Laruelle: Against the Digital by Alexander R. Galloway - Critical Essay Sample

Introduction

In Laruelle: Against the Digital Alexander R. Galloway examines the projects of the French philosopher Francois Laurelle in a bid to address various elements in the philosopher's work which have been labeled "prophylactic," "autistic," or " oblivious" by other philosophers in the same profession. Galloway explains that although Laruelle does not share anything about the digital, there is a lot of evidence of the theme of digitality on nearly every page of his works. However, the author accepts the fact that Laruelle is still a non-digital thinker. Galloway's book is divided into two parts- the first part explains the philosophical view of digitality and how this view is associated with Laruelle's non-philosophy. The second part explores two crucial elements of digitality, which are capitalism and computers. Galloway (2014) shows that digitality and philosophy have a special relationship and also explores Laruelle non-philosophical views on digitality. He also warns that the digital in this case is more than just talking about computers. The digital is a significant ingredient in politics, ontology, and everything between these two. Galloway's book superimposes Laruelle projects onto digitality, and as a result, he achieves a unilateral stance encompassing both philosophy and digitality, which reveals that Laruelle's axiomatization and non-standard theorization can be implemented in the digital platforms.

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Part 1. Laruelle and the Digital

Different philosophers have different definitions of the one. However, Laruelle explains the one as the real and also adds that when the real is digitized the outcome is philosophy. This is because philosophical systems are developed from multiple combinations of duality and unity, of ones and twos. The one is imminent from being and from philosophy, and it is neither mythological nor transcendental. Therefore, the one is autonomous and should not be evaluated under the microscope of transcendence (alienation, alterity, objectivation, or nothingness). Galloway also explains that the one has no relationship with the standard model but warns that both digitality and philosophy would not be present in the universe if the standard model were not unavailable. He also describes how Laruelle contradicted the a posteriori (field of actuals such as the world, a place, people's thought and bodies) and a priori (field of transcendentals such as scientific truths, identity, time, and space) distinction which Kant explained in his classical approach. Galloway criticizes Laruellean logic regarding the relationship between the properties of the standard model (event, relation, and object) arguing that this logic is not synthetic and combinatory. He warns that the insufficiency of events, relations, and objects poses a threat to philosophy.

Under the topic "the standard model", Galloway explains that Laruelle is not keen on strengthening, supplementing, or extending the philosophy. He abstains from participating in philosophy. However, Laruelle defines two critical elements in philosophy- transcendence, and immanence. He states that transcendence is an element in which taking away or adding causes a shift in its meaning while radical immanence is an element in which adding or taking away does not cause any significant change in its purpose. Galloway also acknowledges other scholars such as Deleuze who have played an enormous role in developing immanence theories in recent times. He explains that Laurelle's philosophical views are autistic and one is likely to make a mistake following them. But he adds that these mistakes are easily forgivable since a lot of Laruelle's views incorporate both materialism and idealism.

According to Galloway, metaphysics in association with dialectics and philosophical systems are the crucial components of the digital. However, there is limited information about the digital in the works of most philosophers. Furthermore, there is a vast difference between analog and digital. Analog refers to the process where two comes together to form the one while digital is the process where the one is divided in two. The author also highlights Lareulle's usage of the immanent identity or the analogical identities. He explains that many thinkers believe that these analogical identities are unhelpful expressions. However, that is not correct since Laruelle has managed to show that identity or tautology equations are not a logical dead-end. Borrowing ideas from Kant's classical approach regarding space and time, Galloway states that the digitality of space is the ultimate digitality.

The author explains that an event is a decision which causes a transformation in the condition of a situation. However, one must clearly understand the ideology of givenness to understand the concept of an event fully. There are two types of events - analog and digital events. Analog events exist primarily because objects are self-similar, this means that analog events are events which inspires union over division and reconciliation over conflicts.

Part 2: Withdrawing from the Standard model

In the second part of this book, Galloway attempts to explain Laruelle's stand on digitality, the future digitality, and the withdrawal of Laruelle from digitality. However, before starting the discussion of Laruelle's withdrawal, the author reviews some of Deleuze's thoughts. Although Laruelle mentions Deleuze in most of his work, it is not clear whether they are friends or not. In the long run, Galloway manages to connect Deleuze's ideology of computers to Laurelle's concept of digitality. He continues to explain that Laruelle is not only a philosopher but also Marxist who used Althusserian Marxist technique (that science need to exist "on" or "in" philosophy). He criticizes Laruelle for supporting old-fashioned ideologies which the so-called staunch Marxists endorsed.

Laruelle's position on art, science, and technology is not clear, because the philosopher downgrades technology and praises science to such a level that this domain equals non-standard philosophy. He explains that philosophy is technology bundled into one while science is the field of theory, axiomatics, and discovery. Therefore, according to Galloway, technology will remain in the dark for now, but the alternations of dark and light will act as a driving force of philosophy. The author also highlights some of Laruelle's thoughts on Turrell's Fine light. Laruelle makes two crucial claims on Turrell's art - about the light and perception. These two factors bring about the theme of identity on Turrell's art. In recent projects Laruelle has categorized non-standard methodology as fiction. Fiction, in this case, refers to construction, artifice, creativity, invention, and performance. Therefore, subjecting philosophy to the non-standard methodology results in fiction philosophy.

Galloway explains Laruelle's ideology of utopia (the practice of declining to engage in philosophical discussions). He argues that Laruelle is a utopian philosopher due to its abstinence from participating in thoughtful decisions. Furthermore, towards the end of his book, this author explains Laruelle's approach to ethics. Laruelle criticizes media-savvy intellectuals usually present in newspaper columns and talk shows arguing that these types of thinkers claim to empathize with the affected, but in the real sense they are dividing the world. He advises these intellectuals to divert into a different world instead of engaging the victims. Galloway also shares Laruelle's views on the generic. He states that the generic is attained by subtracting a lot of definitional predicates which is present in reality. Moreover, the generic is comprised of three factors that is impersonal subjects, physical spaces, and tactics which forms one operation referred to as casting. Laruelle explains that for people to distinguish between illegitimate and legitimate ethical actions, they must first define the act of cheating. This is because there are two factors in the continuum of illegitimacy and legitimacy that is illegitimate digitality (reactionary actions) and legitimate digitality (pro-aggressive actions). These factors provide the basis for making individual decisions. Galloway adds that to determine illegitimacy one must distinguish between forcing and cheating.

Conclusion

The author concludes by heaping a lot of praises on Laruelle, he explains that Laruelle is an influential thinker today not because of his non-philosophical and philosophical views, but because of the non-standard methodology/model which he has spearheaded over the years. This model has inspired other philosophers to understand the broad perception which comprises of both non-digital and digital knowledge.

Bibliography

Bleyen, Mieke. Minor photography: Connecting Deleuze and Guattari to photography theory. Leuven: Leuven Univ. Press, 2012.

Galloway, Alexander. Laruelle: Against the digital. Minneapolis (Minn.): University of Minnesota Press, 2014.

Hulse, B. C., & Nesbitt, N. Sounding the Virtual: Gilles Deleuze and the theory and philosophy of music. London: Routledge, 2016

Kant, Immanuel.. Kant's Prolegomena to any future metaphysics. Memphis, TN: General Books LLC, 2012.

Edlebi, Alyosha. "Front Matter." In Theory of Identities, I-Vi. Columbia University Press, 2016. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7312/laru16894.1.