Available for the first time in English! Winner of the Prix Medicis Essai! Marginalized by the scientific age with its metaphysical and philosophical systems, the lessons of the senses have been overtaken by the dominance of language and the information revolution. Exploring the deleterious effects of the systematic downgrading of the senses in Western philosophy, Michel Serres - a member of the Academie Francaise and one of France's leading philosophers - traces a topology of human perception. Writing against the Cartesian tradition and in praise of empiricism, he demonstrates repeatedly, and lyrically, the sterility of systems of knowledge divorced from bodily experience. The fragile empirical world, long resistant to our attempts to contain and catalog it, is disappearing beneath the relentless accumulations of late capitalist society and information technology. Data has replaced sensory pleasure, we are less interested in the taste of a fine wine than in the description on the bottle's label. What are we, and what do we really know, when we have forgotten that our senses can describe a taste more accurately than language ever could?
Les mer
Writing against the Cartesian tradition and in praise of empiricism, this book demonstrates repeatedly, and lyrically, the sterility of systems of knowledge divorced from bodily experience.
Introduction, Steven Connor (Birkbeck, University of London, UK); 1. Veils; 2. Boxes; 3. Tables; 4. Visit; 5. Joy; Index.
This book represents a defining break in Michel Serres' work, leaving behind traditional philosophy to explore the history and culture of science.
Michel Serres is a major contemporary theorist and this is one of his most accessible and important works.
The Athlone Contemporary European Thinkers series offers authoritative texts from the most important and influential thinkers at work in Continental Philosophy this century. The series ranges across the full spectrum of Continental thought, covering the fields of philosophy, post-structuralism, psychoanalysis and critical theory, and includes key theorists such as Heidegger, Henri Lefebvre, Michel Serres, Nuno Nabais, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Deleuze, Guattari and Alain Badiou.
Titles in the series are ideal for students in upper-undergraduate and graduate years but also scholars seeking access to the works of seminal Continental thinkers.
Les mer