In 1980, at the end of the most intensely political period of his work and life, Louis Althusser penned Philosophy for Non-philosophers. Available here for the first time in English, Philosophy for Non-philosophers constitutes a rigorous and engaged attempt to address a wide reading public unfamiliar with Althusser's project. As such, the work is a concentration of the most fundamental theses of Althusser's own ideas, and presents a synthesis of his sprawling and disparate philosophical and political writings. Nowhere else does Althusser push the distinction between philosophy and other disciplines as far, or develop in such detail the concept of 'practice'. Rather than a work of 'popular philosophy', Philosophy for Non-philosophers is a continuation and conglomeration of Althusser's thought; a thought whose radicality is still perceptible in those that have followed since. Philosophy for Non-philosophers thus provides a vivid encapsulation of Althusser's seminal influence on the leading thinkers of today, including Ranciere, Badiou, Balibar, and Zizek.

AcknowledgmentsIntroduction by Warren Montag Note on the text by G.M. GoshgarianPhilosophy for Non-Philosophers 1. What Non-philosophers Say2. Philosophy and ReligionThe Big Detour3. Abstraction4. Technical Abstraction and Scientific Abstraction5. Philosophical Abstraction6. The Myth of the State of Nature7. What is Practice?8. The Practice of Production9. Scientific Practice and Idealism10. Scientific Practice and Materialism11. Ideological Practice12. The Ideological State Apparatuses13. Political Practice14. Psychoanalytic Practice15. Artistic Practice 16. Philosophical Practice17. Dominant Ideology and Philosophy18. Philosophy as Theoretical Laboratory19. Ideology and Philosophy20. Philosophy and the Science of Class Struggle21. A New Practice of Philosophy22. The Dialectic: Laws or Theses? Notes Index