All Thoughts Are Equal: Laruelle and Nonhuman Philosophy(Posthumanities)

All Thoughts Are Equal is both an introduction to the work of French philosopher Francois Laruelle and an exercise in nonhuman thinking. For Laruelle, standard forms of philosophy continue to dominate our models of what counts as exemplary thought and knowledge. By contrast, what Laruelle calls his "non-standard" approach attempts to bring democracy into thought, because all forms of thinking-including the nonhuman-are equal. John Maoilearca examines how philosophy might appear when viewed with non-philosophical and nonhuman eyes. He does so by refusing to explain Laruelle through orthodox philosophy, opting instead to follow the structure of a film (Lars von Trier's documentary The Five Obstructions) as an example of the non-standard method. Von Trier's film is a meditation on the creative limits set by film, both technologically and aesthetically, and how these limits can push our experience of film-and of ourselves-beyond what is normally deemed "the perfect human." All Thoughts Are Equal adopts film's constraints in its own experiment by showing how Laruelle's radically new style of philosophy is best presented through our most nonhuman form of thought-that found in cinema.

Table of Contents:
Contents Introduction: Laruelle and the Nonhuman in Five Remakes The Authority and Victimization of Philosophy ‘It is Necessary to Abandon the Philosophical Usage of Thought’: From Position to Representation Performative Inconsistency Material Thinking The Structure of Decision and Postural Mutation Hypotheses of Real Science Anthropomorphism and Extended Thinking A Film of Philosophy: The Five Obstructions The Horror of the Nonhuman Outline of a Structure, with Tangents 1. Philosophy, the Path of Most Resistance The Black Box of Philosophy Philosophy’s Dystopias: The Victims of Thought A Non-Philosophical Tangent: The Most Miserable Place in the World Tu Quoque or, You Too Are One of Us Deleuze and Badiou: Two Perfect Philosophers The New Realism Laruelle is No Kant: From Determination-in-the-Last-Instance to the Mutational Transcendental Residual Objects and Invisible Victims: The Philosophical Essence of Cinnabar 2. Paraconsistent Fictions and Discontinuous Logic Logic, Optics, Cuts Performative Realism: On Derrida A Photographic Tangent: Thinking, Fast and Slow (The 12 Frames Obstruction) Logical Contradiction and Real Identity: Inside Meinong’s Jungle From Contradiction to Paraconsistency: Trivial Explosions The Cinema of Discontinuous Thought: A Non-Hegelian Movie Mise-en-fiction Philosophical Boxes and Impossible Boxes 3. How to Act Like a Non-Philosopher Remaking the One Five Takes on Decision A Behavioral Tangent: Being True to the Idea (A Film du Look) Posture, Photography, and the Game of Positions Radical Behavior Three Distances: Withdrawal, Hallucination, Orientation Miming Philosophy: A Game of Postures Crux Scenica: Philosophy’s First Position (Versus the Human Posture) 4. The Perfect Nonhuman: Philosomorphism and the Animal Rendering of Thought Every Anti-Communist is a Dog: Indefining the Human Individuals, Strangers, Posthumans An Idiotic Tangent: Animal Obstruction (The Stupidity of Animation) Protecting the Human Pet Theories: On Philosomorphism Radical Equality Politicized Animals: From the Man-in-Person to the Animal-in-Person Cinematic Animals: The Horror for Nonhumans Transcendental Idiocy, Or, the Insufficient Animal Democracy of Vision From Cosmological Perspectivism to Radical Anthropomorphism Towards an Animal Philosophy: From Sloterdijk to Flusser 5. Performing the Imperfect Human A Performance Philosophy A Performative Tangent: This is How the Perfect Human Falls (The Radically Passive Obstruction) The Spectra of Performance: From Nonart to Not-Acting The Specter of Performance Hopeful Monsters: Evaluating Performance Thinking Personally:Non-Philosophia ad Hominos Reflection as Mutation: Unconditional Reflexes (A Final Tangent) Conclusion. Making a Monster of Laruelle: On Actualism and Anthropomorphism Coda. Paradise Now, Or, The Brightest Thing in the World: On Nonhuman Utopia Acknowledgments Notes Bibliography Index

About the Author :
John Maoilearca is professor of film studies at Kingston University, London. He is author of Post-Continental Philosophy: An Outline and Philosophy and the Moving Image: Refractions of Realityand coeditor of Laruelle and Non-Philosophy.

Review :
"All Thoughts Are Equal is an original act and development of non-philosophical thinking. John Ó Maoilearca gives us a virtuoso tour of Laruellian thought and offers a highly original and significant mutation of non-philosophy in his own right."-Ian James, University of Cambridge "All Thoughts Are Equal is an important and splendid elaboration of the non-philosophy of Francois Laruelle, and one that will no doubt be indispensable."-Film-Philosophy