Philosophies of Difference: A Critical Introduction to Non-philosophy

by Francois Laruelle, Rocco Gangle (Translator)

Overview

A crucial text in the development of François Laruelle's oeuvre and an excellent starting point for understanding his broader project, Philosophies of Difference offers a theoretical and critical analysis of the philosophers of difference after Hegel and Nietzsche. Laruelle then uses this analysis to introduce a new theoretical practice of non-philosophical thought.

Rather than presenting a narrative historical overview, Laruelle provides a series of rigorous critiques of the various interpretations of difference in Hegel, Nietzsche and Deleuze, Heidegger and Derrida. From Laruelle's innovative theoretical perspective, the forms of philosophical difference that emerge appear as variations upon a unique, highly abstract structure of philosophical decision, the self-posing and self-legitimating essence of philosophy itself. Reconceived in terms of philosophical decision, the seemingly radical concept of philosophical difference is shown to configure rather the identity of philosophy as such, which thus becomes manifest as a contingent and no longer absolute form of thinking. The way is thereby opened for initiating a new form of thought, anticipated here with the development of a key notion of non-philosophy, the Vision-in-One.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781441105950
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Publishing
Publication date:	12/23/2010
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	256
File size:	639 KB

About the Author

François Laruelle is a French philosopher formerly Professor of Contemporary Philosophy at the Université de Paris X (Nanterre) and the Collège International de Philosophie, France. He is the creator of the concept of 'non-philosophy' and author of over twenty works of philosophy.
Rocco Gangle is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Endicott College, USA.

Rocco Gangle is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Endicott College. He is the author of François Laruelle’s Philosophies of Difference: A CriticalIntroduction and Guide and Diagrammatic Immanence: Category Theoryand Philosophy (both with Edinburgh University Press) and the co-author, with Gianluca Caterina, of Iconicity and Abduction (Springer Press).

Table of Contents

Translator's Introduction\Instructions\1. Introduction: From the Aporias of Difference to the Vision-in-One\2. Syntax of Difference\3. Reality of Difference\4. Hegel and Heidegger\5. Derrida\6. Critique of Difference\7. Theory of Philosophical Decision\Index.

Editorial Reviews

Laruelle's work is ground—breaking, but he is virtually unknown in the English—speaking world. This will certainly change with Gangle's translation of this indispensable text, which is probably the most important summation of Laruelle's 'non—philosophy'.” —Kenneth Surin, Duke University, USA

“Laruelle's project of 'Non—Philosophy' aims at nothing less than a re—vision of what counts as thought, taking it well beyond the hype of philosophical mastery and into a materialism that positions philosophy as just one kind of thinking, one part of what he calls 'the One'... This long awaited translation of Philosophies of Difference serves as an excellent entry—point for the Anglophone reader into this absolutely democratic vision of thought.” —John Mullarkey

From the Publisher