Yes, Francois Laruelle engages critically with poststructuralism, including figures like Deleuze, Derrida, and Lacan, but he ultimately seeks to move beyond them. His critique of poststructuralist thought is grounded in his broader project of non-philosophy, which challenges what he sees as philosophy’s self-authorizing structure.
1. Laruelle and Deleuze: The Limits of Difference & Multiplicity
Deleuze is a major reference point for Laruelle, but he critiques him for remaining within philosophy’s auto-legitimizing framework.
Deleuze’s emphasis on difference, becoming, and multiplicity (in Difference and Repetition and A Thousand Plateaus) is seen as still working within the philosophical decision - meaning that it still subordinates thought to a concept of reality rather than reality itself.
Laruelle sees Deleuze’s “plane of immanence” as another philosophical construct - still organizing thought according to philosophy’s authority over the Real.
In contrast, non-philosophy does not construct a “plane” but thinks from the Real itself, without the mediation of philosophical structures.
Key Difference:
Deleuze: Reality is structured by differential relations and intensities.
Laruelle: Any structuring of reality is already a philosophical decision that we should suspend.
2. Laruelle and Derrida: Deconstruction vs. Suspension
Laruelle is influenced by Derrida’s deconstruction, especially its critique of metaphysical binaries and logocentrism.
However, he argues that deconstruction is still a form of philosophy - it still operates within language, textuality, and differance, which means it remains dependent on the philosophical decision it critiques.
Derrida critiques metaphysics from within, while Laruelle wants to suspend philosophy entirely as an object of study, rather than a mode of authority.
Key Difference:
Derrida: Philosophy is always caught in language and differance.
Laruelle: Even this linguistic critique is still philosophy speaking about itself, not a break from philosophy’s authority.
3. Laruelle and Lacan: The Real Beyond the Symbolic?
Lacan’s concept of the Real (as distinct from the Symbolic and Imaginary) is close to Laruelle’s notion of the Real.
However, Lacan still operates within a psychoanalytic structure, where the Real is always mediated by the Symbolic (i.e., language, meaning, lack).
Laruelle critiques Lacan for keeping the Real in a secondary, inaccessible position, whereas in non-philosophy, the Real is first - it is what we think from, not what we try to approach through concepts.
Key Difference:
Lacan: The Real is unknowable, appearing only as a traumatic rupture in the Symbolic.
Laruelle: The Real is radically present and does not require Symbolic mediation to be thought.
4. Summary: Why Laruelle Goes Beyond Poststructuralism
While Deleuze, Derrida, and Lacan challenge metaphysical foundations, they still operate within philosophy’s authority to define reality, language, and thought.
Laruelle’s non-philosophy is not a critique from within philosophy (as Derrida does) but a radical suspension of philosophy’s decision-making power over thought.
He does not try to offer a “better philosophy” (as Deleuze does) but instead treats philosophy as one object among many (like art, science, or religion), rather than the master discipline.
辶 Key Move: Laruelle wants to shift from interpreting the world philosophically to thinking from the Real without philosophical mediation - a step he believes poststructuralism never fully takes.
