°Alea
a·le·a·to·ry (ā’lē-A-tôr’ē, -tōr’ē) adj : Dependent on chance, luck, or an uncertain outcome. [Also: Of or characterized by gambling: aleatory contests; also a·le·a·to·ric (ā’lē- -tôr’ĭk, -tōr’-) Music. Using or consisting of sounds to be chosen by the performer or left to chance; indeterminate: An object placed inside the piano added an aleatory element to the piece.]
In short, ‘aleatory materialism’ was Althusser’s way of talking about a non-teleological materialism. Some writings on Althusser’s concept of aleatory materialism available online, to be added to:
Edition of Multitudes - Le matérialisme aléatoire et le ‘dernier Althusser’ - with an English-language summary at Eurozine
John Grant, “Rethinking Althusser” (pdf)
Augusto Illuminati, “Recent Italian translations of Althusserian texts on aleatory materialism” From the forthcoming Borderlands edition on Althusser.
Note: This post is related to the draft essay below, which includes an insistence on the distinction between a monetary, calculable fortune and the embrace of a politics without ground, as risk. Of course, some of this turns on the question of ground conceived as land (and the appropriation of land, landed property), hence the other related posts: one on Althusser’s discussion of fortune and Machiavelli, and another on Paolo Virno and the ‘frontier’.
