Zagreb semi-wrap-up

It’s only a semi-wrap-up because I’m staying in the city for a few extra days. But the PUF event is now over. The occasion was the 90th anniversary of Presses universitaires de France. They wanted to hold some commemorative events outside as well as inside France, and one of them was hosted in Zagreb.

On Friday evening Patrice Maniglier spoke about metaphysical method. The upshot: he prefers Badiou and Deleuze’s methods, which he says are based on “encounters,” to the methods of me, Meillassoux, and Garcia, which he says are based on a systematic ambition to describe the world as a whole. I didn’t find the distinction convincing, and am not even sure I understood it. But the talk was nicely delivered, and Maniglier generally has a nice way of expressing skepticism without being a jerk about it, which is a rare skill.

After a short break, I spoke about Garcia’s Forme et objet. (Since it was a PUF event, I thought I should speak about one of the PUF books.) The book is extremely rich, and I still don’t think I’ve managed to view it from every angle.

Yesterday evening, Ian Bogost appeared via Skype from the U.S. (and that must have been the best Skype video connection I’ve ever experienced). Ian seemed to be thinking along the same lines, that it would be good to speak about a PUF book, since he spoke about L’Objet quadruple. It was a very thorough interpretation, presented with just the sort of on-screen support graphics that one would expect from Bogost.

Then there was a concluding discussion that Petar Milat moderated very effectively. There must have been 6 or 7 questions, answered in each case by all three of us.

MaMa in Zagreb puts on good events. And such is the infrastructure, the funding support, and the quality of people here, that it can safely be expected that Zagreb will be hosting some of the more important philosophy events over the next decade.