Anglophone philosophy - each new figure superseding the previous model - is over.2 Or rather, the next big thing could be, if we can accept the challenge, to think that there are only small things, small thoughts, everywhere and within every individual - 'quantum thoughts' or 'fractal' thinking. For, what Laruelle offers us is a new vision of philosophy as a whole that is neither the right nor wrong representation of reality, but is a material part of the Real, though one that always tries to refract the Real through itself, in a 'mixte', 'amphiboly' or 'dyad'. Each philosophy is a mediation of the Real, though of a very strange kind to be sure. The work of non-philosophy is an experi­ ment with what results in our knowledge from seeing philosophy in this way. Laruelle is associated pre-eminently with this term, 'non­ philosophy' or, as he has called it more recently, 'non-standard philosophy'. He describes non -philosophy as a 'science of philoso­ phy', a science to which he has dedicated the better part of his life. Non-philosophy is not, however, an anti-philosophy. Laruelle is not heralding another 'end of philosophy', nor the kind of internal critique of philosophy common in much post-Kantian European thought. Rather, modelling non-philosophy on an analogy with 2 Laruelle and Non-Philosophy non-Euclidean geometry, he proposes a broadened, pluralistic science of thought and philosophy, as well as a major reworking of philosophical concepts brought about by the introduction of new axioms. The 'non-' in non-philosophy should be taken, therefore, in terms similar to the meaning of the 'non-' in 'non-Euclidean' geometry, being part of a 'mutation' that locates philosophy as one instance in a larger set of theoretical forms. Hence, Laruelle's use of the term non-philosophy is neither a dialectical nega­ tion, nor even something contrary to philosophy. Non-Euclidean geometries do not negate Euclid's, but affirm itwithin a broader or amplified paradigm that also explains alternative geometries that are only apparently opposed to it. Likewise, non-philosophy is an abstract conception of philosophies that allows us to see them as equivalent in value. 3 It enlarges the set of things that can count as thoughtful, a set that includes extant philosophy, but also a host of what are often presently deemed (by philosophers) to be non­ philosophies and non-thinking (art, technology, natural science). Consequently, Laruelle integrates extant examples of philosophy with examples of what those same philosophies regard as their opposite. In this democracy of thinking, all thought is equalised when regarded as raw-material for non-philosophy, that is, as part. of the Real rather than as representations of it. It is crucial in all of this to realise that, despite its some­ times abstract and abstracted appearance, non-philosophy is a practical theory; indeed, it is a performative practice - it does things (to philosophy and to 'Theory' generally). This practice of non-philosophy involves taking the concepts of philosophy and extracting any transcendence from them in order to review them so that they are no longer seen as representations, but re­ envisioned as parts of the Real. Thought is identified with the Real; it is immanent to it - this is Laruelle's opening hypothesis or axiom. This identity, however, is real rather than logical, such that all thought, including philosophy's, is actually caused by the Real, though in a special form of causation - a 'determination-in­ the-last-instance' that is also called 'occasional cause'. This 'last­ instance' is the far-side of the axiom or hypothesis of immanence, a kind of wager. Philosophy, in this view, becomes the material of non-philosophy rather than its object. As such, non-philosophy is not some form of higher-order representation of philosophy, or metaphilosophy.4 Non-philosophy as a practice never appeals to the meta, to some Introduction 3 kind of transcendence behind material and lived practice, and so non-philosophy is always a use of philosophy. On account of this apparent ventriloquism (that transforms the speech of philosophy into its own speech acts), non-philosophy will often look similar to philosophy - like simply 'more philosophy', be it Spinozist, Derridian, Deleuzian, Badiouian . This impression itself is neither false nor true but simply the product of philosophical narcissism, which cannot see anything other than itself in other forms of discourse (while being blind to itself and its mediations when purportedly gazing at the Real directly). So, for example, Laruelle's idea that thought should think of itself as immanent to the Real, rather than as a representation that transcends it, looks like something that Gilles Deleuze might say. Yet Deleuze would say it in the name of his philosophy - the image of thought he has in mind is as depicted in his (type of) explanation, with all its architectonics of virtual versus actual; organism versus BwO; war machines; rhizomes, etc. - hence his desire to explain the Real. Even though Deleuze embraces multiplicity and a variety of kinds of thought (artistic and scientific as well as philosophical), none­ theless, the highest thought, the creation of concepts, belongs to (Deleuzian) philosophy alone - he explains the Real: not Boulez, nor Artaud, nor Bacon (they provide the matter for the philoso­ pher).5 For Laruelle, however, there is no explaining the Real, because every thought, Deleuzian or not, philosophical or not, is as good or as bad an explanation as any other - for they are all (non-summative) material parts. This emphasis on the materiality of philosophy - viewing the form and content of philosophy as matter - is not to be under­ stood according to standard materialist approaches: the techno­ scientisms of computationalism, biologism or physicalism. What Laruelle says of photography in The Concept of Non-Photography is no less true of philosophy qua matter for non-philosophy as it is of anything else. His approach is, he writes, a materiality without materialist thesis since every thesis is already given in it, in its turn, as 'flat', just like any other singularity whatso­ ever. Far from giving back perception, history or actuality, etc., in a weakened form, photography gives for the first time a field of infinite materialities which the photographer is immediately 'plugged into'.
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