Degrowth of philosophy

Today I had the opportunity to listen to the talk by one Italian professor of philosophy who was talking about philosophy, ecology and ethics, mostly basing his talk on the book by Felix Guattari, Three Ecologies. I haven't read Guattari's book yet but from the account of the speaker, one would assume that it still preserves the authoritarian position of philosophy over ecology and people. At one point in the talk, he even said that we need philosophy to tell us (people) how to act, to restore our relationship with nature and some similar idealist cliches.

But why shouldn't philosophy act upon itself (and suspend its master position) in the same way that other disciplines (including sciences) should do in regard to the ecological crisis? But no, philosophers always think that they are somehow excluded from the problem.  

That is why I sympathize with Laruelle who is advocating for degrowth of philosophy (I still have to read his proposal for generic ecology to get a better understanding). Although he is deeply aware that what (non-)philosophers can produce is yet another form of fiction (eco-fiction), it is probably the best philosophers can do, instead of pretending as they usually do. 

Just a little information that I will be giving a talk on Laruelle's non-ethics on Friday (via Zoom) at the (virtual) student conference "Ethics: its theory and applications from antiquity to postmodernity".

Programme of the Conference can be found here.
To apply for the passive participation in the Conference go here.

More conceptual art

Untitled, 2020.
(empty blog post) 

Thought of the day

Sometimes I ask myself why does this cat of mine have the happiest life of us all but then immidiately I realize - and that is the type of consciousness, I believe, we share with all sentient beings - that the only (safe) way to live the happiest life possible is to oversleep it, because every engagement with life, every attempt to live (because to live means to try to affirm existence of one's being to the fullest) brings with itself pain, loss and suffering (mental and physical) which threaten to overwhelm us once and for all.

What are speculative and non-standard philosophy: very brief introduction

Since this blog bears the name "speculative thought", I realized that it would be good to finally elaborate a little bit on it, just for the sake of clarity. Since I recently started to compose a text about speculative and non-standard philosophy, I decided to share an excerpt from that text (work-in-progress) here.

"First of all, let us start by saying that both types of philosophy can be traced in the work of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari. Though François Laruelle, the originator of non-philosophy and non-standard philosophy, criticized Deleuze and Guattari insisting that his non-philosophy should not be conflated with their pop philosophy (or whatever we want to call it), it is safe to say that the former duo did a huge step not only in enforcing speculative thinking back into continental philosophy (Deleuze did that already in Difference And Repetition and The Logic of Sense) but in pushing philosophy towards non-standard practice of philosophy. So how are we to recognize this non-standard philosophy, at least as Deleuze saw it. The answer lies precisely in Deleuze and Guattari’s definition of philosophy as production of concepts. So the first important notice is that of creation (production) and the second is that of the effect because for Deleuze and Guattari it is not so much the question of whether the concept somehow touches the truth or not but what it does. In that regard, it can be said that Laruelle’s project further elaborates on this conviction by constructing highly abstract and rigorous philosophical apparatus. As Ray Brassier points at the end of his essay on Laruelle’s »axiomatic heresy«: “In non-philosophy, radical axiomatic abstraction gives rise, not to a system[1] or doctrine inviting assent or dissent, but to an immanent methodology whose function for philosophy no one is in a position to evaluate as yet” (Brassier 2003: 34). Isn’t this precisely what Deleuze and Guattari wanted to do – construct (theoretical) machines for their future effectuation?

Let us now briefly turn to the term speculative philosophy. As we have already said, among French poststructuralists Deleuze is primarily the one (although Jean-François Lyotard also deserves to be mentioned) to be credited for the renewal of speculative thought (speculation) in philosophy. During the nineties in England, right at the time of Deleuze’s death, occurred an explosive emergence of speculative thought, especially in convergence with the border genre of theoretical fiction, in the writings of the members of the so-called CCRU (Cybernetic Culture Research Unit) such as Nick Land, Mark Fisher and Reza Negarestani[2]. By the early 21^st century speculative thought became incorporated into ambitious philosophical projects of speculative realist philosophers like Quentin Meillassoux and Ray Brassier who want to reclaim philosophical access to the reality independent of human thought. In their work speculative thought becomes the kernel of philosophy which in the combination with scientific knowledge enables the approach to the absolute."

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[1] Whether or not did Laruelle during his philosophical journey lasting almost half a century indeed construct a system is a complex question. However, even if we describe Laruelle’s non-philosophy as a system of thought, we must differentiate it from classical philosophical systems of his contemporaries like Badiou and Žižek. In one interview Laruelle for example said that he constructs a system, but that it is made up of collisions. See: “Laruelle: Concept Collider”, https://fragilekeys.com/2017/12/10/laruelle-concept-collider/.

[2] Actually, Reza Negarestani has never been a member of the CCRU for the plain reason that he lived and worked in Iran but he was a close associate and regularly contributed to the writings of the CCRU group.