"L'âge de la non-philosophie": Martin Heidegger et François Laruelle

"The Age of Non-Philosophy": Martin Heidegger and François Laruelle

In his lessons at the College of France, Merleau-Ponty noticed that something ended with Hegel and that we perhaps entered in an age of non-philosophy. This poses the question if philosophy is coming to an end or if it can be rebuild from within by retaining its essence. While Merleau-Ponty is trying to restore philosophy from the inside, Heidegger and Laruelle open two different paths of a non-philosophical thinking from the outside. The purpose of the article is to compare these two paths more in detail in order to articulate their differences as to the problems of identity, of the "thing of thought" (Sache des Denkens), of the role of science etc., and to show the radicality of Laruelle's undertaking, which aims not a Verwindung (recollection), nor an Überwindung (overcoming) of philosophy but its appropriation in a new unified theory of thought. One of the main thesis of the Raynova is that Heidegger should not be considered only as a "philosopher of difference" (Laruelle) but also as a thinker of identity as he has expounded four different identity concepts. Hence, it is argued that if Laruelle's critique of the convertibility of Ereignis' identity is legitimate, his critique of Heidegger's amphibology of the One is questionable.