Theory of Identities by Francois Laruelle [Hardback]

Both critical and constructivist, Theory of Identities finds fault with contemporary philosophy's reductive relation to science and its attachment to notions of singularity, difference, and multiplicity, which extends this crude approach. Laruelle's new theory of science, its objects, and philosophy introduces an original vocabulary to elaborate the concepts of determination, fractality, and artificial philosophy, among other ideas, grounded in an understanding of the renewal of identity. Laruelle's work repairs the rift between philosophical and scientific inquiry and rehabilitates the concept of identity that continental philosophers have widely criticized. His argument positions him clearly against Deleuze, Badiou, the new materialists, and other thinkers who stray too far from empirical approaches that might otherwise revitalize philosophy's practical applications.

François Laruelle is emeritus professor at the University of Paris Ouest, Nanterre La Défense (Paris X), and lectures at the Collège International de Philosophie. He is the author of more than twenty books, including Christo-Fiction: The Ruins of Athens and Jerusalem and Philosophies of Difference: A Critical Introduction to Non-philosophy, and is the director of L'Organisation Non-Philosophique Internationale.