Books by Francois Laruelle

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 It is also partly Marxist: how much of philosophy can be transformed through practice, how much of it can be withdrawn from its "ideological” use?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 François 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.

François Laruelle is professor emeritus at the University of Paris West Nanterre La Défence and the inventor of the science of philosophy, non-philosophy.

Explores the lessons of heresy to construct a new understanding of 'belief'. This book draws on material from the traditions of Christianity, Judaism and Gnosticism, but he does so by suspending their authority. It introduces philosophy to the lessons of heresy and makes use of them in a non-philosophical dualysis of messianism and apocalypticism.