an appendix to yesterday’s remarks on Garcia

It’s 11:30 in Paris and I may only be able to sneak in a few more pages of Garcia’s wonderfully energizing book tonight, because I’ve had other academic duties today– both other philosophy commitments and even some long-distance administrative ones via email.

But I forgot last night to mention the general method of the first half of Garcia’s book. His goal is to focus on the thing as “n’importe quoi,” which I suppose we can call “whatever” (since “no matter what” obviously has a different meaning in English). [ADDENDUM”: Actually, I’d probably go with “no matter what it is,” which is longer than “whatever,” but lacks the snotty overtones that that word has acquired in informal English]

He wants to focus on the thing plain and simple, not qualified by any other properties– not even identity, non-contradiction, and so forth. This takes up the first part of the book up through page 160 or so.

The second part of the book looks like a rather lush attempt to discuss a wide range of concrete types of things.

There’s a nice detailed discussion in the first part about why contradictory things would not be broad enough to count as the thing “n’importe quoi.” He does this not just with square circles and non-white whites, but also with unspeakable taboos and the unspeakable scared. It’s nicely done. He writes so well.

I’d love to read another 50 or 60 pages of it tonight, but am going to have to check out.