The Concept of Non-Photography develops a rigorous new thinking of the photograph in its relation to science, philosophy and art, and introduces the reader to most of the key concepts of Laruelle's 'non-philosophy'. Laruelle explores what the photographic mode of seeing could be, removed from its technological conditions, its aesthetic history, its relation to painting, and all of the theoretical frameworks that have been thrust upon it. The object is not to re-interpret photography philosophically but to move towards a non-photography, an science that would be able to describe photography without displacing its essence through 'philosophical decision'.In the process, we discover that photography has always inhabited philosophy: A certain spontaneous self-understanding of philosophy has taken photography as its model, and has prevented the philosopher from ever truly thinking photography. If photography can only be thought non-philosophically, philosophy, itself, can only be thought non-photographically that is, through a science that does not fall prey to the arche-photography of philosophical self-imaging.Rather than another book on the 'philosophy of photography', The Concept of Non-Photography is therefore a book on the photography of philosophy. Much more than an 'application' of 'non-philosophy', The Concept of Non-Photography provides an invaluable introduction to Laruelle's thought, a growing influence on contemporary philosophy

François Laruelle, Professor Emeritus at the University of Paris X (Nanterre), is the author of more than twenty books, including including Biography of the Ordinary Man, Theory of Strangers, Principles of Non-Philosophy, Future Christ, Struggle and Utopia at the End Times of Philosophy, Anti-Badiou, and Non-Standard Philosophy.

Robin Mackay is a philosopher, Director of the UK arts organization Urbanomic, and Associate Researcher at Goldsmiths University of London.