Form and Object

Tristan Garcia is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Lyon and an award-winning novelist. He is the author of La vie intense: Une obsession moderne, translated into English as The Life Intense: A Modern Obsession (Edinburgh University Press, 2018) and Forme et objet. Un traité des choses (PUF, 2011), translated into English as Form and Object: A Treatise on Things (Edinburgh University Press, 2014). His other philosophical works include L’Image and Nous. His fictional works include Les cordelettes de Browser, En l’absence de classement final and Mémoires de la jungle. In 2008, he received the Prix de Flore for La meilleure part des hommes, translated into English as Hate: A Romance. Mark Allan Ohm is a graduate research assistant in the Department of French Studies and the Department of Philosophy & Religious Studies at Louisiana State University. He is lead editor of the English translation project of the Atelier de métaphysique et d’ontologie contemporaines at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris. Jon Cogburn is Professor of Philosophy at Louisiana State University. He is co-translator of The Life Intense: A Modern Obsession. Together with Mark Ohm, he is the co-translator of Tristan Garcia’s Form and Object, and is the author of Garcian Meditations: The Dialectics of Persistence in Form and Object (Edinburgh University Press, 2017).

• Acknowledgements; Translators’ Introduction; List of Figures; Introduction; Book I: Formally; Part I: Thing; I. No-matter-what; To matter; That no-matter-what became something; Thing; II. Less than a thing, more than a Thing; Substance; The vacuity of distinguishing material things from non-material things; Nothing; III. Something; Solitude; IV. Nothing is in itself; Self; V. Compactness; Impossible; VI. Something-other-than-a-thing; Going outside the world is a way of entering inside it; Part II: Thing and World; World; I. Something-other-than-a-thing: the world; II. Where is a thing? In the world; Without me; III. Where is the world?; Exception; What a big thing is; Many worlds; IV. Something-other-than-a-thing: all; Many; V. The accumulation of objects; One, several, whole, equal; Equal; Part III: Being and Comprehending; I. Being is being comprehended; Being is secondary; In; Between; II. That which is a thing, that which a thing is; On meaning; III. The two senses; Tragedy; On interests; Primary; IV. In things: matter; On the composition of a thing; Limit; Hand prints; V. Outside things: form; Forms; Book II: Objectively; Chapter I: Universe; Chapter II: Objects and Events; Chapter III: Time; Chapter IV: Living Things; Chapter V: Animals; Chapter VI: Humans; Chapter VII: Representations; Chapter VIII: Arts and Rules; Chapter IX: Culture; Chapter X: History; Chapter XI: Economy of Objects; Chapter XII: Values; Chapter XIII: Classes; Chapter XIV: Genders; Chapter XV: Ages of Life; Chapter XVI: Death; Coda: Formally, objectively; The Chance and the Price; Works Cited; Index.

One has to appreciate [Tristan Garcia's] novelty and courage.