Tristan Garcia

Nathan Brown criticized Form and Object for maintaining a division between objects and their conditions; for Brown, Garcia claims to solve the problems of our conditions of knowledge by fiat: Garcia simply resolves "to treat objects and things objectively while treating conditions of objectivity as secondary." Contrary to Garcia, following Alfred North Whitehead and Ray Brassier, Brown maintains that these two problems can never be separated: "Speculative philosophy sets out from and returns to the crossroads of metaphysics and epistemology; it has to travel both roads at once." Nonetheless, Brown argues that Garcia's work still deserves examination and attention. He claims that while Book I remains "conceptually fascinating," Book II becomes more problematic. Brown adds that, overall, "Form and Object would be a more persuasive treatise if it included only Book I, reserving the topics in Book II for treatment elsewhere, in greater detail and with greater precision." Ultimately, Brown concludes that "the originality and energy of Form and Object, and the lovely openness of the book’s tone, make the differential, relational ontology it elaborates conceptually and affectively enticing."

Garcia's first novel, La meilleure part des hommes (2008), won France’s Prix de Flore. It was translated into English in 2010 with the title Hate: A Romance. The novel follows four lives from the rise of the Marais gay scene through Sarkozy's presidency, and it depicts the impact of HIV/AIDS in Paris. Garcia has said that he deliberately wrote a novel about events he did not experience in an effort to move away from the trend of autofiction in France.

Tristan Garcia (born 5 April 1981) is a French philosopher and novelist. His first novel, La meilleure part des hommes (2008), won France’s Prix de Flore. It was translated into English in 2010 with the title Hate: A Romance. His most important philosophical work, Form and Object, was translated into English in 2014.