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All Thoughts Are Equal
Laruelle and Nonhuman Philosophy
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Book Presentation:
All Thoughts Are Equal is both an introduction to the work of French philosopher François 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 Ó 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.
About the Author:
John Ó 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 Reality and coeditor of Laruelle and Non-Philosophy.
Press Reviews:
"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
See the publisher website: University of Minnesota Press
> From the same author:
Bergson and the Art of Immanence (2013)
Painting, Photography, Film
Dir. John Ó Maoilearca and Charlotte de Mille
Subject: Theory
> On a related topic:
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The Philosophy of Documentary Film (2016)
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