Laruelle's 'criminally performative' thought : on doing and saying in non-philosophy

O Maoilearca, John (2015) Laruelle's 'criminally performative' thought : on doing and saying in non-philosophy. Performance Philosophy, pp. 161-167. ISSN (online) 2057-7176

Abstract

This essay argues that 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, and that to perform is to clone the world. 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’. It is notable, however, 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. Laruelle calls this a ‘Performed-Without-Performation’ which would be an action of the Real: philosophical language seen as a performed, but without a ‘we’ – or any others – performing (or ‘cloning’) it. It is this notion of the performative, without either active human or philosophical adumbration, which is the topic of this essay.

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