François Laruelle, born in 1937, is Professor ofContemporary Philosophy at the University ofParis X (Nanterre), where he has taught since1967. He is a prolific writer whose output isnotable both for its quantity and its reputationfor difficulty. Apart from the sixteen books hehas published since 1971 – beginning withPhénomène et différence (1971) and includingMachines textuelles (1976), Les Philosophies dela différence (1986), Principes de la non-philoso-phie (1996) and most recently Le Christ futur(2002) – there has also been a constant stream ofessays and “experimental texts,”1 only a fractionof which have been published, and at least twocomplete treatises that remain unpublished orperhaps unpublishable, given their gargantuanheft (both are over six hundred pages long) andhair-raising conceptual severity.2
Severity, or an adamantine density of concep-tual abstraction, is a hallmark of Laruelle’swriting, one that has elicited charges of “obscu-rantism” against him and encouraged some todismiss him as a wilful provocateur or even toaccuse him of something akin to “terrorism”3
(presumably theoretical). But the austereabstraction of Laruelle’s writing is a function ofits ambition: to elaborate a transcendental theoryof philosophy in which the latter is reduced tothe status of a mere empirical material. This isnot a meta-philosophical conceit, Laruelle insists.He distinguishes between philosophy and theory,and hence between a meta-philosophical philoso-phy of philosophy and his own attempt toconstruct a non-philosophical theory of philoso-phy. According to Laruelle, the meta-philosoph-ical dimension is intrinsic to the inherently
reflexive nature of philosophical thought, so thatevery philosophy worthy of the name harbours aphilosophy of philosophy. But what is required,Laruelle argues, is not more reflection but less,so that a non-philosophical theory of philosophywill not be “an intensified reduplication ofphilosophy,” a meta-philosophy, but rather its“simplification.” The intrinsically reflexive orspecular nature of philosophical thoughtmakes of philosophy a practice of interpretationrather than a theory: “Philosophy is inter-pretation at a global level because it is infiniterepetition and self-reference, overview andcontemplation of the world.”4
Instead of a philosophy of philosophy, then,Laruelle proposes a non-reflexive and hence non-philosophical theory capable of explaining –
A N G E L A K Ijournal of the theoretical humanitiesvolume 8 number 2 august 2003
rather than reflecting or interpreting – the reflex-ive mechanisms of philosophy in terms thatare themselves irreducible to philosophy’s ownspecular logic. For Laruelle, theoretical explana-tion – of the kind exemplified by scientifictheory – requires a heterogeneity betweenexplanans and explanandum and is importantlydistinct from philosophical speculation, whichinvariably includes mechanisms of interpretationand evaluation (whether explicitly as inNietzsche, Heidegger and Deleuze, or implicitlyas in Kant, Hegel and Husserl); mechanisms thatnecessitate a structural isomorphy between spec-ulation and whatever is “speculated.” Against thespeculative narcissism of philosophy, for whichevery phenomenon functions as a mirror throughwhich philosophy can conduct its own inter-minable self-interpretation, Laruelle proposes anon-philosophical theory that simultaneouslyexplains philosophy and releases phenomenafrom their subordination to philosophical inter-pretation.
This preoccupation with achieving a theoreti-cal mastery of the logic of philosophy is alreadyapparent in Laruelle’s early work, which he nowclassifies under the heading “Philosophy I”(1971–81). The latter finds its initial impetusin a prolonged and systematic engagement withthe “philosophies of difference”: Nietzsche,Heidegger, Derrida and Deleuze. It is in the wakeof this engagement that Laruelle claims to haveidentified a structural invariant governing thelogic of philosophy as such; an invariant at oncemore universal and more all-encompassing thanthe logic of metaphysics, representation or onto-theology. This is the logic of philosophical deci-sion as difference (a logic that includes thedeconstruction of metaphysics and the disman-tling of representation). In Les Philosophies de ladifférence (1986), Laruelle argues that Nietzsche,Heidegger, Derrida and Deleuze do not so muchundermine the authority of the Greek logos asreinforce it by exemplifying its underlying struc-ture: the structure of philosophical decision as adyad or difference that simultaneously includesand excludes its own identity as a supplementarythird term. Thus, the structure of philosophicaldecision is a fractional structure comprising 2/3or 3/2 terms. In the former case, the 2 qua differ-
ence between x and y is divided by the 3 as iden-tity of that difference, but an identity that has tobe added on to it as its necessary supplement inorder to constitute it. In the latter case, the 3 quasupplement of identity added on to x and y isdivided by the 2 as their difference, which has tobe subtracted from their identity in order toconstitute it. Nietzsche and Deleuze exemplifythe former schema; Heidegger and Derrida thelatter.
Laruelle concludes that philosophy, fromHeraclitus to Heidegger, Derrida and Deleuze,has only ever exploited identity in order to thinkbeing qua difference. Even when it laid claim tothe supremacy of the self-identical Notion, as inHegel, philosophy surreptitiously privilegeddifference, for the Hegelian “identity of identityand difference” is nothing but their difference asabsolute contradiction or self-relating negativity.In the final analysis, being is just a synonym fordifference and expressions such as “ontologicaldifference,” “differential ontology” and even“philosophy of difference” are all ultimatelypleonasms. Hence it should come as no surprisethat the re-invigoration of ontology in twentieth-century European philosophy goes hand in handwith a renewed preoccupation with differenceand an attempt to “deconstruct” identity; northat the “identity” deconstructed by the philoso-phies of difference is little more than a paltryshadow cast by ontological difference. Moreover,by pushing this differential mechanism of theGreek logos to its ultimate limit, the philoso-phies of difference expose the fundamentalparameters of philosophical decision as consist-ing in a set of variations on the Parmenideantheme of the identity-in-difference of thoughtand being. Thus, it is decision as identity-in-difference of logos and phusis, thought andbeing, that reveals the idealism inherent in everyphilosophy, even if it calls itself “materialist,”because it consists in an interpretative practiceof thought that already presupposes a reciproc-ity – albeit a complex, differential one – betweenthought and the real. Hence the charge of “ideal-ism” that has often been levelled at philosophyby Laruelle.
Having uncovered the structure of decision asthe invariant governing the possibilities of
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philosophising, Laruelle, in Philosophie et non-philosophie (1989), proposes to suspend theauthority of philosophy through a non-decisionalor non-philosophical thinking in order to explorenew, previously unenvisageable conceptual possi-bilities – much as non-Euclidean geometriesbegan exploring previously inconceivable geome-tries once they suspended Euclid’s fifth axiomabout parallel lines. The key to the possibility ofthis suspension lies in the discovery that identityas radical immanence or what Laruelle calls “theOne-in-One” has already effected this radical orunilateral separation between itself and the deci-sional dyad with regard to which identity is botha supplement and a deficit. Identity qua radicalimmanence is not some ineffable abstractionwhich the non-philosopher has to strive to attain:it is the element he or she is already concretelyoperating from, the “cause-of-the-last-instance”that is already determining his or her thinking. Itis the identity of man as “the One without being.”But man’s identity as radical immanence is anidentity-without-unity or ontological consistency;an identity that has already set aside orsuspended the pertinence of ontological differ-ence as decision or co-constitution of identity anddifference.5 The point, Laruelle insists, is not toget out of philosophy but to realise that you werenever in it in the first place; to liberate yourselffrom the intrinsically philosophical hallucinationthat you need to be liberated from philosophy:
The point is not to engender non-philosophi-cal effects within philosophy, which would stillbe to presuppose philosophy’s uncircum-ventable validity. It is to install thought fromthe outset within the space of the universalopening as such, the space of the opening asessence rather than as mere event, attribute oralterity. The point is to install thought withinthe space of an opening that no longer needsto be brought about by means of constitutiveoperations such as those of overturning ordisplacement; an opening that has alwaysalready been brought about by the One and issimply its correlate.6
Accordingly, unlike the space of philosophical ordecisional thinking, whose parameters are shapedby the structure of decision as differentialsynthesis or One-of-the-dyad (where the One is
simultaneously added to and subtracted from thedyad), the space of non-philosophical or non-decisional thinking is shaped by what Laruellecalls the “unilaterality” whereby the One is sepa-rate from the dyad without the dyad being sepa-rate from the One. Thus, whereas the logic ofphilosophical decision consists in dyadic synthe-sis (+ or − One), the logic of non-decisional ornon-philosophical thinking consists in unilater-alisation: dyadic synthesis is converted into a“unilateral duality” where the One as identitywithout synthesis determines decision as a dual-ity that is also without synthesis. This conversionof decisional synthesis into unilateral duality iswhat Laruelle calls “determination-in-the-last-instance” or, more recently, “cloning.” Laruelleprovides an exhaustive analysis of the logic ofunilateralisation, as well as of the non-philosoph-ical “cloning” of philosophy to which it givesrise, in Principes de la non-philosophie (1996),which he regards as his most important book todate and in which the concepts, procedures andoperations specific to non-philosophy attain theirfull realisation. This is also the book in whichLaruelle tries to explain the (highly complex)nature of the shift in his thinking from“Philosophie II” (1981–92) to “Philosophie III”(1995 to the present).
Following the systematic presentation of non-philosophical method in Principes, Laruelle has,in subsequent work, tried to “apply” this methodto various philosophical materials in a mannerconsonant with non-philosophy’s explicitlyexperimental ethos. Thus, Éthique de l’étranger(2000) proposes a “non-ethical” treatment ofPlatonist, Kantian and Levinasian accounts ofthe ethical, while Introduction au non-marxisme(2000) delineates a “non-Marxist” reading ofMarx. Most recently, 2002’s Le Christ futur is anexercise in “non-Christian heresy” organisedaround the concept of a Christ-subject who effec-tuates an unenvisageable future “other than” theworld’s.
notes
1 Examples of these can be found in La DécisionPhilosophique, the journal edited by Laruellebetween 1987 and 1989.
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2 Laruelle, Économie générale des effets d’être(1974), and Matière et phénomène (1976).
3 See, for example, the interviews with Laruelleconducted by Jacques Derrida, Sarah Kofman,Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe and Jean-Luc Nancy, andincluded as appendices to Laruelle’s Le Déclin del’écriture (1977). Laruelle responds to the chargeof “terrorism” in a debate with Derrida that tookplace in 1986 at the Collège International dePhilosophie, published as “Controverse sur lapossibilité d’une science de la philosophie” in LaDécision Philosophique 5 (1988): 63–76.
4 See below, Laruelle, “What Can Non-Philosophy Do?” 184–85.
5 “The One’s radical autonomy, its real indiffer-ence with regard to being and to thought […]invalidates a fundamental thesis of ontology:that of the convertibility between the One andbeing […]. It also limits the putatively primarypertinence of the thesis of another convertibility:that of the ontological difference between being andbeings” (Laruelle, Principes de la non-philosophie24).
6 Laruelle, Philosophie et non-philosophie 32.
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what can non-philosophy do?
françois laruelle
I the infinite end of philosophy
Our contemporary situation is, as ever,complex. It harbours numerous contrasts.
But one of its most telling characteristics is thatof a bustling philosophical activity that masks afundamental indifference to philosophy. Werewe to set aside those distortions that are a func-tion of historical perspective, we would see thatthis situation is perfectly normal, but a superfi-cial awareness or consciousness of this phenome-non is particularly acute at the present time. Isthis indicative of a lack of interest? A lack ofpurpose? Indifference? Unlike their predeces-sors, who were directly preoccupied with philos-ophy itself, modern philosophers have tended tobe more preoccupied with their relation tophilosophy as it is mediated across historicaldistance. We no longer practise philosophynaively and spontaneously from within itself, asthough it were a second nature or a habitat. Kantshattered this spontaneity and bequeathed to usa new problem: that of the use of philosophy.What are we to do with metaphysics from nowon? It is as though we have been burdened witha suffocating legacy – we have inherited scrapsthat we do not know what to do with. Are wesupposed to reprocess or even recycle thesescraps of thought? Is it a question of the ecologyof thought – a thought that no longer knows howto dispose of its products? There is something ofthis in our legacy and in our overburdenedmemory. But why does modern man formulatethe problem of his legacy by wondering how tomanage something that sometimes appears as ashortage and at other times as a surplus? Perhapsit is necessary to reformulate the problem of ourrelation to the tradition and begin by putting thelatter to one side. Is it then a question of the“end of philosophy”?
But is not the expression “end of philosophy”or “end of metaphysics” part of this samecumbersome legacy? Let us use the expression“without-philosophy” instead, but only on condi-
tion that we ascribe the lack or absence of philos-ophy to man now understood as “man-in-person,” and that we re-examine these problemsaccording to this new angle. To understand thischange in problematic, we have to go back to theessential origins of philosophy.
“End of philosophy” is a philosophicalexpression not only by virtue of its formulationbut also through its meaning and as a matter ofprinciple. It expresses philosophy in its ultimatepossibility – winding around itself, gatheringitself and withdrawing from thought. Philosophyencloses itself, consummates itself as a form oftechnique, leaving behind an empty space for anew experience of thought. Heidegger andDerrida have added certain important nuances tothis schema. But it still has to be understood asexpressing the essence of philosophy: an auto-positional essence indefinitely closing on itself,whilst missing or exceeding itself by a differenceintrinsic to that identity, so that it never fullyachieves either a perfect closure or a perfectopening. This is not to say that auto-positioningor auto-beginning always fails, or fails as a matterof principle. It fails only to the same degree as itsucceeds because this structure – specular innature – is divided by a difference or alterity thatremains subordinated to its identity, the wholeforming a dyadic/triadic structure that is equallyand simultaneously open and closed.
It may be that this structure is never mani-fested in a pure state within the history of philos-ophy, that it is always somewhat unbalanceddepending on whether the emphasis is on iden-tity or alterity. Nevertheless, it forms the princi-pal core, the minimal invariant that must bepresupposed as operative in any doctrine of aphilosophical or systematic type. This coredefines philosophy as a “theoreticist idealism” or“idealist theoreticism.” This is not the name of aparticular doctrine but another name for theessence of philosophy as such. In other words,every philosophy, however it comes to berealised, is bound to a specularity that itmistakes for the real, bound to a primacy andpriority of theory as reflection of that real – thetwo together constituting “speculation.”Different doctrines may vary this structure butthey “economise” philosophy’s presence and
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absence in such a way that its absence remainsintrinsic to its continuous presence. It is alwaysphilosophical mastery that decides – withoutdeciding – about philosophy’s end: for example(since we are talking about speculation) about itsovercoming or internalising Aufhebung.
The unitary and sufficient presuppositionwhich is intrinsic to philosophy’s self-relation(and which fuelled theoreticist idealism from theGreeks to Hegel) was merely somewhat weakenedby the various kinds of deconstruction when theybegan to acknowledge that philosophy’s auto-closure was simultaneously enabled and hinderedby an alterity – but an alterity that they in turncontinued to presuppose as sufficient orabsolute, rather than as a radical alterity or alter-ity in-person. This amounted to yet another divi-sion (albeit one that was now uneven) betweenphilosophy and an alterity that is partially extra-philosophical yet that continues to ratify philos-ophy’s basic sufficiency. The latter is preciselywhat an anonymous alterity of this kind is inca-pable of revoking.
II the real or identity-in-person
Non-philosophy is not a return to identity or toits primacy in the wake of twentieth-centuryphilosophy’s orgy of alterity and difference. It isnot some sort of reaction. Perhaps it is anotheridentity altogether that is at issue here. Identity-in-person has never yet been attained. Identityhas only ever been aimed at as though it werehomologous with an object, one that might beused for various ends. Philosophical thought isdirected towards identity intentionally, via tran-scendence as epekeina rather than as meta.Thus, it is obliged to make certain correctiveadjustments in that practice of objectivation.Identity becomes the object of desire rather thanof knowledge; it conditions the latter withoutfalling under it, etc. Nevertheless, it remainsinseparable from transcendence as deployedthrough the meta, from eidetic Being – asthough it constituted an uneven half tacked onto this transcendence. Whence the fact that theepekeina, which is absolute transcendence,remains relatively dependent upon the meta,which is relative transcendence. Like desire,
philosophy is ambitious, it is the enjoyment ofthe absolutely other; but the weakness of theabsolute resides in its point of departure and inits process, which consists in an absolutisation ofexperience.
Non-philosophy is founded in another experi-ence of identity. It conceives of identity preciselyas that to which it is impossible to direct thoughttowards intentionally – whether as object or hori-zon. It conceives of identity as something thatcannot be attained via transcendence. This isidentity-in-person, the One in flesh and blood,which does not tolerate either internal transcen-dence or external, operational transcendence. Itis not the object of a construction or of a philo-sophical desire deployed within the realm ofwhat is operationally intuitable. It is the philoso-pher, not just philosophy, who is from the outset(albeit not definitively) put out of play as a deusex machina. This is why non-philosophy simu-lates philosophy in its beginning, but does sothrough a different gesture. Philosophy beginsand remains within itself, within its own imma-nence, by presupposing itself – but in such a wayas to be capable of minimising and reintegratingits own presuppositions, which are gathered upin transcendence. The immanence of philosophyis complex, split into two: it is at once thematicand functional, requiring various gestures oftranscendence or presupposition, but ones thatcan ultimately be minimised and reintegrated, orthat are already directly amenable to integration(Hegel). This is characteristic of the auto-encom-passing style of philosophy.
By way of contrast, although non-philosophyalso begins in immanence and remains within it,it does not take the form of a self-encompassingmovement in which identity merely functions toclose or seal the circle. In non-philosophy, iden-tity as such is no longer a function of anythingelse. No matter how much a functional identitysimulates the real, or engenders real effects, itinvariably dissolves in the only available reality:the reality of the system as the meta-stable, self-encompassing reality of philosophical desire. Thequestion, then, is whether it is enough to restrictoneself to the construction – and thereby to thedeconstruction – of a system of philosophicaldesire; or whether – in complete contrast – we
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should try to elaborate a theory of it instead. Letus continue our analysis.
III the transcendental or the separated middle: a theory of alterity
Identity-in-person is a primary name. There areothers, such as man-in-person. Once it has beenrigorously defined, rather than given over to therealm of unitary, metaphysical or anthropologi-cal generality; once it has been axiomaticallydetermined rather than presupposed throughvague theses or statements, what we are calling“man” as identity is so in-consistent, so devoidof essence as to constitute a hole in nothingnessitself, not just in being. It is a blind-spot forphilosophical auto-reflection, which now assumesthe mantle of nothingness, now being, or shiftsfrom one to the other. The concept of auto-reflection applies equally to the most ancientphilosophies as to modern ones. It is indicativeof theoreticist idealism and speculation as theessence of philosophical systems. Yet not only isthe One-in-One foreign to all ontological orlinguistic consistency, it is also foreign to allinconsistency. It is the without-consistency. Man-in-person or identity can be defined, in termsthat are homologous with the simultaneouslyexcluded and included middle that systematicallyopens and closes philosophy, as the identity-without-middle or better still as the separatedmiddle, which is neither included nor excluded,neither consistent nor inconsistent, etc. It isneither of these two predicates as opposed to oneanother or as synthesised into a third term. Inother words, no set of dyadic philosophical pred-icates is appropriate to “man-in-person” – whichis not to say the latter is “ineffable,” as isobjected by philosophers who assume that tostate something about x or y is to attribute apredicate to a subject and thereby to affect thereal through language. The separated middle isneither included nor excluded … but not becauseit is both at once, in the manner of a philosoph-ical synthesis. It is separated … from inclusionand exclusion as such, separated from the kindof relation involved in those dualities with whichthought traditionally operates. It is a rule ofphilosophy that the “neither … nor …,” which
appears to exclude predicates from the real, actu-ally reintroduces them into it by assuring us thatit is “at once” one and the other, with the obvi-ous proviso that this double negation be includedwithin the final result. In non-philosophy,however, the “neither … nor …” is definitivefrom the outset because it expresses the being-separated proper to identity, or to the separated-in-person.
In other words, this being-separated, which wewill later refer to as the other than …, is not anattribute of identity, analytically or syntheticallycontained within the latter. Rather, it is its tran-scendental aspect, which as real is invisible. Thistranscendental aspect is not a property of identitybut is instead the very same thing as identity, orthe function of relation to … which identity isalways able to assume. Nevertheless, it is only inso far as it is real or immanent that identity canconstitute a transcendental alterity, rather thanthe other way round. It may seem strange tothink identity as the middle but this is an exam-ple of a philosophical necessity – in this instance,the way in which identity regularly functions asthe third fundamental term in philosophy –being reconfigured non-philosophically.
How are we to conceive of this transcendentalalterity that is proper to the real as identity-in-person? Let us consider for a moment dialecticalidentity as that which differentiates itself fromitself, becomes other than itself, etc. Alterityaffects it or belongs to its complex essence evenif it is surmounted or overcome by identity.Identity is at once a “subordinate part” and thewhole, while alterity is a subordinate part of thewhole, the two together forming a continuousplane, or something susceptible to further dialec-ticisation. Let us suppose now that instead offinding alterity at the heart of identity, oneencountered there only identity itself – identityas the flesh of the One itself rather than as theremainder of a gesture of abstraction. Suchabstraction would reduce identity to somethingstill less than an envelope, something that is noteven a topological plane or pure surface but morelike a logically formalised term or symbol. Yetidentity-in-person is not a symbol but an identitywhose own identity constitutes its phenomenon,its “flesh.” Real identity is impoverished, impov-
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erished to an extent that is unimaginable forphilosophy, but it is not impoverished becauseall alterity has been abstracted from it or becauseit has been stripped bare through a process ofalienation. It is indeed articulated through asymbol, and its effects are in turn articulatedthrough a play of symbols, but to confuse thereal with its symbol is precisely the mistake oftheoreticist idealism and the root of all philo-sophical illusion.
This confusion begins when, without one’snoticing it, identity-in-person is spontaneouslyimagined to be a bare term, a pure signifierdevoid of signification. In fact, identity-in-personhas no need of signification and is not of theorder of the signifier. The real is not just what isimpossible for the symbol; it is of an entirelyother order and capable of determining a sign assymbol. This is enough to distinguish non-philos-ophy from psychoanalysis. Identity did notundergo the “linguistic turn” and nor does thesymbol when it is determined by identity. Thereis a sense in which identity-in-person is the real-transcendental cause – rather than the conditionof possibility – of symbolisation in a way thatprecludes the assumption that symbols are givenready-made, or provided via a symbolising given-ness. In other words, any philosophical couplingof terms directed at the One, or even at being,may be used to name real identity, providedthose terms undergo a symbolic abstraction (butone that bears only on the symbol and not alsoon the real). As for the real itself, it is alreadyabstract without there having been an operationof abstraction.
Having nothing but its own being-manifest –which is not even an essence – as content, iden-tity cannot, strictly speaking, act or exert a directpositive causality. Since it is without essence, itcan be neither active nor passive – no more sothan it can be both at once, as though to compen-sate for this supposed deficiency. It is incapableof functioning as motor for a dialectic. It is“negative” rather than negational; a non-suffi-cient cause, rather than one that is sufficient andessential. Yet this quasi-sterility, this neutralitywithout return or compensation, in no wayprevents it from taking into account or “cloning”philosophy as a reduced datum or material. This
taking into account does not cause it to exit fromitself; it does not constrain it to act. It is sepa-rated without that separation eating into it oraffecting its essence. At the same time, since thisbeing-separated directly expresses identity orradical immanence, it is brought forth, so tospeak, by the vision-in-One as the latter takesinto account what is offered by philosophy.Immanent knowledge is other than … philo-sophical. We must replace Levinas’ otherwisethan, which is still anonymous and pertains toabsolute transcendence, with other than …: anadjective rather than an adverb, but one that hasbeen raised to the status of a primary name forthe real or man-in-person.
Of course, philosophy also invokes a One-Other as the object that provides the supremeinstance of absolute transcendence or epekeina.But there the situation is complicated by the factthat the nature of this object is still that of thephilosophical combination in its topological formas infinite, self-enclosed Moebius strip. The radi-cal One, by way of contrast, is initially in-Onewithout the Other belonging to it. Consequently,it is Other only to the extent to which it is Other-in-Other or Other than … In philosophy, thecombinatory structure or system continues topredominate so that philosophy can only positthe One-Other as a term in the guise of some-thing that remains an “ideological” artefact: aneffect or result that has been abstracted from theprocess through which it was produced. In non-philosophy, on the contrary, the One as such isnot subordinated to any thing or structurebecause it is genuinely independent and has noneed of such support. But at the same time theOne is the Other-in-Other, which by virtue ofthis fact also acquires a radical autonomy. Wecould say that, as in philosophy, the Other is stillfirst, but that it no longer has any primacy.Alternatively, and more precisely, we could saythat primacy and priority always go hand inhand, but that in philosophy they are actuallysubordinated to a combinatory structure which isthe true locus of power and independence; onethat secretly enjoys a kind of hyper-primacy andis deployed in the realm of operational transcen-dence. In non-philosophy, however, the One-Other subsists without being subordinated in an
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idealist fashion to the syntax of this operationaltranscendence and its combinatory economy.Both primacy and priority are shorn of the equiv-ocal, self-doubling nature which is characteristicof speculative identity. Primacy and priority gotogether but as the real that is also capable ofassuming the function of transcendental or otherthan … for philosophy. They go together as thereal that is independent but that is also primary.
Rather than dividing and doubling the One-Other by itself, or infinitely multiplying it, non-philosophy simplifies it. In philosophy, the Oneis never purely and simply “One,” unless it is amere symbol, as it is in the principle of identity,in which it is already doubled by itself.Philosophy invariably doubles and multiplies it,as in the neo-Platonists’ hierarchy of Ones, or themore or less mediated identity of (differenceand) identity. It is imperative not to confuse theOne of philosophy, which is the One (of the)One, with the One of non-philosophy, which isthe One-in-One or the One-in-person, the One inflesh and blood. Is the latter also multiplied,either by itself or by being divided? Or does itamount to an impoverishment, an abstraction-subtraction, a One – 1? The expression “One-in-One” or “vision-in-One” indicates the absence ofany operation that would define the latter; thefact that it is not inscribed within an operationalspace or more powerful structure; its immanencein itself rather than to anything else; its nakedsimplicity as never either exceeding or lacking,because it is the only measure required, but onethat is never a self-measurement, one that meas-ures nothing as long as there is nothing to meas-ure.
IV producing a programme of existence
If there is a non-philosophical programme, itconsists in appropriating philosophy or the world(in a broadened sense of the term).
Why does non-philosophy invariably appear inthe form of a programme or a project, one thatirritates people because it never seems to berealised? The answer is that, although it hasnothing to do with a programme in its essentialor practical aspect, its inessential aspect (which is
precisely the philosophical aspect non-philoso-phy assumes through its “material”) makes itappear as though it does. This programmaticappearance is unavoidable but it is no more thanan appearance, in other words, something we willcall a programme-without-programming or at thevery least a programme for de-programming.What matters is knowing whether or not it willbe possible to overcome this appearance and toacknowledge it as such. What follows explorespart of this programme, guided by the theme ofnon-philosophical practice and what it is capableof, with regard to philosophy but also in the eyesof philosophy.
Why a “non-philosophy”? Philosophy is sovaried, so fickle that it has already criticiseditself in an infinite variety of ways, already exhib-ited such a degree of metamorphic plasticity asto disqualify any attempt to reduce it to a singleinvariant of thought. Was there any point intrying to do so? The question “what is non-philosophy?” must be replaced by the questionabout what it can and cannot do. To ask what itcan do is already to acknowledge that its capaci-ties are not unlimited. This question is partlySpinozist: no one knows what a body can do. Itis partly Kantian: circumscribe philosophy’s illu-sory power, the power of reason or the faculties,and do not extend its sufficiency in the shape ofanother philosophy. It is also partly Marxist: howmuch of philosophy can be transformed throughpractice, how much of it can be withdrawn fromits “ideological” use? And finally, it is also partlyWittgensteinian: how can one limit philosophicallanguage through its proper use?
But these apparent philosophical proximitiesand family resemblances are only valid up to apoint. That point is called the real – determina-tion-in-the-last-instance, the unilateral duality,etc. – which is to say, all of non-philosophy in-person. In other words, these kinds of compar-isons are devoid of meaning, or at bestprofoundly misleading, because non-philosophyis “performative” and exhausts itself as an imma-nent practice rather than as a programme.
The answer to the question “what are we to dowith philosophy?” must already have been givenin the form of the question “what can non-philos-ophy do?” The latter provides a rigorous formu-
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lation of the former by delineating a space withinwhich it can enjoy a certain pertinence withoutbeing allowed to get carried away with itself. Itwas Heidegger who unleashed the absurd delir-ium of “total questioning.” But his work isseldom read right through to the end, to thepoint where the primacy of the question is over-turned in favour of a primacy of the answer. Wecan radicalise him and affirm the primacy of theanswer over questions, which we will characteriseas merely “primary” and as pertaining to thebeginning but not to the real. Conversely,however, the answer cannot be primary in somedogmatic sense, it can only impose or determinea way of answering.
Non-philosophy is usually interrogated aboutits efficacy, about what it can achieve in terms ofeffects. “What are the politics of non-philoso-phy?” “What are its ethical consequences?”Without realising it, such questions harbour awhole host of assumptions and prejudices, whichis not to say that we have an excuse for ignoringthem. But it is important that we not allowourselves to be intimidated by these kinds ofquestions or objections. They are only valid forphilosophy, they reiterate its bad habits in orderto reassure it. This way of formulating questionsimposes a double limitation. On the one hand, itassumes a linear and above all unitary causalityin terms of causes and effects that are ultimatelyreversible and “Euclidean” (one cause, oneeffect). This is to assume a form of empiricism:causality is specified through the nature of itseffects, a regional nature that is carved out fromthe world. What would a “non-Euclidean” actionbe like? One that acted upon the world as such,rather than on part of it or on a sector of philos-ophy? This is a problem that involves a changein methods and objectives, a change in the natureof the object, rather than a mere change in scaleor the choice of another region traced from analready given section of the world. The entiretheory of causality will have to be transformed inits meaning and bearing relative to philosophy.There may well be political as well as other kindsof effects of non-philosophy, but does this justifysuch a crude formulation of the question?
In this regard, it was Marxism that first castsuspicion on any attempt to provide a slightly
more nuanced analysis of the political problemby encouraging the belief that such attemptssecretly sought to obscure the class struggle. Yetit is not clear whether non-philosophy can beappraised in terms of a “programme,” orwhether it consummates itself in something likea programme. In this regard, on the contrary, theMarxist notion of class struggle paved the wayfor an acknowledgement of the fact that politicshas a real content, albeit one which is not politi-cal according to superficial, factual criteria.Similarly, just as man does not produce his exis-tence but his means of existence, he does notproduce his political existence or nature but hismeans of political existence. If he can wage classstruggle through politics, he can “wage politics”through the class struggle. Which is why aslightly more rigorous (and probably already“non-Marxist”) understanding of Marx’s formularequires us to effect a unilateral distinctionbetween the political struggle and a struggle thatis constitutive of its subjects, a struggle whoseuniversality envelops a possible but non-neces-sary reference (unless it be the general necessityof referring to a material) to politics or any otherworldly activity. This is the way in whichsubjects produce themselves as means (organons)of political existence.
Marx’s formula is thus in need of urgent recti-fication, the better to maximise its novelty andscope: man-in-person is given as the real presup-position on the basis of which subjects producethemselves as means of existence with the partic-ipation of their political existence in the world.Consequently, we should distinguish between (1)man-in-person as the real presupposition whosenature has never been either political or anythingelse; (2) the political existence of subjects in theworld; and finally, (3) the subject proper as“means of existence” – a subject whose rigorous,quasi-mathematical formulation clearly marks itout as an organon constituted with the aid of thatagainst which it struggles, i.e. existence. The aimof this “dualysis” of Marx’s formula is to lay lowthe theoreticist idealism of philosophy, whichlevels out in a unitary continuum man-in-personand his duality as subject, together with the exis-tence in terms of which this structure is inter-preted whenever the question of political action,
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or of other effects, is raised. Thus, we interpret“class-struggle” as a struggle that is constitutiveof subjects (but not of man-in-man), but in a waythat reinserts it into the apparatus as an articula-tory hinge, instead of placing it either at thecentre or the periphery. Of course, struggleconstitutes the essence of subjects and findssupport in the existence of classes but it cannotbe reduced to the latter. It is as subjects thathumans become indistinguishable from classes,but this is precisely so as to be better able todistinguish themselves from classes. Whence thiscorollary: humans do not produce their non-philosophical existence or essence, but only aprogramme that functions as a means of theirexistence.
Non-philosophy needs to be resituated in thecontext of the struggle against philosophy – or atleast against philosophy understood as theoreti-cist idealism, which transcends any particularphilosophical position and prevents the elabora-tion of a unified theory of philosophy and (forexample) politics. It should not be circumscribedfrom the outset within the narrow ambit of “poli-tics” [la-politique] in the restricted sense, whichencourages all sorts of illusion. As we shall see,it is the transcendental yet practical dimension ofnon-philosophy that accounts for the erroneousor spontaneously philosophical character of thedemand that it have political or other effectswithin the contemporary situation. For the realproblem is not how to intervene in the world ofphilosophy, such as it supposedly subsists in-itself, or how to transform it from within. Theproblem is how to use philosophy so as to effecta real transformation of the subject in such a wayas to allow it to break the spell of its bewitch-ment by the world and enable it to constituteitself through a certain struggle with the latter.The goal is not to effect a specular doubling orduplication of the world, thereby reinforcing itsgrip, but to elaborate a new order, that of theradical subjectivity of the Stranger as subjectwho is in-struggle by definition. Thus, what hadbeen an aporia for philosophy, but also partiallyfor Marxism – the possibility of man’s alienationin the world (an alienation that is now merelypartial and only involves the Stranger-subject,not man’s essence-without-essence), along with
the corresponding possibility of man’s dis-alien-ation – is finally resolved here. The unilateralduality of man and the world-subject or Stranger-subject finally resolves this aporia.
V practice of theory
The question now is whether practice can haveany meaning other than as a purely theoreticalpractice. The economy of theory and practiceharbours all sorts of traps for the unwary becauseit is intra-philosophical and follows the classicdistinctions, distinctions that comprise both divi-sion and identity, and that give rise to self-encompassing indecisions and hesitationsbetween theory and practice – exchanges andambiguities, mutual trespasses and territorialdisputes, oppositions and contradictions. Thiskind of distribution pertains not only to philoso-phy but also to experience, injecting it with itsvicious circles and interminable debates. Thesolutions proposed by philosophy are well knownso we will not go over them here. They have beena staple of philosophy from Plato to Marx andbeyond.
Non-philosophy introduces order into thiscombinatory confusion, but not in a philosophi-cal manner. It does not oppose its own practice(which is theoretical) to philosophical theory, asthough the former were at last the true transfor-mative practice while the latter remained amerely contemplative theory. There is no ques-tion of reiterating the kind of intra-philosophicaldistinctions that Marxism popularised throughthe use of opposition and contradiction. Here,once again, the unilateral duality governs therelation to philosophy and it does not reshufflephilosophical distinctions but instead “simpli-fies” them by suspending a redundant postulate,a suspension that allows us to attain a radicaluniversality. This is why we speak of practicebeing “of” or “in” theory: far from beingopposed to it, practice is able to determine in-the-last-instance the philosophical forms oftheory and their combination with empiricalpractice. To determine-in-the-last-instance is toposit the real-transcendental identity of a subjectwho is structured like a mixture (rather than acombination) of the theoretical stance and the
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practical stance, but in such a way that neitherstance trespasses upon the other’s terrain. Theunilateral duality is the practical essence thatmust be pitted against philosophy’s theoreticistidealism. But it is certainly not opposed totheory, implying rather a simplifying concen-trate of philosophical combinations. Wherephilosophy mixes theory and practice accordingto the invariant of combination, non-philosophyassociates them without synthesis or analysis,without a mediating term. The transcendentalidentity or essence of the subject is not a medi-ating agency or third term countable within thesame operational space as the duality of thecombination. The subject’s transcendental iden-tity provides the reason why non-philosophy canbe an identity for … philosophy, which is to say,its “dualysis.” Although the subject is radicallyidentical in its essence, it can only concretelyeffectuate identity with the aid of a variety ofphilosophical solutions that delineate thecontours of the world, which the subject accom-panies and which continuously fill out its non-saturated being.
Ultimately, then, identity as cause of practiceis commensurate with its non-consistency.Practice is the only stance that is heterogeneousto every other activity because it is univocal forall of them, give or take their determination-in-the-last-instance. But here it is practice in theoryand relative to it, because theory is the only prac-tice of first science, which is constituted by thestances of science and philosophy.
VI transforming the site of transformation
Non-philosophy transforms materials but thesematerials are both taken from the world andpossess the general form of the world. Yet thephilosophical requirement of efficacy postulatesa universal site for philosophy in the world. Herewe encounter an initial assumption that expressesa unitary and levelling conception of action,which is supposed to affect only one region ofexperience and to exhaust itself in it. This quasi-universal empiricism of action and practice isphilosophically self-evident: it seems obviousthat all production consists in transforming a
material while staying on the same level as it,remaining content with distending the generalconvertibility of the realms implicated in prac-tice. Even when structured by Difference assuch, rather than merely specific differences asin Marxism, practices are still not heterogeneousenough to exceed the world, to which they returnonce the latter has been given its widest possibledefinition, which is precisely in terms ofDifference and its alterity.
By way of contrast, if practice is conceived interms of unilateral duality, which is the syntaxproper to the strict immanence of the real asother than … the world, this non-representativecausality of determination-in-the-last-instancepresupposes a radical distinction between theorder of reality and the order of syntax, so thatneither one of these encompasses the other. Onceit has been founded upon a non-agency or non-realm like the real, the conception of agencies,realms or orders eliminates every facile dialectic,no matter how deeply entrenched in representa-tion. It institutes a transformation of the materialas production of a new agency that cannot beultimately reabsorbed into that material, anagency that does not consummate itself withinthe order of the world. The subject produced inthis way is one that emerges beyond the worldbut who nevertheless continues to refer to theworld as a form of necessary yet secondary andentirely occasional causality. Such is the tran-scendence specific to the subject in so far as itstands beyond all philosophical transcendence,not so much through an excess of hyperbolictranscendence as through an immanent grasp orcloning of the latter. Cloning is an operation ofradical immanence in so far as it takes on a tran-scendental relation to a given datum that has theform of the world, transforming that datum intoa material by virtue of the very fact that it isother than … it. Because the agency of thesubject exists-(as a)-Stranger, the site of produc-tion remains distinct from the world, announcingitself (among other things) as the future-in-person, utopia-in-person, or the transcendentalcity of multitudes. Thus, practice first trans-forms the very site of the world’s transformationand effects what we might legitimately call its“radical” displacement.
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If we want to formulate correctly the questionof the effects of non-philosophy, we must have“exited” from the world without first having hadto enter into it in order to leave it. We have tothink according to the real – which does notmean without the world – rather than accordingto the world. Non-philosophy is entirely orientedtowards the future, and, more fundamentally, itis entirely oriented towards a utopia of the real.It is produced as the identity of transformationand chooses to abandon not the world as suchbut rather the site of the world. It is a new wayof relating to things-according-to the world, onethat no longer considers them in terms of theprevious ways of relating to entities within thehorizon of the world as something simply presup-posed. If things are inseparable from the world itis not on account of philosophical desire butbecause the world functions as their a priorimode of givenness, such that it is the site of theirtransformation that has to change.
As a result, there will be a change in the mean-ing and scope of alienation and appropriation.They no longer pertain to man in general in hisanthropological essence but only to the subjectconceived on the basis of man-in-person, who isneither alienable nor inalienable and too incon-sistent to be circumscribed in terms of this antin-omy. What alienates the subject is a system oftranscendental hallucination and illusion thatobviously goes unnoticed, but which the subjecthas to notice and whose spell he has to shake off,without being able simply to destroy it, in orderto constitute himself as such or as subject for theworld. To believe that the world can be treatedin the same way as an object in the world, that itgives rise to the same kinds of illusion, wouldsimply be a philosophical delusion. The properdistinction is not so much between world andentity as between the world supposedly subsist-ing in-itself (within an operational transcen-dence) and the world as reduced or deliveredfrom its sufficiency. Consequently, the distinc-tion is not so much between the world andanother realm of practice in-itself, or between theworld and a transcendent realm of practice, butbetween two ways of relating to the world, onegoverned by the world, the other determined-according-to the real. The heterogeneity between
the subject-agency and the site of production isnot traced from transcendence in general butrather articulated in terms of the kind of scissionproper to determination-in-the-last-instance,which is the scission between a transcendencewhich is assumed to be in-itself and a transcen-dence-in-radical immanence.
When we say that intervention does not oper-ate upon the world, this is too vague and equiv-ocal a formulation, since there is a sense in whichthe world is also employed for the auto-constitu-tion of the subject. What we mean is that inter-vention does not operate “upon (the illusion of)the world in itself,” which is acknowledged butnot destroyed. The hallucination and illusioncontinue to subsist for themselves: although theyare acknowledged or identified, they continue toenjoy for themselves the capacity to re-engenderthe absolute belief in the world, a belief thatpersists as such. It is only for the subject thatthey are acknowledged and that the world canalso be used or dismembered. The world is twofaces in one: belief and pretension on the onehand, a material for constituting the subject onthe other.
VII an immanent practice against theexception of thought
One initial consequence of the foregoing consid-erations is that of the simultaneously objectivistand ideal character of action and its effects. Sincephilosophical thought is oriented towards tran-scendence, the structure of philosophy requiresit to describe ideal or idealised situations and tolegislate about the world in a detached, contem-plative manner without implicating itself in itsown discourse, or rather by exempting itselffrom it. Philosophical thought cumulates thenegative effects of a mode of objectivity that isindifferent both to its objects and to its own reab-sorption into a unitary circuit. This is a conse-quence of philosophical thought’s tendencytowards “objectivation” and its pernicious modeof “attachment” to the object; it follows fromobjectivation as a mode of objectivity that takesup a position of survey or overview relative to itsobject and ultimately evaporates into contempla-tion. Philosophy can only distinguish between
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enunciation and enunciability (which it conflateswith the enunciated) or between objectivationand objectivity (which it conflates with the objec-tified) in a weak, unitary fashion – even more soperhaps than other forms of thought – that failsto constitute them as rigorously heterogeneousorders.
Although an explicit philosophy of practiceseems to be free of this idealising tendency andseems to take on board the gravity of action, byusing the term “practice” it too perpetuates theunitary conflation between ideal practical objec-tivity and action upon the world. It protects theformer, which formulates the meaning andworth of things – what is good and bad, true orfalse for the world – from the latter. And withregard to itself, the philosophy of practicebelieves that it has achieved something suffi-cient but also something superior by setting outthe aforementioned distinction, which makes ofit an exception to the world and allows it toenunciate laws, norms and essences withoutitself falling under them, since it instantiatestheir “higher” form. Philosophy begins byputting itself on the same level or plane as theworld, but this is only so as to raise itself aboveit and present itself as the true and authenticform of science, art, truth, ethics, etc., in such away as to end up turning itself into an exceptionand instituting its exception as the absolute thatrules and consummates its own (seeminglydemocratic) primary combination with theworld. If philosophy is intrinsically political, asis so often but so glibly maintained, it is intrin-sically anti-democratic.
The entire theory of philosophy’s practice,causality, effects and efficacy is vitiated by thisexceptional status that philosophy ascribes to itsown thought, by its ulterior motivation, itscunning which is not cunning, etc. Can we intro-duce seriousness and work into thought in placeand instead of the pathos of seriousness and grav-ity which has made it so light-headed? Can weput practice into theory rather than just insertingpractice “in theory”? Can we, ultimately, turnthe thought of commitment into a commitmentof thought? We are obviously assuming that inthis current context mere inversion would beuseless (which is to say philosophical), and that
this kind of operation should be supplanted byothers capable of transforming philosophy …
Superficially, the problem consists in chan-nelling philosophical effects upon the world intothe realm of thought as such. For example: howcan “democracy” also be attributed to thethought that attributes it to social life? How canphilosophical enunciation finally be rendereddemocratic rather than merely functioning as auniversal instance of legitimation while exempt-ing both itself and the philosopher? The sponta-neous solution to this problem would be to saythat thought should be affected by its object oraffect itself with its object. But this would be toreiterate the philosophical circle as auto-affectionand would merely invert philosophy’s primacyover politics and democracy. Marx would haveseen in such a move a typically philosophicalcontortion or “somersault,” one that reinforcesphilosophy’s dialectical games and dissolvespractice, as well as the democracy that issupposed to accompany it, in the vicious circlewhereby everything becomes philosophy in so faras philosophy is affected by everything. Theprinciple governing such a somersault is quitesimple. Philosophical dualities, in which oneterm invariably enjoys a supplement of alterityand unity relative to the other, can be invertedand overturned because of this supplement, sothat democracy becomes disseminated intophilosophy and vice versa but always to the ulti-mate benefit of philosophy.
The principle behind the non-philosophicalsolution consists in exploiting the power of iden-tity (which is un-convertible) rather than thepower of philosophical duality (which is convert-ible). In order to eliminate division, differenceand their quasi-dialectical games, what must begiven – but without an act of giving – is an iden-tity that is performative, or better still, that isperformed without an act of performance, andthat thereby contains the identity of thought, onthe one hand, and those practical consequencesthat thought habitually enunciates orprogrammes for the world, on the other. Ofcourse, such an identity cannot really “contain”two apparently – or at least philosophically –opposed entities such as these. In other words,it will “contain” them only “in-the-last-
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instance,” not as real parts, which would divideidentity once again. But identity must be thedetermination of the now transcendental iden-tity of thought and practice as forever insepara-ble. Determination-in-the-last-instance andcloning ensure the radical interlocking ofthought and practice. We will call “unifiedtheory” this transcendental but determinedidentity of thought and practice, of knowledgeand the consequences of action, which have nowbeen withdrawn from the law of the world andthe exception of philosophy. And we will requireof every enterprise which claims to be non-philo-sophical that it take charge of, rather thanmerely internalise conceptually, all those effectsand ideals it presumes to impose upon the worldor what it calls the world.
Thus, the dilemma of theory and practice isresolved in a determination or performation-in-the-last-instance (rather than the performativitytraced from its linguistic form) of theory as prac-tice. Moreover, the universality of practice is nottied to the specific positivity of its cause, whichis without-consistency. Practice finds its freedomand universality not in nothingness (which nodoubt would already suffice to liberate it) but inman-in-person as without-consistency.
VIII can we intervene in the world?
The question of the political (or ethical) conse-quences of non-philosophy is usually badlyformulated because it is formulated philosophi-cally. Whenever it tries to think practice, philos-ophy postulates that it is possible to intervene inthe world – “intervene” as philosophy under-stands it, obviously. What does such interventionmean when it applies to non-philosophy? Can anoperation of the philosophical type apply only tothings of the world?
Philosophy supposes, rightly or wrongly, thatit has effects upon reality and it expects the sameof non-philosophy. Wrongly perhaps, becausewhat philosophy calls “reality” is in any case aconcept – attenuated at worst, elaborate at best –of the world. Through this concept, philosophyprojects a reality in itself, which is to say, onethat has been constructed in the realm of opera-tional transcendence, within which it claims to
intervene, and in terms of which it gauges allpossible intervention. But the real content ofphilosophy, once the illusion of the in-itself hasbeen bracketed, is this very correlation betweenitself and the world. In any case, it is within thisexperience that non-philosophy can “intervene,”and not in the philosophical concept of experi-ence itself (which is too narrow and devised toomuch in the manner of a projection). We canuniversalise Kant’s distinction between judg-ments of perception and judgments of experienceand posit that our object is no longer the judg-ment of perception, whose role the philosophy ofreality now plays for us, but the judgment ofexperience, i.e. the affirmation of existence assuch, in terms of which philosophy-in-person, orphilosophy as form of the world, presents itself.Philosophical intervention is itself highly prob-lematic within the confines of a reality that isalternately anticipated and projected, forgottenand desired; it is both ahead of and laggingbehind the conjuncture, “in the midst of” expe-rience and its combinations but without gettingto grips with the identity of the conjuncture,whose significance escapes it.
Philosophy projects its operation of divisionand re-appropriation onto a diverse variety ofthings, objects and sensations through the inter-mediary of a schema which seems to be prima-rily derived from language and, in the order ofso-called regional forms of knowledge, science.The latter provides it with forms of knowledgethat philosophy abstracts from their process ofproduction and which it uses to fill out its ownuniversal, necessary structures, which combinedifference and identity but are empty and sohave to be filled. Thus, philosophy grafts itselfonto experience and claims to intervene within iton the basis of an identification and confusion ofthe very orders it requires. Philosophy is a long-suffering desire for the real, to which it aspiresbut only so as to be able to construct or reaffirmitself in its own proper, consistent order – anorder structured by those transcendentals whichfunction like an absolute metaphor for experi-ence.
Every intervention in philosophy, which is tosay, every intervention upon its objects, remainsintra-philosophical, caught up in philosophy’s
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self-encompassing structure. Every such inter-vention, consequently, remains in the world. Butin so far as every practice of this type remainssubsumed beneath the law of self-positioning andits pretensions, so then (from the point of viewof non-philosophy) it continues to postulate aphilosophy or a world “in itself.” The world asin-itself or self-encompassing is the source ofantinomies that only non-philosophy can identifyand suspend.
Given these conditions, it is difficult to main-tain that philosophy transforms the world. It isthe world or attaches itself to regional represen-tations as the very “dimension” of the world. It“transforms” regional representations in anideal-real or representational (in the enlargedsense we have given this term) modality, regionalrepresentations that it appropriates and fromwhich it extracts a surplus value of meaning andempirical (but also transcendental or trans-formed empirical) content. Philosophical inter-vention consists in adding and subtractingphilosophy, as the form of the world, to and fromthings. It consists in interpretation.
So what can non-philosophy hope to achievewith regard to the world itself? The non-philo-sophical operation is quite different from thephilosophical version; it no longer comprises thecombination of division and identity but insteadradical identity and hence unilateral duality. Theresult is a gain in simplicity and minimality.Non-philosophy does not project itself ontothings but solicits them necessarily and says sowithout trying to hide the fact in the manner thatphilosophy sometimes does. On the other hand,it clones subjects from philosophy, and hereagain cloning is the reduced or minimal form,the real core of philosophical projection. As forits object, this is now the world or the philoso-phy-form as such, rather than things.Consequently, non-philosophy is not an intensi-fied reduplication of philosophy, a meta-philoso-phy, but rather its “simplification.” It does notrepresent a change in scale with respect to philos-ophy, as though the structure of the latter wasmaintained for smaller elements. It is the “same”structure but in a more concentrated, morefocused form – it is withdrawn from identity asmerely desired and brought to the level of iden-
tity as performed. It is a non-unity rather than ameta-unity. The gesture is one of universalisa-tion, of simplification in the number of postu-lates. This simplification, which is achievedthrough the suspension of a certain postulate(that of the reciprocal determination of thoughtand the real), is capable of producing an expla-nation of philosophy in so far as it can beexplained and in the terms in which it can. Asin philosophy, there is a practical gain at thelevel of theory, but a theory that is wholly differ-ent from the philosophical kind.
IX interpretation, transformation, determination-in-the-last-instance
How does all this affect the duality of interpreta-tion and transformation (Marx) once this dualityhas been reconceived according to the primacy ofpractice, and once practice has been prised freefrom philosophical difference and determinedaccording to the real? Philosophy is inter-pretation at a global level because it is infiniterepetition and self-reference, overview andcontemplation of the world in the narrow sensepresupposed by philosophy. Yet it alsocomprises a transcendental recursion, relatingthrough itself to experience, which it does not somuch dominate in the manner of a transcendentreligious heaven as “transform” or help “consti-tute.” But is constitution equivalent to transfor-mation as defined by an immanent performativepractice?
Philosophy, as we have already observed, isnot wholly devoid of operations, but these oper-ations – such as overturning and displacement,to say nothing of more specular ones such ashermeneutics, or auto-specular ones such as thedialectic – not only operate at the heart of repre-sentations, they also operate with these represen-tations: combining them, analysing them,deconstructing them, dialecticising them.Philosophy programmes a transformation of theworld, but one which is ideal, objectified, inca-pable of getting an effective grip on it; one thatachieves something akin to an effect only byadding to or subtracting from what is given(conceived now as a representation) new andequally ideal determinations that double then
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redouble it, simplifying or even deconstructing itwithout really transforming it. Throughout itspractice, twentieth-century philosophy hasadmitted and shown – but only ever under itsbreath, so to speak, without ever “truly” beingaware of it (thereby demonstrating the extent towhich its practice remains ideal) – that it hasonly ever worked with representations, with thelogos, which is to say with metaphysics, even asit tried to criticise or deconstruct the latter. Suchphilosophy remains under the jurisdiction ofphilosophical tradition and submits to theauthority of its tribunal. Genuine transformationdoes not consist in playing a game (whether atthe level of language, of practice, or of theworld) with representation, but rather in deter-mining the latter through a radically un-repre-sentable agency or instance – more precisely,through a without-representation that allowsitself to be thought by means of representationswhich have been reduced to the status of philo-sophically inert material.
Since the world has now been enlarged toinclude all possible philosophical thought, it islikewise necessary to enlarge the concept ofrepresentation and relate it to an agency orinstance that has to function like a “lastinstance” for it, rather than an “ulteriorinstance,” a world-behind-the-scenes or thing-in-itself. Every instance of thought that is left toitself and not determined by a without-represen-tation-of-the-last-instance is a representation inthis widened sense of the term. To put it anotherway: we will call “representation” every presen-tation that refers back to itself through a tran-scendental recursion that, although capable ofcriticising, deconstructing or modifying presen-tation, cannot determine it in-(the)-real.
As for non-philosophy, it uses these represen-tations, which are by definition its only material,but so as to confer upon them a new conditionrelative to their philosophical condition ascombinations. We call this new condition a“mixture” because it is the transcendental iden-tity of a duality of philosophical representationsand (for example) scientific or artistic operationsthat are delivered from their subsumption byphilosophy. This is a duality without an opera-tion of synthesis or analysis.
X a transcendental practice
A genuinely transformative practice must answerto several conditions. Among other things, itmust be genuinely practical, which is to say realby virtue of its cause, in order not to becomeconfused with globally ideal representations. Itmust also be capable of relating immanently ortranscendentally, rather than externally or in anempirico-idealist fashion, to these representa-tions. It is often and erroneously imagined thatpractice is opposed to idealism but above allopposed to philosophy’s transcendental dimen-sion. This is because philosophy lives off thosedivisions and hierarchies through which primacyand priority are linked together, and because thetranscendental approach has traditionally beenidealist, whereas it is in fact that aspect of thereal which is “other than …”
Consequently, it is the philosophical appara-tus as a whole which must be completely over-hauled, practically transformed, so as to giveback to practice its immanent force. Once thetranscendental is determined by the real, as isthe case in non-philosophy, it changes its status,it no longer represents the apex of an ontologicalhierarchy but rather a function which the realmay or may not assume. Since practice is indis-sociable from the syntax of unilateral duality thatfollows from the real, it is indissociable from thereal’s transcendental function. Practical effectsand transcendental function are identical for thereal; they are possible functions of it that becomeeffectuated once the world is taken into accountfor itself or solicits the real and the latter“responds” to that solicitation – on account ofthe world’s being-given-in-the-real – with a tran-scendental practice.
Far from being a crude primary activity, or anidealist activity taken from the world (as is thecase, for philosophical reasons, with Fichte),practice is the transcendental essence of thesubject in so far as the latter is now distinguishedfrom the world, which the subject uses as anoccasion or material. This is why practiceconsists in transforming or dualysing representa-tions and ceases to be an “activity” grafted ontothese representations and controlling them bothfrom within and from without. Practice is tran-
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scendental through its real immanent root, whichrenders it radically heterogeneous to all repre-sentation. But this heterogeneity does notprevent it from being transcendental or effectu-ated by those representations that make up theworld. Like the real, practice is immanent, butthere is nothing to prevent it from relating torepresentations or from being sufficiently hetero-geneous to these representations to be able totransform them. Obviously, in spite of its originin the real, the transcendental is not valid forsupposedly absolute representations or for theworld in so far as it is supposed to be in itself,but only for the world-form or for the philoso-phy-form as a priori form of the world. Likepractice, the transcendental pertains to this apriori form rather than to objects or to the world-object as sufficient reality.
XI the pragmatic appropriation ofphilosophy
“Man is universally predestined to philosophyjust as philosophy has man as its destination” –this is the fundamental postulate of philosophy:that philosophy and man are reciprocallyconvertible on condition of a certain labour,education or ascesis. In order to render thispostulate credible, in order to put it into prac-tice and ensure its dominion over man, philoso-phy claims to define man by means of somecircular duality (e.g. as a rational, linguistic orreligious animal), a duality that is ultimatelyunitary and encompassing (man as the meta-physical animal). This begs the question bysimply presupposing an interface betweenphilosophy and man in the form of his philo-sophical definition, which is always an exclusive,unitary definition. It is a package deal: a defini-tion of man is possible provided it is philosoph-ical and posits the convertibility between aputative human essence and its attributes.“Man” becomes a combination of all sorts ofessences and properties, depending on thedoctrine in question: a generality in which whatshould have been distinguished non-philosophi-cally – man’s non-philosophical essence – isinstead conflated with an infinitely nuanceddefinition that encapsulates an entire philosoph-
ical system. In order to think man, or to thinkhim in a manner adequate to his being, a distinc-tion must cut across “man” as generality. But inorder to avoid begging the question and so as torender the distinction rigorous, it should nolonger coincide with any of those philosophical“differences” (of degree, kind, form, writing,affect or will). We will leave behind these apor-ias and the politics of the philosophical subjec-tion of humans by positing the following axioms:
2. Primary names are terms extracted fromphilosophy but abstracted from their naive intu-itive horizon, from the world of metaphysicalobjects and representations. Their signifyingbase serves as a support for an alternative logic,an alternative organisation of thought which wewill call “non-philosophy.”
3. Non-philosophical thought and its theoret-ical practice is determined by its object, whichwe will designate by the symbol “man-in-man”(“in-man” for short, or even “man” when thecontext precludes misunderstanding). Suchthought is not derived or received from someexternal or philosophical source, and it has thepower to abstract philosophical terms from therealm of meaning within which they normallyfunction.
4. The “object” of non-philosophy, and thatwhich determines it, is its cause: “man-in-man.”
5. Man-in-man is not a concept or unitaryentity. It is not amenable to definition: it isposited through real-transcendental axioms.
Posited in this way, the human is no longer aunitary generality, a conflation of the conceptwith the real object, of the attribute with the“essence.” On the one hand, this is the in-manas real rather than ideal cause, as the real ratherthan a reason or even the principle of reason. Onthe other hand, this is a subject in a new sensebecause the real is no longer the absolute subjectof philosophy or even the classical subject; it isnow ascribed to the in-man alone. The subject isno longer the real or something that co-operateswith the real but rather an operation exercisedupon the world or upon philosophy and consti-tuting itself through that exercise. But the rela-
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tion to the world and the supposedly essentialrelation to philosophy is no longer attributedto the human cause. For the expression “man-in-man” means that the latter is without adetermining essence, without consistency;dispossessed of nothingness as much as being,dispossessed of substance as much as presence-to-itself. Of course this distinction is no longer adifference, which is to say a unitary structure, amore or less asymmetrical convertibilitybetween cause and subject. The latter are radi-cally but not absolutely distinct. The in-man isradically autonomous because man can only befound in-man rather than in philosophy or theworld. But the subject is in an altogethermore complex and more interesting situation. Itis not between the in-man and the world, asthough it constituted their (once more divided)in-between or their difference, or a duality oftwo substances. It is the indivisible cloneproduced on the basis of the world under theinfluence of the in-man. This is not some newversion of man as microcosm who is convertiblewith the macrocosm, give or take a difference inscale. The subject registers the minimum of rela-tionality that philosophy imposes upon the in-man but also the clone-form that the latterimposes upon philosophy. Yet although they arethe asymmetrical cooperation of distinct roles,the cause and the subject are not juxtaposed.Since man and the subject are identical in-manor in-the-last-instance, the subject enjoys a rela-tive autonomy which he gains from that ofphilosophy so that he is not entirely indistin-guishable from the in-man. We say that he isdetermined-in-the-last-instance by the in-man.
In so far as he is posited in this “ultimate”fashion through a theoretical act we call a“primary ultimation,” man no longer has a priv-ileged or essential affinity with philosophy.Instead, he receives it as a realm of (no doubt“fundamental”) objects, as the universal andnecessary form of the world. Non-philosophyproposes to examine the fundamental structuresof this a priori world-form while at the sametime using it with a view to providing its theo-retical explanation. Man is no longer a conceptor even the object of a concept and, beingdevoid of essence, he cannot be essentially
destined to a philosophical activity which nowinterests him only in the context of a practice inwhich he is a subject-for-philosophy. Humansare without-philosophy – not just men withoutqualities but men who are primarily withoutessence, yet all the more destined-for-the-worldor philosophy without having decided or willedit. Philosophy has always wanted us and we havebeen obliged to consent to it – but have we everwanted philosophy?
The critique of the philosophical “end” ofphilosophy and of its sufficiency in foreseeingand deciding its own death leads back to man-in-person, not to man in so far as he is capableof lack of interest, lack of purpose, or indiffer-ence. This is not a void that one describes in thehope of shoring up by returning to or reactivat-ing a past of which we have been disinherited.We call “appropriation of philosophy” thetheory of philosophy carried out on the basis ofthe real-transcendental indifference that philoso-phy itself effectuates. What is radically poor inessence and in philosophy remains radicallypoor throughout this appropriation wherebyphilosophy is cloned as what is proper to man-in-person. Appropriation has none of thebulimic or anorexic traits of re-appropriation: itis what is poor in philosophy as such that takesthe latter into consideration and strips it of itssufficiency. It is by virtue of this poverty thatthe human relation to philosophy takes the formof a pragmatics determined in-the-last-instancerather than an auto-pragmatics. To abandon theend of philosophy to metaphysics alone, torepeat the gesture of self-positing in a nihilistmode and turn it into a gesture of self-repudia-tion is to fail to see that this end still harboursa sense-of-the-last-instance for man-in-man – butthis is precisely a non-philosophical or otherthan … philosophical sense. With the end ofphilosophy, it becomes easier to see the extentto which philosophy exerts its “grip” on theradical human subject. Consequently, thehypothesis of men-without-philosophy meansthat the latter is not an attribute and that ourtranscendental and contingent relation to it isbrought forth with man-in-person and effectu-ated by philosophy itself as material [commematériau]. It is a question of restoring or rather
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giving to philosophy a utopian and uchronicforce that it has deprived itself of – or that it hasbeen deprived of as a result of man-in-person’sbeing-foreclosed.
Non-philosophy is a programme for appropri-ating philosophy itself as necessary relation tothe world, since our “experience” is the world assuch. Non-philosophical cognition does not relateto the world as an entity or to entities in theworld (as objects or forms of knowledge): it istranscendental and exposes thereality of a cognition thatrelates to philosophy as theworld’s a priori form, as“knowledge” or “existence” ofthe world.
works by laruelle
Philosophy I
Phénomène et différence: essai sur l’ontologie deRavaisson. Paris: Klincksieck, 1971.
“Le Style di-phallique de Jacques Derrida.” Critique334 (1975): 320–39.
Machines textuelles. Déconstruction et libido d’écrit-ure. Paris: Seuil, 1976.
“La Scène du vomi ou comment ça se détraquedans la théorie.” Critique 347 (1976): 418–43.
Le Déclin de l’écriture. Paris: Aubier-Flammarion,1977.
Nietzsche contre Heidegger: thèses pour une politiquenietzscheénne. Paris: Payot, 1977.
Au-delà du principe de pouvoir. Paris: Payot, 1978.
“Au delà du pouvoir. Le concept transcendantalde la diaspora.” Textes pour Emmanuel Levinas. Ed.François Laruelle. Paris: Jean-Michel Place, 1980.111–25.
“Homo ex machina.” Revue Philosophique de laFrance et de l’Étranger 105 (1980): 325–42.
“Irrécusable, irrecevable: un éssai de presenta-tion.” Textes pour Emmanuel Levinas. Ed. FrançoisLaruelle. Paris: Jean-Michel Place, 1980. 7–14.
“Réflexions sur le sens de la finitude dans laCritique de la Raison Pure.” Revue Internationale dePhilosophie 35 (1981): 269–83.
Philosophy II
Le Principe de minorité. Paris: Aubier-Montaigne,1981.
“Comment ‘sortir’ de Heidegger et de ladifférence en general.” Heidegger (Exercice de lapatience). Cahiers de Philosophie 3–4. Paris:Obsidiane, 1982.
Une Biographie de l’homme ordinaire: des autorités etdes minorités. Paris: Aubier, 1985.
Les Philosophies de la différence. Introduction critique.Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1986.
“Abrégé d’une science humaine de la philoso-phie.” La Décision Philosophique 3 (1987): 105–11.
“Biographie de solitude.” La Décision Philosophique3 (1987): 101–04.
“Exercice sur Péguy: ‘une philosophie qui ne vientpas faute éternellement.’” La Décision Philosophique3 (1987): 119–24.
“Octonaire de la suffisance philosophique.” LaDécision Philosophique 3 (1987): 113–17.
“Théorèmes de la bonne nouvelle.” La DécisionPhilosophique 1 (1987): 86–94.
“Variations sur un thème de Heidegger.” LaDécision Philosophique 1 (1987): 86–94.
“La Vérité selon Hermès: théorèmes sur le secretet la communication.” Analecta Husserliana 22(1987): 397–401.
“Controverse sur la possibilité d’une science de laphilosophie.” [Debate with Jacques Derrida.] LaDécision Philosophique 5 (1988): 63–76.
“Lettre à Deleuze.” La Décision Philosophique 5(1988): 101–05.
“Du Noir Univers dans les fondations humainesde la couleur.” La Décision Philosophique 5 (1988):107–12.
“Variations Leibniz.” La Décision Philosophique 5(1988): 113–24.
“Biographie de l’oeil.” La Décision Philosophique 7(1989): 93–104.
“Ce que l’Un voit dans l’Un.” La DécisionPhilosophique 7 (1989): 115–21.
“Le Concept d’analyse généralisée ou de ‘non-analyse.’” Revue Internationale de Philosophie 43(1989): 506–24.
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“Marges et limites de la métaphysique.”Encyclopédie Philosophique Universelle. Ed. AndréJacob. Vol. 1. Paris: Presses Universitaires deFrance, 1989. 71–80.
“La Méthode transcendantale.” EncyclopédiePhilosophique Universelle. Ed. André Jacob. Vol. 1.Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1989.693–700.
“Mon Parmenide.” La Décision Philosophique 7(1989): 105–14.
Philosophie et non-philosophie. Liège: Mardaga,1989.
“La Cause de l’homme: juste un individu.” AnalectaHusserliana 29 (1990): 49–56.
“L’Appel et le phénomène.” [Response to Jean-Luc Marion’s “Réduction et donation.”] Revue deMétaphysique et de Morale 1991.1 (1991): 27–41.
“La Science des phénomènes et la critique de ladécision phénoménologique.” Analecta Husserliana34 (1991): 115–27.
En tant qu’un: la “non-philosophie” expliquée auxphilosophes. Paris: Aubier, 1991.
Théorie des identités: fractalité généralisée et philoso-phie artificielle. Paris: Presses Universitaires deFrance, 1992.
Philosophy III
“Réponse à Deleuze.” La Non-Philosophie descontemporains. Althusser, Badiou, Deleuze, Derrida,Fichte, Kojève, Husserl, Russell, Sartre, Wittgenstein.By Laruelle et al. Paris: Kimé, 1995. 49–78.
Théorie des étrangers: science des hommes, démocra-tie, non-psychanalyse. Paris: Kimé, 1995.
Principes de la non-philosophie. Paris: PressesUniversitaires de France, 1996.
“Qu’est-ce que la non-philosophie?” Initiation à lapensée de François Laruelle. By Juan-Diego Blanco.Paris: L’Harmattan, 1997. 13–64.
(Ed.). Dictionnaire de la non-philosophie. Paris: Kimé,1998.
“De la non-philosophie comme hérésie.” Disciplinehérétique. By Laruelle et al. Paris: Kimé, 1998.7–23.
“A Summary of Non-Philosophy.” Trans. RayBrassier. Pli (1999): 138–48.
“Alien-sans-aliénation. Programme pour unephilo-fiction.” Philosophie et science-fiction. Ed.Gilbert Hottois. Paris: Vrin, 2000. 145–56.
Le Christ futur: une leçon d’hérésie. Paris: Exils, 2002.
Éthique de l’étranger. Du crime contre l’humanité.Paris: Kimé, 2000.
“Identity and Event.” Trans. Ray Brassier. Pli 9(2000): 174–89.
Introduction au non-marxisme. Paris: PressesUniversitaires de France, 2000.
laruelle
François LaruelleUniversité Paris X – Nanterre200, avenue de la République92001 NanterreFrance
Ray BrassierDepartment of PhilosophyUniversity of MiddlesexWhite Hart LaneLondon N17 8HRUKE-mail: [email protected]
