New APPS

I'm posting this in the hopes that scholars of François Laruelle can add to the list. As people who have tried to read his difficult texts know, Ray Brassier is on to something when he writes (citation below):

The truth is that his thought operates at a level of abstraction which some will find debilitating, others exhilarating. Those who believe formal invention  should be subordinated to substantive innovation will undoubtedly find Laruelle’s work rebarbative.

But I think that anyone reading the following texts with a minimal level of charity will agree that he is a fascinating philosopher:

1. John Mullarkey, Post-Continental Philosophy (very good book containing a chapter on Laruelle; Notre Dame Philosophical Review by Alistair Welchman here),
2. Ian James, The New French Philosophy (another great book with a chapter on Laruelle; Notre Dame Philosophical Review by Joe Hughes here, characteristically nice review by Todd May here, very long critical, yet rewarding, 3AM Magazine review by Richard Marshall here),
3. Ray Brassier's Radical Philosophy piece "Axiomatic Heresy: The Non-Philosophy of François Laruelle"
4. Benjamin Norris'* Speculations piece "Re-asking the Question of the Gendered Subject after Non-philosophy,"
5. The three Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews of Laruelle's books (Ian James, Graham Harman,** Anthony Paul Smith).

I know there's more good stuff out there, but that's all I've read thusfar.

Given time constraints and how much other new stuff we're all reading, I can't be alone in being in the position of not being able to closely engage with Laruelle's difficult texts until there is a good reader's guide published.**** Through the rumor mill Laruelle translator Anthony Paul Smith***** (academia page with some more interesting articles here) is writing a secondary source on Laruelle, which many of us will be very excited to read.

Does anyone reading this know of anything I've missed that would be particularly helpful for new English language readers? I'm sure there's lots of good stuff. Please provide links and don't be hesitant about tooting your own horn.

[Notes:

*Attendees at the Notre Dame Translating Realism conference will remember Norris' great paper "Laruelle's Precarious Realism." It was one of the most interesting and philosophically fruitful papers at the conference, and Norris was also a wonderful interlocutor during the dinners. I hope that "Laruelle's Precarious Realism" sees publication soon as it is both a good contribution to philosophy in its own right and as it was so helpful for people there interested in Laruelle.  

**Harman's critical comments caused quite an uproar on-line that still hasn't calmed down.

Generally, it's weird how contemporary continental philosophy so often inverts the normal anxiety of influence mechanisms which in the arts and analytic philosophy normally involve various Freudian moves. I think that this is due to the fact that in continental philosophy people tend to ask one another "Who do you work on?" not "What do you work on?" as they do in analytic philosophy. But then your identity might end up being tied up very tightly in an individual figure, and so the thought that people might stop reading this figure can be extraordinarily threatening. If nearly everything I write is about Professor Gerbenfeister, then the merest possibility that Professor Gerbenfeister ends up not getting read might bring out the very worst in me.

The overblown invective Harman has been subject to as a result of his criticism is really quite extraordinary, one of the weirdest things I've ever experienced; it would simply not occur in analytic philosophy.***

***(i)Which has all sorts of other faults. The whole "kill your father" thing didn't work out too well for Oedipus in the end, did it?

As far as possible one should love and be thankful to one's philosopical fathers. But sometimes the only possible expression of love is to help the person get hospice care. This can be agonizing, but there you go.

On analytic versus continental more generally, remember this bit (taken out of context) from the preface to Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit,

The study of philosophy is as much hindered by the conceit that will not argue, as it is by the argumentative approach.

Word.

(ii) Any gratuitous Harman bashing in the comments will be blocked (we've had plenty of discussions about Harman's work here, and will have plenty in the future). Fine if you want to contest the review, but if so please only do this in the context of helping English langauge readers know how to proceed in learning more about Laruelle. 

(iii) More generally, if you don't have a job it makes sense to live in existential terror that the figures or issues you work on won't be seen as worthwhile, since this might doom you to unemployment. Once you have a job, not so much. At that point the terror shades into an irrational desire for a kind of sublimated immortality secured by publication. Get over it. You get to spend large swaths of time studying philosophy. You get to be matter becoming spirit. That's good enough on its own, and it doesn't matter if when ego surfing google scholar you realize that nearly every citation to your work is you citing yourself in different places.

If the above isn't intuitively compelling, just note that this kind of fear of death is exactly why people become contestants on reality shows. Do you really want to be like them?

****Don't snort at this kind of thing. We live in a golden age where reader's guides can help people interact with some of the most antecedently difficult texts such as those by Hegel, Heidegger, and Derrida. Especially given how much "publish or perish," combined with teaching and administrative makework, eats into our time, I very much doubt that analytical philosophers would now be in a position to learn so much from the continental tradition were it not for such books. I think that they are helpful for continental philosophers moving into new figures and issues as well.

*****I met Anthony Paul Smith at the Pittsburgh Schelling Summer School. Even though I had bad bronchitis and couldn't make any of the social events as a result, I walked up a hill in Pittsburgh***** so I could congratulate him on getting a job. I've seen enough really bright graduate students I have admired over the internet not get jobs these last few years that it meant a tremendous amount to me to be able to toast him. He was a really friendly guy, giving me good advice about French translation ("hic" and "haecceity" pun just as well in French), and generously discussing Laruelle and his research.

*****Pausing every few steps to hack up a substance that could only be described by Lovecraft. Pittsburgh is a lovely city, but in Summer it sometimes approximates a bowl of auto-exhaust soup. For all its manifest virtues, still not a very good place to walk up hills when you have bronchitis.]