Theory of Strangers: Science of People, Democracy, Non-Psychoanalysis

by François Laruelle, Jeremy R. Smith (Translator)

Overview

Originally published in 1995, this book constitutes a turning point in the development of what François Laruelle calls non-philosophy, towards its democratic and emancipatory vision. In this work, Laruelle utilises his non-philosophical theory to develop unified theoretical analyses into philosophy’s relationship with the humanities, politics and psychoanalysis.

Centred on the figure of the Stranger, he argues for a democratic reformation of thought governed by human multitudes. The new field of thought is opened by this Universal Humanity, identified with three different pathways: a science of people and non-humanism, democracy and non-politics, and non-psychoanalysis as the development of a Universal Unconscious.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781399549233
Publisher:	Edinburgh University Press
Publication date:	01/31/2026
Pages:	296
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.00(d)

About the Author

Jeremy R. Smith is an independent researcher and translator. He is the co-founder of Oraxiom: A Journal of Non-Philosophy. He has translated several articles by Francois Laruelle as well as Anne-Françoise Schmid.

François Laruelle (1937-2024) was Emeritus Professor of philosophy at University of Paris X: Nanterre and instigator of the movement known as “non-philosophy” or “non-standard philosophy.” Laruelle was the director of L’Organisation Non-Philosophique Internationale. Author of over thirty texts, Laruelle’s work has been translated into English, Greek, Russian, Chinese, and Portuguese.

Table of Contents

Welcoming the Stranger that One is: Translator's Introduction

Programme: Which One is the Stranger? A New Idea

Problematic: On Man as a Scientific Continent
Homo Sive Scientia
Unitary Theory and Unified Theory of Philosophy and the Human Sciences
On Philosophy as the Superior Form of Bio-Technology
On the Indivisibility of Man as a Theoretical Object
On Man as a Cause For Science
From Man as the Cause for Science to the Science of People
Science and Meta-Science

Chapter I: Principles of a Science of People as the Unified Theory of Philosophy and the Human Sciences
The Principle of a Future Science That Would Present Itself as Human
The Duality of the Givennesses of Man: the Human-Given-without-Givenness and Meta-Human Givenness
The Non-Donative Ego or Vision-in-Man
The Givenness of Meta-Human Knowledges and its Relative Autonomy
The Object of Science: Universal Humanity or Strangers
The Ego, The Stranger, Science
On the Science of People as the 'Unified Theory' of Man
The cogito sum of Man as Stranger
The Stranger as the Subject of the Science of People and Democracy
Against Dogmatism: A 'Non-Copernican' and 'Non-Rousseauist' Mutation
On the Good Use of the Human Sciences: Meta-Language, Material, and Model
From 'The Anthropological Demon' to the Stranger
'Non-Humanism' and the Critique of Humanist Imagery
Transforming the Knowledge of Man, Rather Than Man Himself

Chapter II: Principles of Democracy as the Unified Theory of Philosophy and the Stranger
On the Science of the Essence of Man as the Science of Strangers: The Theorem of Democracy
The Ego-Xeno-Logical Constitution of Philosophy: On the Stranger as Difference or Identity
Philosophical Xenophobology and its Practical and Theoretical Difficulties
The Principal Theorem of a Science of People as Strangers
Demonstration of the Theorem of Being-Stranger
On the Theory of Strangers as Mathesis Transcendentalis: The Real Axiomatic Against Egology
The Stranger Within the Bounds of the Science of People
The Identity of the Stranger
The Two Concepts of the Stranger and the Dissolution of Their Amphibology
The Body (of) the Stranger as a Subjective Body in-the-Last-Instance and Organon of the Ego
The Stranger as Void, Law, and 'Multitudo Transcendentalis': The Concept of 'Human Multitudes
The Stranger as Specifically Human Being
1. The Subject as Subject (of) the Stranger
2. The Identity of-the-Last-Instance of the Fundamental and Regional

Chapter III: Principles of Non-Psychoanalysis as the Unified Theory of Philosophy and Psychoanalysis
First Section: The Stakes of Non-Psychoanalysis
First Terms and Algorithm of Non-Analysis
The Non-Analytic Generalisation of Psychoanalysis: A Mathesis Transcendentalis of the Unconscious
The Forgetting of the Real or the Joui
1. The Greco-Judaic Antinomy of Psychoanalysis
2. Psychoanalysis as Restrained Analysis
The Universal Unconscious and the Phenomenon of Unilateral Loss
The Unified Theory of the Unconscious as Non(-)Self-Signifying: From Analysis to Dualysis
A Transcendental Pragmatics of Psychoanalysis as A Priori of Experience
The Philosophico-Analytic Appearance of Psychoanalysis: The Non-Analyst as Analyst-of-the-
Last-Instance
Which One Resists? Indifference and Resistance
Second Section: Explanation of the Theorem of Non-Analysis
The Real or the Joui-sans-Jouissance
Jouissance
1. As Organon of the Real
2. As Jouissance (of) the Other or Intrinsically Unconscious
The Philosophico-Analytic Complex as a Symptom for Non-Analysis
First Aspect of Jouissance: Non-Platonic Desire and the Solution to the Analytic Antinomy of
'jouissance' and 'Desire'
Second Aspect of Jouissance: the Universal or Transcendental Unconscious as Jouissance (of the)
Void
The Essence (of) the Unconscious: The Dual or the Non(-)Self-Signifying Signifier
The Dual Logic of the Unconscious
Jouissance and Subject
1. The 'Subject of the Unconscious' as Absolute Subjectivity
2. Jouissance as Subject (of) the Unconscious
3. The 'Subject of the Unconscious' as the Foreclosure of Jouissance
The Philosophical Triangulation of Psychoanalysis
From objet a to objet m: The Unilateral Concept of Loss
The Constitution of 'Phantasmatic Desire'
The Identity of the Non-Analyst: the Sembled and the Semblant, and the Performational Identity of
Theory and Practice
The Non-Analyst's Phantasy: The Facticity of the objet m as a Support of Jouissance
The Body (of) Jouissance: Analysis as the Incomplete Critique of Philosophy
Unitary Narcissism and the Narcissism of Jouissance: System and Theory
Non-Castration: Transcendental Incest and Detriangulation
The Transcendental Phallic Identity: Saving the Phenomenon of Desire and the Pragmatics of
Sexual Difference
Transcendent Sublime and the Transcendental Sublime
The Amphibology of the Concept of Identification: Identity and Identification

Index