Tristan Garcia: What is something? (6.10.14)

In the occasion of the Philosophy of the Web seminars in Lüneburg, we are happy to announce the intervention of Tristan Garcia, who will talk about something (lundi 6 octobreà 18:00 @ Cent­re for Di­gi­tal Cul­tu­res, Sülz­tor­str. 21–35, 21335 Lüne­burg, 2. Floor). Previous interveners: Alexandre Monnin (FR), Antoine Hennion(FR), Harry Halpin(US), Greg Elmer(CA), Scott Lash(UK), Antoinette Rouvroy(BE)

Abstract: As­su­ming that the con­cept of “so­me­thing” is the wea­k­est pos­si­ble de­ter­mi­na­ti­on of being, Tris­tan Gar­cia will ar­gue that “so­me­thing” is what is in­cep­ted by thin­king when it is ex­cep­ted by thin­king; it is so weak, that even its ne­ga­ti­on turns out to be its af­fir­ma­ti­on.Tris­tan Gar­cia will argue that the ono­lo­gi­cal mo­del he de­fends in his book “Form and Object -A treatise on Things” is a way to think about the wea­k­est pos­si­ble so­me­thing and he will dis­tin­gu­ish it from other con­tem­pora­ry spe­cu­la­ti­ve mo­dels and ob­ject-ori­en­ted on­to­lo­gies.

That on­to­lo­gy is turning up into so­me­thing ever­y­thing that was be­low “so­me­thing­ness” (an at­tri­bu­te, a non-exis­tent thing, a con­tra­dic­to­ry thing), and turning down into so­me­thing ever­y­thing that was bey­ond “so­me­thing­ness” (a sub­stan­ce, a per­son, the sa­cred).

Tris­tan Gar­cia will give a glim­pse in that ra­di­cal on­to­lo­gy, strip­ping all en­t­i­ties of their de­ter­mi­na­ti­ons, in­ten­si­ty or depth, not to pro­du­ce an ef­fect of uni­ver­sal equi­va­lence, but to find an end to the end­less li­be­ral on­to­lo­gy of mo­der­ni­ty, and he will sug­gest to con­sider the on­to­lo­gi­cal flatness as a gau­ge to re­co­ver the sen­se of dif­fe­ren­ces bet­ween ob­jects, ex­ten­si­ve re­la­ti­ons and va­ry­ing in­ten­si­ties.

Born in 1981 in Tou­lou­se, Tristan Garcia (Uni­ver­sité de Pi­car­die-Ju­les Ver­ne) en­t­e­red in 2000 the École Nor­ma­le Supéri­eu­re. Af­ter working with Alain Ba­diou, he was awar­ded his PhD for a the­sis on the sub­ject of “re­pre­sen­ta­ti­on” in hu­man arts, which he had writ­ten un­der the su­per­vi­si­on of San­dra Lau­gier. On the same year, he pu­blis­hed his first no­vel, awar­ded by the Flo­re Pri­ze and trans­la­ted in eng­lish un­der the tit­le: Hate: a romance (Fa­ber & Fa­ber, 2011). Working as a teacher on short-time contract in the Uni­ver­si­ty of Ami­ens, he con­ti­nued his ca­re­er as a no­ve­list (Memories from the Jungle, 2010; In the absence of final ranking, 2011; Browser’s chords, 2012; Faber. The destroyer, 2013) and he con­duc­ted fur­ther re­se­ar­ches in me­ta­phy­sics, lea­ding to the pu­blis­hing of Form and object. A treatise on things. He wro­te cri­ti­cal es­says about ani­mal suf­fe­ring (We, animals and humans, 2011) or TV se­ries (Six Feet Under. Our destinyless lives, 2012). This year, he took a year-long sab­ba­ti­cal, in or­der to work on a es­say about co­mic books and a new book of phi­lo­so­phy.

This event is part of the se­ries Phi­lo­so­phy of the Web, or­ga­ni­zed by Dr. Yuk Hui, CDC.

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