The Real is Radical

Marx after Laruelle

Jonathan Fardy

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781350168091
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Political Philosophy

The Real is Radical is centrally concerned with the explication and development of François Laruelle's theory of "non-standard Marxism." Fardy assembles a constellation of concepts designed to put Laruelle's work into dialogue with diverse theoretical perspectives, including Althusser, Tronti, Adorno, Baudrillard, Kolozova and others while demonstrating the novelty and theoretical saliency of Laruelle's work. The Real is Radical provides a much-needed introduction to non-standard Marxism and a useful starting point for the development of its theoretical potential.

1

Introduction

This book is centrally concerned with explicating and developing François Laruelle’s “non-standard” approach to Marx and Marxism or what he calls “non-Marxism.” Laruelle’s non-Marxist project dovetails with his larger intellectual project of “non-standard philosophy” or “non-philosophy.”¹ In this introductory chapter, I cover the basics of non-philosophy, clarify my method, and provide a brief outline of the chapters to follow.

Basics of Non-Philosophy

It is an irony of history that one of the most theoretically sophisticated and inventive ripostes to the Marxist tradition is so often confused with its negation. Non-Marxism is Laruelle’s non-philosophical political project. Non-philosophy is a way of doing philosophy that refuses to decide on what Laruelle simply calls the “Real.” Laruelle identifies this decision on the Real—what Laruelle calls “Philosophical Decision”—as the invariant gesture of “standard philosophy.” Let me clarify these notions as they are central to what follows.

Laruelle holds that standard philosophy is fundamentally structured by what he calls Philosophical Decision on the Real. This gesture of decision has taken a host of forms. These include, for example, Plato’s “Forms,” Descartes’s “cogito,” Kant’s “noumena,” Hegel’s “absolute,” Schopenhauer’s “will,” Heidegger’s “Being,” Derrida’s “différance,” Deleuze and Guattari’s “plane of immanence,” and many more. Such philosophical decisions order a set of concepts and determine the structure of a philosophical program. Laruelle rejects the decisionist imperative of standard philosophy. For Laruelle, the Real cannot be decided by thought for the Real is precisely what determines the possibility of thought itself. The Real is the radical immanence of which thought is a part. But there is no vantage in the Real by which thought could enter into a relation of exchange or equivalence with the Real. Thought is in but never on the Real. Non-philosophy opposes Philosophical Decision on the grounds that it is a mere pretension that any philosophy has sufficient resources or the requisite perspective to capture the Real in concepts. This pretension of standard philosophy—what Laruelle calls the “Principle of Standard Philosophy”—stymies standard philosophy’s capacity for self-criticism. “The other side of this pretension,” notes Laruelle, “is the impossibility of philosophy being a rigorous thinking of itself.”² Standard philosophy claims to decide on what is decisive for its existence and thus cannot think its own finitude. The Real is decisive for thought—philosophical and non-philosophical—but only, as Laruelle consistently reminds us, “in-the-last-instance.” This concept of “the-last-instance” is cloned from the work of Louis Althusser, who himself took it from Friedrich Engels. The latter famously noted that he and Marx only ever held that the economy was decisive for historical and political change in the last instance. Althusser theoretically radicalized this claim via his concept of “overdetermination,” which names for Althusser a basic fact of historical change, namely, that every change is determined by a multiplicity of factors such that it is irresponsible, if not impossible, to credit any one factor as determinant. Althusser extends the critique of “economism” inaugurated by Engels and Marx, but adds the caveat that even the “last instance” of the economy “never comes.”³

Laruelle in turn radicalizes Althusser’s concept of overdetermination and applies it to the Real. It is the Real for Laruelle that is determinant but only in the last instance, but this last instance is never (and never can be) an instance for Philosophical Decision. What appears as such from the standpoint of Philosophical Decision is the chimera of philosophy. Now, it is important here to add that non-philosophy’s insistence that the Real cannot be decided except by philosophical self-delusion does not mean that there is no Real or no reality. Quite the opposite is the case. Non-philosophy axiomatically posits the Real as foreclosed to philosophical reason. Yet at the same time the Real is axiomatically held to be determinant in the last instance. The Real then is determinant but does not “relate” to philosophy. Laruelle terms this non-relationality of the Real “unilateral duality.” The Real is axiomatically nominated as “One-in-One” and held to be determinative for the possibility of philosophy—and even its pseudo-decisionist dynamic—but it is not a “oneness” that philosophical material relates to because it is part of the Real in the last instance, even though this “last instance” never arrives as a subject for philosophical reason. Laruelle writes:

Non-philosophy, precisely in reducing the Real to its solitude of One-in-One, without logical determination … opens up the possibility of the manifestation of a non(-One), of an empirical there is which is now that of philosophy itself, of the World, Being, Logic, etc. In effect, if the One is absolutely indifferent, it no longer negates and can leave thought (as organon rather than ready-made or fetishized thought) to validate this resistance within certain limits or give it its “true” object … [which] needs this resistance in order to constitute the order of non-philosophy and its statements.⁴

Non-philosophy doesn’t just leave the Real to itself. It axiomatically holds that the Real is whether or not philosophy decides its nature or decides to leave it alone. This axiomatization of the Real’s “solitude”—written as “One-in-One”—releases standard philosophy qua “non (-One)” (written as such to denote its pseudo-break with the Real) from its relationality to the Real by axiomatically affirming its material determination by the Real. The Real is indifferent and thus it does not “negate” thought. Standard philosophical thought is defetishized precisely insofar as its fetishized exchange-claim on the Real is formally voided. Philosophy ceases to be a fetishized decisionist dynamic and is instead reorganized as an “organon”—literally an “instrument” or “means” for thought—rather than standard philosophy’s reified self-projection of legitimate thought itself. Philosophy qua “organon” becomes an instrument that self-validates no longer its exchange-claim on the Real. Rather, philosophy’s self-generated (if denied) resistance or friction between concept and Real becomes, from the standpoint of non-philosophy, philosophy’s “true object.” The “resistance” or friction between concept and Real is no longer treated as a problem to be overcome but is rather non-philosophy’s point of departure: this resistance “constitutes the order of non-philosophy and its statements.” I take this “resistance” to be formally a non-capitalist practice of thought insofar as it validates the resistance and thus non-equivalence and non-exchangeability between philosophical reason and the Real.

The axiom of unilateral duality conditions the non-philosophical possibility of rendering standard philosophical materials as raw materials precisely by rewriting them not as signs referring to the Real, but rather, as Rocco Gangle notes, in such a way that “conceptual material becomes an algebraic sign available for purely formal operations.”⁵ This non-philosophical formalism is entirely different from standard philosophical formalism precisely because it is syntactically formatted to formally break the delusional law of thought-for-the-Real immanent to philosophical reason. But—and this is key—the “algebraic” form of non-philosophy is not an empty formalism precisely because in its unilaterality it “clones” (Laruelle’s term) the actual relation of non-relationality to the Real. Insofar as “philosophical terms are converted essentially into variables,” writes Gangle, “for possible substitutions that are purely operational and equational in nature,” then non-philosophical algebraic syntax remains formally subordinate to the determinant non-substitutability of the algebraic sign of the Real. Non-philosophy enables philosophical concepts to become material precisely because its formalist procedure treats them as whatever material. All philosophical material is “equal” according to non-philosophical formalism by reason of its non-equivalence and non-exchangeability for the Real. But this formalism and formal equality does not treat all material as equal in its own right. Non-philosophy recognizes important differences between philosophical materials but it recognizes no difference in terms of their relation to the Real. Gangle explains this very well in the simplest algebraic terms: Let Real be designated as “X” and let philosophy be designated as “Y.” “X” determines the possibility of “Y” in a unilateral manner. But “X” is not in a bidirectional “relation” with “Y.” The algebraic relation is not bivalent. “X” is a function of “Y.” But “Y” is not a function of “X.” “X” is determined by “Y” but “X” does not determine “Y.” Hence, non-philosophy proceeds axiomatically by “positing the One as the radically immanent Real.”⁶ But this “One” is not that of monism, onto-theology, or any other philosophical concept of unity. The oneness of the Real cannot be thought otherwise than axiomatically because our inherited logics and languages are deeply dualistic. Non-philosophy works with this dualistic inheritance but voids it of its ontological pretensions. The “style of philosophy,” notes Laruelle, demands that we “treat everything through a duality (of problems) that does not form a Two as a set, and through an identity (of problems, and thus solutions) that does not form a Unity or synthesis.”⁷ Non-philosophy “is presented as an immanent thought,” notes John O’Maoilearca, “precisely because it does not try to think the Real but only alongside or ‘according to’ it.”⁸

Non-Marxism extends the non-philosophical project in a Marxian political direction. It is firstly a critique of the imbrication of philosophy and capital. Both systems function by trading signs for the Real. Philosophy and capitalism function according to the intertwined logics of equivalence and exchange. Capitalism axiomatically assumes that things can always be exchanged for their equivalent in value. Philosophy likewise axiomatically assumes that the Real can be exchanged for its equivalence in concepts. Laruelle terms the shared logic of capitalism and philosophy “supercapitalism.” “Supercapitalism is the philosophy-form” that defines the “global functioning of societies.”⁹ Non-Marxism treats the Marxist philosophical tradition as conceptual raw materials for thinking against the standard philosophical logic of exchange and equivalence through a theoretical resistance to supercapitalist logic.

Marxism has historically been treated as a philosophical problem in part because the multiplicity of its postures is a problem for philosophers who want to find in Marxism (or force upon it) a singular and unified philosophical identity. “The multiplicity of the ‘sources’ of Marxism, and first of Marx’s thought itself,” writes Laruelle, presents itself to philosophers as a “seemingly ‘baroque’ character … which philosophers hesitate before.”¹⁰ Philosophical responses to Marx’s work and to the Marxist tradition have frequently taken the form of rescue operations and cleanup jobs. Philosophers interpret Marx and Marxism “as a deficient organization,” writes Laruelle, “to be reorganized on the basis of some new or old ontological postulates imported into the [Marxist] edifice.”¹¹ This approach can never make good on its promises. It merely has the effect of fragmenting the Marxist edifice in a new way. It only “produces a possible multiplicity of Marxisms,” concludes Laruelle, “within the tradition.”¹²

The fragmentation of the Marxist edifice is a problem for some philosophers and for others it is an instance of postmodern eclecticism to be celebrated and politically validated. For Laruelle, both perspectives are confused. Neither sees the unified theory that exists in and through the multiplicity of Marxisms. This is no less true of Marx’s own texts and interventions. Consider that Marx produced philosophical, economic, polemical, and journalistic texts. Some philosophers will hunt for the red thread that links these. And others will celebrate the differences. Laruelle proposes another reading. Marx’s work (and the Marxist tradition) is an instance of thought that is one and many. To reduce it to a singular ontology or else ontologize it as a plurality is “from our [non-Marxist] point of view … entirely philosophical.”¹³ The quest to find or found the philosophy of Marx is rejected. Laruelle instead reads the pluralism of Marx’s work as symptomatic of a singular refusal to reduce the Real to a single Philosophical Decision.

Non-Marxism takes as its point of departure the supposed “failure” of Marxism. The political “failures” of twentieth-century state socialism have led many thinkers to either abandon Marxist theory or to attempt to re-philosophize it in a way that appears more promising. Laruelle rejects both positions. Instead, he advocates for “taking Marxism out of the most philosophical premises and define it by its kernel which is irreducible, and foreign to philosophy?”¹⁴ But this paradoxically requires doing philosophy, albeit in non-standard ways. This practice Laruelle traces back to Marx himself. “The wager hazarded here,” writes Laruelle, “is this: the use of philosophy by Marxism … is already a ‘nonphilosophical’ practice of philosophy, even if this practice is formulated … with philosophical means.”¹⁵ The aim then is to render explicit and intensify Marx’s non-philosophical logic in order to “philosophically impoverish Marxism through a voluntary pauperization.”¹⁶

Non-Marxism aims to philosophically impoverish Marxism. But this impoverishment works through philosophy in a non-standard way. Here the concept of “introduction” is decisive. Laruelle’s Introduction to Non-Marxism is (as its title plainly tells us) an “introduction” to non-Marxism. It is a rich conceptual resource. But it is clearly impoverished in one respect: it studiously avoids any claim to know or decide the Real, nor does it singularize the meaning of the Marxian corpus, nor finally does it essentialize it as a non-singular plurality. To impoverish Marxism means voiding its material of any epistemic pretensions concerning the Real. But that does not mean voiding it of theoretical and philosophical materials that serve the aim of liberating it from its standard philosophical limits and trappings. Non-Marxism is no more a vulgar anti-intellectualism than is non-philosophy in general. To liberate Marxism from standard philosophy is a complex theoretical problem.

Constellation as Method

The method I employ in this book is that of “constellation.” A brief review of this concept is in order before turning to a brief overview of the chapters to follow. In Negative Dialectics, Theodor Adorno develops Walter Benjamin’s concept of “constellation,” which the latter first articulated in The Origin of German Tragic Drama. Benjamin there analogizes the relation of concepts to objects as that of stars to constellations. “Ideas are to objects as constellations are to stars.”¹⁷ Benjamin argues for a neo-Kantian distinction between idea and concept. Adorno transforms Benjamin’s raw material into a non-Kantian thesis concerning the “disenchantment of the concept.”¹⁸ Adorno reformulates Benjamin’s analogy: constellations are to stars as concepts are to objects; they are radically distinct. Objects of reality can never be adequately encompassed by concepts. “In fact no philosophy, not even extreme empiricism,” writes Adorno,...