From Decision to Heresy - Experiments in Non-Standard Thought

Description

Introductory collection of writings by a creative and subversive thinker, ranging from the origins of "non-philosophy" to its evolution into what Laruelle now calls "non-standard philosophy."The question "What is non-philosophy?" must be replaced by the question about what it can and cannot do. To ask what it can do is already to acknowledge that its capacities are not unlimited. This question is partly Spinozist- no-one knows what a body can do. It is partly Kantian- circumscribe philosophy's illusory power, the power of reason or the faculties, and do not extend its sufficiency in the shape of by way of another philosophy. It is also partly Marxist- how much of philosophy can be transformed through practice, how much of it can be withdrawn from its "ideological" use? And finally, it is also partly Wittgensteinian- how can one limit philosophical language through its proper use? This introductory collection of writings by creative and subversive thinker Fran ois Laruelle opens with an introduction based upon an in-depth interview that traces the abiding concerns of his prolific output. The eleven newly translated essays that follow, dating from 1985 to the present, range from the origins of "non-philosophy" to its evolution into what Laruelle now calls "non-standard philosophy." Two appendices present a number of Laruelle's experimental texts, which have not previously appeared in English translation, and a transcript of an early intervention and discussion on his "transvaluation" of Kant's transcendental method.

Fran ois Laruelle, Professor Emeritus at the University of Paris X (Nanterre), is the author of more than twenty books, including including Biography of the Ordinary Man, Theory of Strangers, Principles of Non-Philosophy, Future Christ, Struggle and Utopia at the End Times of Philosophy, Anti-Badiou, and Non-Standard Philosophy. Robin Mackay is a philosopher, Director of the UK arts organization Urbanomic, and Associate Researcher at Goldsmiths University of London.

'Covering nearly thirty years of material, and so charting Laruelle's work through every stage of its turn to Non-Philosophy proper, From Decision to Heresy is a crucial volume for anyone coming to this radically different kind of thought for the first time. A very important collection.'-John O Maoilearca, Kingston University