Laruelle, Immanence, and Performance: What Does Non-Philosophy Do?
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.21476/PP.2017.33143Keywords:
non-philosophy, postcontinental philosophy, Immanence, Laruelle, Bergson,Abstract
François Laruelle’s ‘non-philosophical’ practice is connected to its performative language, such that to the question 'what is it to think?, non-philosophy responds that thinking is not “thought”, but performing. Non-philosophy is equally described by Laruelle as ‘transcendental practice’, an ‘immanent pragmatics’, or a ‘universal pragmatics’ that is ‘valid for ordinary language as well as for philosophy:’ He insists that we look at ‘that-which-I-do-in-saying and not just what I say’ – for the latter is simply what happens when thought is ‘taken hold of again by philosophy.’ Resisting this hold, non-philosophy performs re-descriptions of philosophy that, in doing so, produce effects on how philosophical texts are seen. All the same, it is notable that Laruelle objects to the focus on activity within the concept of a speech act, and instead emphasizes the ‘descriptive passivity’ that an immanent pragmatics obliges; statements that manifest ‘by their very existence what they must describe in the last instance – statements identically descriptive and performative.’ What Laruelle calls a ‘Performed-Without-Performation’ would be an action of the Real, or the ‘in-One’ – philosophical language seen as a performed without we using this or any language to perform. In this essay, this complex thought is compared with certain concepts and practices of performance that do not come from philosophy so explicitly (Allan Kaprow’s, Richard Schechner’s and Michael Kirby’s especially), but may well offer a key to understanding this passive action of the Real.
References
Badiou, Alain. 2013. Rhapsody For the Theatre. Translated by Bruno Bosteels. London: Verso.
Baier, Annette. 1985. Postures of The Mind: Essays on Mind and Morals. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Brassier, Ray. 2007. Nihil Unbound: Enlightenment and Extinction. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.
https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230590823
Cull, Laura. 2012. Theatres of Immanence: Deleuze and the Ethics of Performance. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.
Cull, Laura. 2014. “Performance Philosophy: Staging a New Field.” In Encounters in Performance Philosophy, edited by Laura Cull and Alice Lagaay, 1–19. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137462725_2
Davies, David. 2004. Art as Performance. Oxford: Blackwell. https://doi.org/10.1002/9780470774922
Eckersall, Peter. 2011.“Australian Performance Studies Marginally O Centre.” In Rise of Performance Studies, edited by James Harding and Cindy Rosenthal, 118–32. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230306059_8
Kaprow, Allan. 1972. “Manifesto.” In The Discontinuous Universe, edited by Sallie Sears and Georgianna W. Lord, 291–92. New York: Basic Books.
Kaprow, Allan. 2003. Essays on the Blurring of Art and Life. Expanded ed. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Kirby, Michael. 1972. “On Acting and Not-Acting.” The Drama Review 16 (1): 3–15. https://doi.org/10.2307/1144724
Lampe, Eelka. 2002. “Rachel Rosenthal Creating Her Selves.” In Acting (Re)Considered: A Theoretical and Practical Guide, 2nd ed., edited by Phillip B. Zarrilli, 291–304. London: Routledge.
Laruelle, François. 1991. En tant qu’un. Paris: Aubier.
Laruelle, François. 2012. Struggle and Utopia at the End Times of Philosophy. Translated by Drew S. Burke and Anthony Paul Smith. Minneapolis: Univocal.
Laruelle, François. 2012. “ The Generic Orientation of Non-Standard Aesthetics”. Paper presented at the Weisman Art Museum, University of Minneapolis, November 17, 2012. http://univocalpublishing.com/blog/111-lecture-on-the-orientation-of-non-standard-aesthetics.
Laruelle, François. 2013. Philosophy and Non-Philosophy. Translated by Taylor Adkins. Minneapolis: Univocal.
Laruelle, François. 2013. Principles of Non-Philosophy. Translated by Nicola Rubczak and Anthony Paul Smith. London: Bloomsbury.
Laruelle, François. 2013. Anti-Badiou. Translated by Robin Mackay. London: Bloomsbury.
Laruelle, François. 2014. Intellectuals and Power: The Insurrection of the Victim. François Laruelle in Conversation with Philippe Petit. Translated by Anthony Paul Smith. Cambridge: Polity.
Laruelle, François, and Ó Maoilearca, John. 2014. “Artistic Experiments with Philosophy: François Laruelle in Conversation with John Ó Maoilearca.” In Realism Materialism Art, edited by Christoph Cox, Jenny Jaskey, and Suhail Malik, 177–83. Berlin: Sternberg/CCS Bard.
Mackay, Robin, and Laruelle, François. 2012. “Introduction: Laruelle Undivided.” In François Laruelle, From Decision to Heresy: Experiments in Non-Standard Thought, edited by Robin Mackay, 1–32. Falmouth: Urbanomic/Sequence Press.
Ó Maoilearca, John. 2015. All Thoughts Are Equal: Laruelle and Nonhuman Philosophy. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Rancière, Jacques. 2011. The Emancipated Spectator. Translated by Gregory Elliott. London: Verso.
Schechner, Richard. 1985. Between Theater and Anthropology. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. https://doi.org/10.9783/9780812200928
Schechner, Richard. 2002. Performance Studies: An Introduction. London: Routledge.
Weber, Samuel. 2004. Theatricality as Medium. New York: Fordham University Press. https://doi.org/10.5422/fso/9780823224159.001.0001
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal, provided it is for non-commercial uses; and that lets others excerpt, translate, and build upon your work non-commercially, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).
