Abstract
Acknowledging the long history of interest in the relationship between performance and philosophy, Cull’s introductory chapter nevertheless argues that Performance Philosophy is a new interdisciplinary field in its own right, not just a ‘turn’ within Theatre and Performance Studies. The chapter then argues against the idea that ‘performance’ and ‘philosophy’ are fundamentally distinct, and in favour of the concept of ‘performance as philosophy.’ Cull provides a critique of the tendency to merely apply extant philosophy to performance but also acknowledges the real difficulty of escaping the illustrative mode, suggesting that to do so requires a radical expansion or mutation of the concept of philosophy – as called for by the French theorist François Laruelle in his evocation of ‘non-standard philosophy.’