first impression of Garcia

Partway into Forme et objet, my impression of Garcia is that he’s stylistically warm, is a risk-taker, and likes to repeat things multiple times to provide clarity for the reader (this seems to be part of why the book is so long– he gives you plenty of chances to grasp his point). His use of examples is excellent.

I’ll be writing a review article on the whole book, but his basic conception of things seems to be that they are the difference between the in-itself and the relational. I don’t see how this can work; I think it immediately turns into the relational, since any change in my relations will automatically change the difference between my relations and my in-itself, and thus I will no longer be the same thing.

For example, if what I am is the difference between my internal constitution and my being localized in a specific chair in Paris, then what will happen when I get out of the chair and take the train to Chartres? Although my internal constitution will be the same, my localization will be different, and thus the difference between the two will be different, and suddenly I am no longer the same person, simply because I took the train to Chartres. It’s not a compromise at all, but overweighs the relational side of things. (Then again, there are still hundreds of pages to go, so maybe Garcia deals with this.)

But Garcia’s distinction between more-than-things and less-than-things is roughly comparable to my own between undermining and overmining. The sole disparity is that Garcia identifies the in-itself with more-than-things and thus locates things in between the in-itself and the relational, whereas for me the in-itself is what lies between a thing’s components and its relational effects.

It’s pretty hard to put down for a big work of technical philosophy. Quite fascinating.

The first sources cited are…

•Tool-Being
•After Finitude
•DeLanda’s Intensive Science and Virtual Philosophy
•Schelling

But Garcia is generally not a heavy footnoter, especially in the early portions of the book. He’s a virtuoso thoroughly steeped in history of philosophy lore, but also sees things with his own eyes. So far– bravo!