Philosophies of Difference - by Francois Laruelle (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

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.

Review Quotes

"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