3 Review(s)

This is the insider's guide through the difficult terrain of Laruelle's most complete development of non philosophy. Francois Laruelle has been engaged in one of the most daring projects in contemporary philosophy, aiming to overturn the standard form of philosophy and renew its practice again. However, he grew dissatisfied with the purely critical form of his work as it seemed to simply subordinate philosophy to science and so simply reversed the old hierarchy. In Principles of Non Philosophy Laruelle develops the concepts and method of a more democratic form of thought where neither science nor philosophy is subjected to one another, but brought together in a more productive theoretical and practical relationship. While the potential importance of this project is clear, Laruelle remains famously difficult. Anthony Paul Smith provides an introduction and guide to the text that situates you amongst the figures and concepts Laruelle engaged with, provides a foothold for your own understanding and, more importantly, potential use of the project of non philosophy. It provides you with the essential the historical background to non philosophy, which Laruelle leaves out of his writing.It explains how non philosophy contributes to contemporary debates in European philosophy, especially in relation to the philosophy of science, theories of the subject and the role of language in philosophy. It shows how non philosophy can be a useful research paradigm for interdisciplinary or transdisciplinary work.