Tristan Garcia

Last Saturday there was a debate at OT301 in Amsterdam between the French philosopher Tristan Garcia and the American philosopher Graham Harman. A transcript will be produced, as Harman mentions on his blog. It was something. Many people, ’70 type of underground scene, darkened room and a few spotlights. As if Foucault was visiting us. Garcia’s performance fascinated me. And I’m not really sure why. He might have new profound thoughts about ontology. I will surely check his work. Of course I should elaborate a bit more on why he made me curious enough to further explore his philosophical thinking. And indeed, I could try to reflect on some of his moving statements, such as “Anything is something, no matter what”, “Anything is something, no less, no more”, “The thing is never in-itself, but outside of itself” and “To be is not to comprise, and to comprise is not to be”. But I can’t really. Garcia was quite hard to grasp, occasionally he even seemed unintelligible. Nevertheless I did sense that he is on to something. I saw it, in his way of speaking. I saw it in his eyes. He writes novels as well I was told afterwards. Literature and ontology. Like Sartre, a young Sartre.