The Late Althusser: Materialism of the Encounter or Philosophy of Nothing?

Abstract

The ‘late Althusser,’ above all the posthumously published ‘Underground Current of the Materialism of the Encounter,’ is often regarded as a ‘break’ with his earlier work. The late works are read as a rejection of the ‘determinism’ supposedly characteristic of such texts as For Marx and Reading Capital. This essay seeks to show in contrast that a ‘materialism of the encounter’ is at work in the early texts, and that what is new in the late works is a return to a philosophy of origins, of an originary void as the guarantee that all that exists will pass away. There is thus a Messianism which remains the unthought residue of the late Althusser and which calls for analysis.