Documentos de Académico
Documentos de Profesional
Documentos de Cultura
version of my book
Non-Philosophy
Aphilosophy.
and
Non-Philosophy and
Aphilosophy
By Lance Allan Kair
Lance A. Kair
2015
11
Contents
Non-Philosophy and Aphilosophy...............................1
THE SITUATION........................................................11
PHILOSOPHY and NON-PHILOSOPHY...................14
THE ISSUE................................................................27
Kant.........................................................................30
Hegel.......................................................................37
THE ANTE-APOLOGISTS:.......................................45
Marx, Kierkegaard and Nietzsche...........................45
Marx........................................................................48
Kierkegaard.............................................................55
Nietzsche................................................................60
APHILOSOPHY AS A CRITIQUE OF NONPHILOSOPHY............................................................64
The Apologists........................................................64
The Aphilosophical Case........................................90
Reiteration.............................................................100
AFTERWORD: Object Orientation........................113
13
Notes.......................................................................119
Selected Bibliography............................................121
Noted Authors........................................................122
15
What happened ??
17
19
HERE
CAN
HOPE
RESEARCHES,
FOR
TO
SUCCESS
LEAVE
IN
THE
OUR
PHILOSOPHICAL
TEDIOUS
LINGERING
David Hume.
21
23
THE SITUATION.
1.
The situation is what is happening; the situation is the issue.
Non-philosophy presents the situation in its absolute truth
through discourse. Though the idea of a non-philosophy has
arisen in at least a few texts, we will center our concern and
discussion with the manner that non-philosophy, the idea,
has been transcribed into a more formal setting by the
philosopher Francois Laruelle. So as we begin, for this short
essay, the terms of discourse themselves as indicators of a
constant, relatable and universal reductive potential, cannot
be taken to reflect an absolute truth, for the terms are also
the issue; this is the non-philosophical situation. While this
situation arises at many significant occasions of discourse,
and particularly upon philosophical discourses, the proof of
non-philosophy becomes evident through two mutually
25
27
29
philosophically
to
mean
something
other
than
31
33
35
37
through
the
terms
of
discourse.
The
41
43
45
the
appearance
conventional
of
its
philosophical
meaningful
(non-philosophy's)
discursive
47
thus
deferred
becomes
another
object
of
49
toward
realized
transcendental
unity,
aka,
immanence. Thus in reference to the axiomatic nonmethodological discourse, it is because this latter route is
likewise true, as opposed to having or containing the
potential for accounting for all truth; that is, it yields truth unto
itself through its own method self evidently, a decision
involving only itself, that we have an essential segregation of
truths: Duality. It is likewise the assertion of methodology as
foundational to all potential of truth that reveals that we are
dealing with an arena of power, but not merely one arena to
which all other arenas reduce and in which power is
negotiated, where many bases of power are negotiated
(reality), but actually two arenas. It is thus the infringement of
a power of truth upon what is essentially foreign and
autonomous in its own right, that accounts for and
51
power
that
stems
from
the
rejection
of
53
and
aside
from
strictly
non-philosophical
55
57
15.
We have thus the basis for a valid critique of nonphilosophy. What is radical non-philosophically, as the
argument Laruelle wants to make of his most significant
revelation, is the move that would encompass the former
actuality in potential while suggesting that what is in potential
is actually true. This is the fault of Laruelle. The unity he
seems to decry is recouped in (capitals:) Non-Philosophical
method; it seems no different than that of its philosophical
counterpart. Laruelle attempts to counter this by his adopting
a new title, perhaps a Non-Philosophy V, "Non-standard
philosophy", which thereby admits in practice his lack, the
incompletion inherent in the non-philosophical proposal, and
in fact, thus, the whole of the philosophical enterprise, and
thereby the solute split whereby history begins to repeat.
16.
This can be understood in its most literal revolutionary
sense. A 'revolving', a revolution, a 'flipping'. When reduced
to be centered upon a single axis, ideology, all of these
terms also refer to a single unimpeachable maxim: irony. The
"last thing one would expect" is a turning of meaning. But in
the end, in the last, such a turn reveals not only what is truly
occurring, but by this view, the reaction. This is to say that
59
61
contingency.
18.
For this part, I suggest that non-philosophy is the
meaningful culmination of that which has been and is
exemplified in the whole Western philosophical library having
to do with ontology and what otherwise could be called
universal cosmology, or 'grand theory', but particularly what
is often associated with Continental philosophy. We are not
concerned here with the epistemological and or pedagogical
philosophies of the more conventional and applied bent; their
use and sensibilities fall under the real category of intrinsic
mythology, the functioning of conventional faith.
19.
We address four authors in the stated regard; but this
is not, as I said, a methodologically rigorous academic effort,
and there are many more authors that may be seen in the
light shone here. The extended argument for the complicity
of all such authors is beyond the scope of this essay and is,
for our specific purposes now, highly so. For this we move
upon two fronts; that the reader need not have any but the
most basic and rudimentary want to understand, and two,
63
bring
about and
perpetuate
the
conventional
65
67
69
THE ISSUE.
20.
It seems so clich to begin with Emmanuel Kant, but it
appears with him that the whole problem can arise. We
should expect that any author of such notability should have
addressed the significant issue, the issue that is always the
same object, and thus it is not whether or not they have a
correct or incorrect assessment. By now we should see that
all authors of a certain attitude or orientation indeed have
addressed the object correctly. So also yet see; each and
every author suspected and proposed to place the object in
view, and so is also suspected to have closed the issue to be
able to move on to a more scientific approach or ability to
address its reality. Kant proposed a science of metaphysics,
of sorts; Edmund Hersserl was frustrated that by his science
71
73
since they are all meaning the same thing but with marginal
differences, differences taken into conventional definitions
that are used in the place of what is informing the discussion,
so that the actual common element is obscured for the sake
of the potential invested of the terms to present real identity.
Likewise we can place Laruelle in the Rolodex of historical
philosophical ideas and confirm the conventional maxim. But
again, it is not the effort here to go into a breakdown of how
all these authors might relate in the potential meaning of
their ideas through the definition of terms and the arguments
of designation and context; the issue is what they are all
meaning the same thing about, and not how what they are
saying is different might be finding reconciliation, either in
their individual proposals or a number taken together.
22.
The issue is the attempt to find the true thing through
the
methodological
consideration
and
negotiation
of
75
77
Kant.
23.
We shall call forward the categorical imperative as
well as the synthetical a priori, two fundamental ideas for
Kant, as the main example of the problem that appears to
have perplexed nearly everyone who entertains those terms,
such that much of the history of philosophy since then is
primarily a perpetual reinstatement of these tenants. One
problem that Laruelle addresses of philosophical method is
that the method is so self-evident, so impositional by its
stature, as to its want to convey or otherwise represent what
is true, what we could call a common sensibility is ignored.
The meaning that the author intends to convey is deferred in
the reader away from the sensibility that the author is
intending to address or arouse of the reader herself, such
that the philosophical reader is constantly in an effort of
79
24.
In short, a categorical imperative coined by Kant and
rephrased here, is an event that cannot occur or unfold in
any manner other than the way it does. Kant finds this idea
by
considering
what
supernatural
and
or
otherwise
83
indeed,
the
necessary
arrangement,
85
87
26.
We
can
enjoin
Kant
with
another
notable
89
is
known
independent
of
an
experience.
91
know them intuitively 'one' and 'one', the quality of their being
such a 'one' is always in the experience deferred to the
potential involved in that one being 'of two' such that there
may be indeed 'two' at some point. This is the issue of the
void and multiple discussed below, the issue that this essay
addresses incidentally, of how these basic 'two' might be
reconciled.
27.
Thus Kant's main concern is the synthetic a priori,
where the veracity of the statement is confirmed independent
of experience. See first; the examples of statements, of
subjects and predicates, are examples for his meaning. So
much of conventional philosophy finds Kant and then goes
about looking for truth through structural discursive analysis,
taking apart sentences as to the truth they might indicate
depending upon Kant's logical system, and so much does
this kind of humanity find terms expressing objects inthemselves that are ethically dubious, yet looking to Kant's
systemization for a solution to the problem, finding mainly
problem, and miss the issue entirely. Thus to reiterate; Kant
is concerned with synthetical a priori: A predicate (that which
confers meaning) that is not found within the subject (a truth
93
95
Hegel.
29.
Georg Hegel said it all, but what he said is (still)
based in the polemic of the same. If Kant can be said to
mark the issue in its beginnings, Hegel can be said to be the
issue in its maturity; the view is fully developed with him.
With him we have the effort to reconcile of what we see is
the ironic situation of Pure reason. As with Kant, this view of
the same figures upon a one wholeness, conveyable and
knowable through the human faculties. The wholeness is
always constituent of a thoughtful human being and a world
of material objects, and premised upon the singular ability for
thought and its proper application to yield the true world. As
said, thought uses language as a probe, of sorts, upon world
to thereby find this truth, and this situation is not
problematized, rather, it is problematized within the singular
97
30.
In
this
regard,
Hegel
offers
his
dialectic.
99
101
103
32.
In this way and by this way, Hegel's dialectic is a route
to a higher form of knowing. On one hand we have the text
that is exhibiting a truth that is already known. As one reads
the text (encounters in experience), the proceeding clauses
verify that indeed the truth is manifest as has been or is
being revealed. This revelation becomes the issue. So, on
the other hand, we have this truth that is evidenced through
the reading because it is addressing the phenomenon of
self-consciousness coming upon a self-consciousness that is
apparently not an obvious segregated object/person/subject;
which is to say, because the reader (Hegel in this case) has
had an experience of this other self-consciousness. The
interaction of these elements constantly proposes a break
with conventional reality, but because this experience cannot
105
107
109
111
113
115
37.
What we say now is conventional to ironic, and real to
not real, as Laruelle posits philosophy to non-philosophy, so
this is the thesis to the antithesis and by this establishment
thus is already synthesized, already synthetical a priori
knowledge; already the revolution has occurred. Like all
authors who posit the revolution within their text, Hegel is
very subtle and thorough in this regard to be able to speak to
the issue and untangle its conventionally meaningful
defaults, but we find that all the care to detail serves only to
further pronounce and aggravate the discrepancy. It is this
intensity, this devotion that, like Laruelles Non-Philosophical
work, shows what is true in its truth, and thus marks a
particular historically ontological item. The compulsion is
founded in the revolutionary experience, such that because it
indeed is revolutionary, that the meaning is gained
synthetically a priori, gained by the situation where the
meaning of the text cannot be inferred from the conventional
meaning of the text itself but is rather known for its veracity
apart from the worldly, physical, objective experience of
things such a significant event beckons such authors to
explain how it is true, but more: To suggest, against what is
viewed as hiding, that this truth can be taught.
117
119
THE ANTE-APOLOGISTS:
Marx, Kierkegaard and Nietzsche.
38.
The tension between the individual, as a conscious
and willful agent that makes history, and history as an
impersonal movement of universal things are pronounced in
the ideas of Karl Marx, Soren Kierkegaard, and Friedrich
Nietzsche, philosophers of the first generations after Hegel.
It is with them that the completion that should be occurring is
noticed to not be occurring; so it is we have an emphasis of
the split that remains begging to be mended. The impending
need for such a reconciliation can be felt in the respective
ways of these authors, and it may be seen that they
represent two sides of a motion, Marx with his dialectical
materialism, and Kierkegaard with his irony, and another that
121
123
125
Marx.
41.
The material side of what can be said to be dialectical
is found in as much as material things are taken to be
elemental components of reality. We do not yet say it, but
equally it will be that such material is part of being in the
world. For now, for Marx, the material points directly away
from ideal or 'thoughtful' world of contemplative real
transformations; it is apparent by now (then) that the ideal
synthesis did not work, was not sufficient in its idea. Thus
this failure can be reasoned to be due to there being a world
that is not merely of ideas, but one that is actually of
material, of things that we as human beings are involved
with. So much as there is indeed a world of ideas and a
material world, then, the reconciliation takes place through a
significantly different modality. Here is the mark of revolution,
127
129
131
133
about, but rather for what it represents, and this is to say that
by now what is represented is taken to be and mean the
thing in-itself, the True Object, but without the question put
forward of some Pure Reason, such that we have the
conventional beginnings of the real axiomatic structure of
identity, as well as the roots of what has been coined as
correlationalism . This is to say that from this point we have
an assertion of power wherein reality comes to contain, as it
must now be delineated and asserted, as doubt has
breached the given, all that may be true. The intuited nature
of the thing in-itself has been sufficiently motivated to be
understood as what we are calling the 'term-object identity'
by which the initial misinterpretation of Kant is transformed
and used to justify and reduce the meaning of Marx's
discourse to ideological considerations only, that is, to the
material objective things of the world to which discourse
refers in its capacity and ability to convey truth. But the
setting is the same: As with Hegel, the description again
finds itself within a one given reality that is being analyzed
and proposed upon toward a revolutionary reconciliation.
This is the mark of conventional method, that discourses of
sense have already determined the truth of things such that
what needs now to be found is what is more true or really
true of the thing in question. This situation is exactly what
135
137
discourse
of
139
141
Yet
the
actual
philosophical
revolutionary
143
the transcendent.
46.
Understand
that
the
description
of
the
usual
145
Kierkegaard.
47.
Kierkegaard may be said to be the only philosopher
that deals with the issue directly. Of course, it is easy to
show Marx when we speak of the philosophical or for that
matter, any revolution, but Kierkegaard moves in the
direction of the issue instead of
147
149
151
clause
(this
the
ironic
situation),
he
153
155
157
irony is unfathomable.
159
Nietzsche.
50.
Jean-Paul Sartre is known for labeling Kierkegaard as
the first existentialist, but with regards to Kierkegaards faith,
it seems more proper to place Friedrich Nietzsche in that
position, since he appeals to nothing beyond that which
exists as a holistic presence of life. Conventionally speaking,
he does not hold an ironic position that tells of an absolute
transcendence through the limit of universal reality. But his
irony nevertheless involves the same revolutionary position;
that is, the human being holds a potential within itself that is
held back by the tendency to believe and hold onto a truth
that transcends reality. Nietzsche's revolutionary subject he
calls the bermensch, and by this title he thus situates 'man'
as a neotenous state of being. The new man, or depending
on how the original German is translated, this 'over', or
161
Indeed,
Nietzsche
offers
'new'
human
163
52.
Of course many other philosophers can be viewed in
this way, each attempting to expose that which should have
already been revealed by its obviousness, and that indeed
has already been revealed to them but why not anyone
else? Unfortunately we are at a point where we must expose
what has been occurring philosophically; this essay is but a
beginning. We shall see below; no longer should we
equivocate philosophically to what is methodologically real,
to the correlational maxim that says that what has been
revealed to them is evidenced in what they said, and quibble
and signify how the pieces can be made to mean so much
for various real situations. No longer do we attempt to
reconcile reality to never-ending discussions and proposals
of true reality; we grant these discussions do well to make
165
we,
as
consciousness,
the
universal
object
are
merely
justifying
that
is
human
ourselves
with
167
way in our own way: One, the Kantian intuition, and two,
what can be called, empiricism, or maybe the scientific
object. Either way, difference is never acknowledged in
reality.
53.
Nevertheless; regardless of whether the revolution is
meant
to
be
ultimately
or
existentially
'different'
or
169
insistence
upon
an
essential
perception,
171
173
definition of irony as situation; this is the significance of nonphilosophy. But Laruelle is not involved, as a radical agent,
with what may be ironic of a method; rather, he is involved
with what may be real, and the enactment of revolution,
evident by his proposal for attaining that imperative to the
category of real, the same ideal proposed by all the authors
mentioned
above,
and
more:
The
non-philosophical
175
177
it,
conventional
philosophy
adamantly
closes
the
179
away
from
Heidegger
and
or
some
sort
of
57.
The distinction between revelatory and real privilege
has already been formulated. For our certain philosophical
mind, it is the difference between superstitious and rational
thought, and as we have seen, is the question that Kant
181
correct?
The
revolutionary
answer:
Through
the
183
185
countered
through
type
of
discursive
187
189
191
59.
So it is that in finding our critique of non-philosophy
we uncover a method that continues as a route for truth
despite its fallacious basis. Though it might honestly be
proposed in the context of a more proper manner of
understanding reality, "should humanity be saved" in the call
of potential 'savior', non-philosophy works ironically to hide
its complicity in the real displacement if not instigation of
contradiction through what we can call the Post Post-Modern
gambit. The gambit is necessary due to the repetition that
has occurred, a retreading of philosophical grounds. Instead
of asserting upon the gap towards a righteous and absolutely
true and best world, which is the Modernist move of
displacement through reconciliation by demand (the One),
the Post-Modern exposed the facade of an argued previous
totalitarian view by the converse assertion of the gap, a type
of reconciliation by supply (the multiple). The general PostModern position is where the One may be associated with
what is essentially human reality, what is multiple not only
consists of other humanities but also an instatement of new
mechanisms to enforce the (ideological material) consistency
193
195
197
199
of the void that is multiple, but before the one must have
been found as 'that' one among many. Once that One is
found, conventional faith has taken hold.
61.
The watershed evidenced of this Event just mentioned
(which could be non-philosophical) concerns thus this
gambit, this solution of compromise; but as we will see, it is
not so much compromise as it is deception. The single
discernment by which this pivotal case arises has to do with
what we shall call the Discursive Principle. The Principle
states that discourse reflects the present condition of reality,
and vice versa, that the state of reality is the condition of
discourse for any time. See that this is not another form of
Presentism,
and
is
more
in
line
with
the
strong
201
be
communicable,
that
some
thing
may
be
203
205
207
to
debate
transcendence
and
immanence,
209
211
213
such that what ever the object was, it could not be framed in
any other way to remain consistent with the subject of the
matter; one could not, say, put air in the tire to address the
object of the treatment of prisoners in the subject of prisons;
that is, if we are confined by conventional method. In terms
of the Kantian scheme, the referent is always implied in the
subject of the object. The distinction we make here has to do
with where the contradiction occurs and how it is used. For
conventional method, the experience of the truth of the
matter is always in reference to objective experience, verified
against the True Object that is viewed to be granting aspects
of itself to our (human) knowledge, analytical and synthetical
a posteriori. Yet the contradiction itself is the fact that the
object is always implied in the subject, and that this situation
occurs in knowledge as experience a priori such that this
type of experience is foreign to the ability of conventional
method to discern.
66.
In terms of the term, earlier in our conversation about
Marx we brought the notion of the object-term identity. This
notion arises simply: When we have an object, a thing of the
world, in the world, such as a chair or a tornado or a thought,
215
and we try to identify what that thing is that is, when we try
to communicate with another person as to what the thing
may be never do we find a complete and total description
that identifies absolutely what that thing is. Always there is
discussion and references to other terms and ideas. So the
best we can do with an object is offer a sufficient description
accompanied by the inclusion of what we can call a common
human experience; again, conventional reality. Yet again,
once we include this human aspect, we further aggravate the
situation because we can never account for what this human
aspect is that is allowing us to come to consensus of what
the object is. The best we can say is that there is a
consensus over what it is. This consensus is likewise never
found through conventional methodology, but instead is only
justified against the method's failure; this failure, when
applied to the method by which reality is reckoned thus
amounts to the gap mentioned earlier, that which is the
conventional subject, which is to say, individual identity. We
have here then the notion offered of this essay of
conventional faith in the True Object. So, because reality is
viewed as a common sense, not of or requiring of any sort of
faith, any real effort of discourse toward the truth of an object
is viable due to the potential involved with the ability or
capacity of discourse to procure its object, what we call then,
217
the object-term identity. The object is seen within the teleoontological horizon of the terms and vice-versa. Yet what the
actual object is in-itself is thus a contradiction in terms, but
not just any terms: Exactly terms from which they arise
designated as to their proper meaning by the conventional
method.
67.
Again, the meaning of the Principle harkens away
from real community; the community is taken as a condition
of discourse wherein and accorded to do we find the
oneness of conventional meaning. Community thereby
excludes and functions through selective biases. The irony
involved with this situation is that where modernism is often
associated with an assertion of a proper and absolute
oneness upon what is otherwise a faceted world, postmodernity is concerned with how such a oneness is possible
within an established multiplicity that has yet to be
enlightened to its true reality. That is, the extent of potential
of the multitude has yet to be revealed; hence a startling
discovery: This is the same Modernist type effort that PostModernism was supposedly treating differently: All must fall
under the One methodological type. Thus in this instance,
the position of the 'one' is compromised by the formulation of
219
221
knowledge;
in
short,
the
destruction
of
the
223
69.
The problem with conventional method is it sees its
products as emanations of truth, and discourse is one of
these products. The recourse is that if we cannot be sure if
one person has been inspired by (a) God, then surely if all of
us get together then the result must have been so inspired.
Indeed, all of science and much philosophy is based upon a
suspension of the investigation into the induction of
knowledge; the effort is satisfied to allow the deduction to
show us how we come upon knowledge of things, to deduce
from the product of deduction, to assess causality upon as
essentially
traceable
causality.
And
vice
versa:
The
227
proposals
that
take
the
conventional
229
231
72.
We therefore suggest that Laruelle and these other
authors intimated were and are involved with a deal wherein
they had/have to play the hand given to them and thus chose
to bluff in the game of big stakes because their faith
demanded it as this is the accepted mode of operation of
the conventional method, the value of the fetishized
commodity for the investment of individual identity. The deal
plays with the involvement of choice in as much as choice
becomes the pivotal philosophical element. In this regard, we
shall say that the deal is a voluntary acquiescence to a
particular condition that formulates or structures activity,
such that once agreed to, the formulation is or otherwise
behaves to be thence forth true, and inescapable in this
capacity. For this essay we suggest that in as much as there
is or has been a deal, there has been a situation discerned
in a non-philosophical manner by which the aphilosophical
view could not have been chosen. If I have made a choice
233
235
237
239
241
perspectives,
perceptions
and
interpretations,
as
universal
operation,
though,
occurs
243
245
247
79.
The non-philosophical situation can be broken down
in the following manner.
One might see non-philosophy as a non-method,
which is to say, as its occasion of the last instance over its
presentational method, its passive rather than active
situation in its active rather than passive mode, forecloses
debate by its very nature. It is a description that concerns the
appropriation of discourse. At every challenge, every
accusation of intention is absorbed; it is an eternal 'yes': Yes,
it is true that it is; yes, it is not true that it is; yes, it is true that
is it not; yes, it is not true that it is not agreeing with every
statement that can be formed concerning its foundation while
equally comfortable in its incessant 'no': there is no
phenomenal intention all query centered around its
249
the
coincidence
of
knowledge
known
and
251
255
257
84.
Laruelle also describes how in philosophy being an
object, it supplies the only route to the uncovering of its
decisional structure, but that discourse itself must be used
carefully in order to explicate and uncover its methodological
redundancy. The non-philosophical situation should thereby
be beyond its philosophical bearings and since then there is
no decision by which to split aspects of reality, the
philosophical reading will necessarily amount to and supply
an incorrect meaning to the discourse at hand.
85.
Hence, the aphilosophical route will play.
The issue is the term; I develop the term, the issue,
and this reveals the point of contention as the issue of the
term as differend, the term being the site of contention, the
marker of difference. I begin the count; existence and reality
are operational bases. In so much as Laruelle is merely
using the terms of conventional method to reveal his
experience, and due to the fact of describing the process of
his experience, non-philosophy appears as method. His text
may be telling about the manner by which one may come
about the object(-ive) supposed of the method, but he is
actually justifying his own experience to himself as a
259
is
much
more
insidious:
While
subsequently
dual
condition
is
presented
and
then
261
263
265
267
Where
there
is
choice,
the
choice,
269
271
89.
The significance lay in the appropriation of rhetoric.
What I write should (it seems)only be that which is presented
to the subject (the point of the endeavor; the subjunctive; the
non-philosophical 'Ego'), but not re-presented for the subjectobject (the purpose; that which is spoken to, the indicative;
the individual; Laruelle's 'philosophical subject') necessarily.
Where I am speaking, to the subject, non-Ego, or nonphilosophical vision-in-one, I am then at once heard as
originating from 'nowhere' but exactly in the occasion of
reading arising in knowledge already known, a confirmation
of experience in the experience. If such a manner of
273
275
Reiteration.
90.
We
may
encounter
such
reading
in
the
mentioned
'unilateral
duality'.
What
am
non-philosophy
as
well:
Immanence
behaving
279
91.
If I have somehow not yet been clear; the issue is with
Laruelle suggesting non-philosophy is a method. I have
come upon no method but that he has written it, and he even
says that non-philosophy is a method; the reason I know
what Laruelle is saying and means, even as I only
encountered him at first through the presentation of his book
The Dictionary of Non-Philosophy, is exactly because I used
no method: I accounted for his occasion as a matter of
course, such that what he has to say is indeed now that I
see how he has situated the point of contention, which is to
say, what terms he used axiomatic within the unilateral
duality. That is to say, the terms, the phrases, are presented
as axioms, as reflecting a prior (ante-) 'institution' of truth, an
idiom of the differend of the terms.
92.
The problem with method is exactly the denial of this
idiom for the proposal of method; non-philosophical radicality
is not a proposed method of acting in the world, for the world
of method is already problematic. For one, it is not a method,
or maybe non-method; it is the method that Laruelle himself
did or continues to do. He only learned it by virtue of him
doing it, and in that sense, it was a radical method because
281
283
subjective
privilege.
This
is
the
issue
due
to
himself
having
come
upon
such
an
285
287
289
divergence. Indeed, Christ says "I am the door ... the way,
the life...the truth".
94.
Hence, the aphilosophical rebuttal is ironic: Only in as
much as he can prescribe a method does his project-asmethod have any credence, because such a radical method
evidences a foundation in conventional history as such that it
becomes just as good or bad as any other proposed method.
Yet if non-philosophy is subject to the opinion of conventional
comparison, if it stands on the historical structure of an
actual temporal and true objective history, a segregate and
distanced object, an actual philosophical tradition with which
it breaks only to return to it
291
reduction
reveals
293
contradiction
that
295
more
interesting
than
any
other
proposal
of
297
299
99.
To reiterate; the fact that I may need not Laruelles
301
303
working
non-philosophically
do
so
within
an
305
need
not
fall
back
into
looking
for
the
307
309
confirmation
that
his
proposal
had
been
End.
311
313
315
come out in 2015 (or my blog prior) and demand that I was
somehow or in some way the first or one of the first to see
things in this way. Useless and ridiculous. The fact of the
matter is that at a certain time a number of people began to
see things in this way, myself included, and, that at a certain
time I began to hear rumors of these authors and when I
encountered their texts, echoes of what I already knew, first
Laruelle, then Badiou, then Harman, Meillassoux, and
others. It can be no miracle of unlearning that Badious
Being and Event, read to me like a high school book; but of
course many will say that I thereby indeed did not
understand him. So be it. I will, at some point, put out a
description of the path that Badiou took in that book.
105.
A question is then: How can this be so? But
aggravating to the ready-made answer is that somehow I
was come upon by this view without having been privy to any
contemporary philosophical discourses whatsoever. At most,
for the time and the view, I had but a preliminary knowledge
of Nietzsche and Kierkegaard barely in the year 2004 when I
returned to school; I did so for the sole purpose of finding out
just where modern academia was and what it had to say; I
was not really looking for a career (but it would have been
317
nice). Before that I had read a small bit of Sartre and keyed
into the Bad
referential
type
philosophizing did very little for me; I found what tiny bit of
Heidegger I did read nearly unreadable, and for all purposes,
completely nonsensical. Further, even in my anthropological
and philosophical studies, I had not heard anything of any
sort from what might be current philosophical veins. In fact,
most of what I gained at university could be categorized
under the problematizing of anthropological participant
observation; I will admit, though, that perhaps there was
some seeds there. Even in my philosophy classes I learned
only about the historical figures, mainly the undergrad
learning of the Existentialists, Dostoyevsky, Kierkegaard,
Nietzsche, Camus, de Beauvoir,and Sartre, but I took
classes where Feuerbach and Wittgenstein came up. I
understood and or retained very little from all that; I was very
intoxicated most of my college time. I did ok in my classes
but the problem I was attempting to deal with, even then,
was not readily apparent in the undergraduate syllabus; I
even remember asking one of my professors about the issue
I was obsessed with, for Existentialism seemed like it had
something to do with it (I had signed up for the class, after
all), but she had nothing to say to me of any consequence,
319
321
Oriented Ontology. All one can say is that Harman had more
access to objectival references by which to talk about and
put forward his ideas; but thats not all. It is most proper that
the Object be presented first as the philosophical motion
always should recede; the first is always a motion of
ideological progress. Nevertheless, there was no educational
learning that allowed him to come to his idea; O.O.O. was
already there in history, it needed a vehicle, a platform
through which to be expressed; orientation upon objects is a
necessary precipitative meaning in historical philosophical
context, and Harman just saw the conventional half of it. This
is also part of the issue.
107.
The significance here, of our coincidence, is that the
ideas put forth by previous authors are not novel ideas,
rather, they are discursive variations of the same idea, such
that over a span of discursive space, symbolic emanations of
various authors fill out universal place-holders of meaning,
outline, color in, occupy and or otherwise inscribe an object
into being, but at that, within a particular ontological horizon,
such that a teleo-ontology remains effective as World until
the object being inscribed fills out the object that is World
itself. This all occurs in meaning, not necessarily involved
323
with any actual True objectival thing, as a thing may be; the
issue of a True thing is moot, but Harman is involved in a
way to speak about True Objects. We speak instead of
effects. The effective World is a world that has not been
revealed to its basis in meaning only.
108.
Conventionally speaking, the Speculative and Realist
move(s) came out of the sheer boredom with what we can
call general Phenomenalism. Philosophically speaking, it is
the view that sees what is meant as having equivocation to
real-true objects, that will come across this saturation of
meaning described above as meaning something essential is
occurring, like some previously undiscovered True thing or
aspect of the universe has been let to our understanding
because of our innately innovative and imaginative ability for
creativity in thinking, experiment and tool use. Such
philosophers are thus oriented upon the True Object. Hence,
the significant issue has to do with ones orientation upon
objects; not that there is indeed some more-true possibility
of real objects, but that in so much as one might argue such
a case as if it is indeed true they must be oriented upon such
True objects.
109.
325
327
329
331
Notes.
The foregoing paper is strictly philosophical; perhaps one
could say it is free philosophy in the sense that it is not
proposed within an academically rigorous setting. But this in
no sense should be taken to mean that the ideas of
philosophers were not well considered or not thoroughly
researched. In fact, part of the issue behind this series,
Philosophical Hack, is that for a very long time I thought that
the meaning of various philosophical essays was obvious; it
was only after a time that I realized that this was not true.
Non-Philosophy and Aphilosophy is the first installment in the
series that deals with the apparent break that involves the
obscurity of the philosophical endeavor. There is a multitude
of literature that addresses the multitude of facets that may
accompany philosophical proposals, and the question that
guides should always be why am I investigating. If there is
never a why, then there is always more to investigate; but
indeed, if there is a one thing that each philosopher is
involved with, then most often we do not find out the why
until we have found the answer. But that it is and was always
with us. What hundreds of various opinions have to say
333
335
Selected Bibliography.
The following list of books I site as they indicated to
me that it was time, and in the essay I reference their ideas
specifically. This is not an exhaustive list, but merely a
significant one:
Continuum.
Hegel,Georg. The Phenomenology of Spirit.Oxford
University Press.
Kant, Immanuel. The Critique of Practical Reason.
Published 1788.
Ibid. The Critique of Pure Reason. Published 1781.
Hume, David. A Treatise of Human Nature.
Published 1776.
Kierkegaard, Soren. The Concept of Irony 1989
2013
Univocal.
Ibid. Principles
2013
Bloomsbury
Ibid. Dictionary of Non-Philosophy 1998 Editions
Continuum.
Nietzsche, Friedrich.
Published 1885.
Sartre, Jean-Paul. The Philosophy of Jean-Paul
of
Non-Philosophy.
Thus
Spoke
Zarathustra
339
Noted Authors.
I cannot in good conscience neglect to also name
others that also inspired me to keep going for this essay
about the phenomena involved in encountering texts. The
very short list:
Jacques Derrida
Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari
341