All Thoughts Are Equal: Laruelle and Nonhuman Philosophy (Volume 34)

by John Ó Maoilearca

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.

Genres: Philosophy

384 pages, Hardcover

First published September 15, 2015

About the author

John Ó Maoilearca is Professor of Film and Television Studies at Kingston University, UK since 2010.
In the past he also taught philosophy and film theory at the University of Sunderland, England (1994-2004) and the University of Dundee, Scotland (2004 to 2010).
In 2014, his name reverted from the English ‘Mullarkey’ to the original Irish, ‘Ó Maoilearca’, which ultimately translates as ‘follower of the animal’. Before 2014 he published as John Mullarkey.

Reviews

[Steen Ledet · Rating 5 out of 5]

Scintillating and transformative read.

[Christopher Willard · Rating 4 out of 5]

I spent a lot of time with this book with a reading group and will highly recommend it to people wanting to gain a richer understanding of the philosophy of Francois Laruelle. O Maoilearca knows his stuff here and you can trust what you read. If you come away with as many questions as provisional answers, then the author has done his job because Laruelle is not about answers, ultimately but about means and passages and bracketing and immanence alongside and a part of the Real. Take your time and enjoy. What I didn't respond to as much as the author was the riffing von Trier and Leth's film Five Obstructions. I never really felt it fit the Laruellian idea and to try to make it so was too much of a stretch for me. But I nitpick, authors are allowed to make their cases as they see fit. I simply would have chosen something else as the toy model. And I totally tuned out on the ending animality stuff that I have little interest in. C'est la vie, with any such book there are a few blips in the road called the pursuit of an idea, and these are forgivable because the main questions and themes are strong and clear. To be clear it is more readable than much of Laruelle for the reader entering into the philosopher's ideas so this book may not be a bad place to start. For more advanced Laruellian readers this is a nice addition to the library of works.

[Kitija · Rating 3 out of 5]

Laruels ir baigais dullinātājs un filosofijas triksteris. 😀 Tikai neredzu, ka viņš teiktu ko jaunu vai diži citu kas jau pateikts.