La publication des Cahiers de formation, journal tenu par Michel Serres de 1960 à 1974, permet de saisir la genèse de sa pensée, mais aussi de rapporter celle-ci au récit qu’il donne de sa propre biographie. L’hypothèse ici proposée est qu’à partir de sa vocation pour les mathématiques, vécue comme un « retrait du monde », il travaille ensuite à élaborer une pensée qui restitue toute sa place au monde des objets : en même temps que le sujet s’abolit, (...) il apparaît que la communication se joue à même les choses. Pour fonder cette lecture, on donne à lire des extraits assez abondants des Cahiers de formation. (shrink)

continent. 2.2 (2012): 155–158 Michel Serres. Biogea . Trans. Randolph Burks. Minneapolis: Univocal Publishing. 2012. 200 pp. | ISBN 9781937561086 | $22.95 Conveying to potential readers the significance of a book puts me at risk of glad handing. It’s not in my interest to laud the undeserving, especially on the pages of this journal. This is not a sales pitch, but rather an affirmation of a necessary work on very troubled terms: human, earth, nature, and the problematic world we (...) made. It is this world that aspirates the silence (so to speak), and therefore the subject which, along with the development of the “made world” exports the excess augmentation of the cosmically missing, this silence of the natural, et cetera. Had we learned from Locke that lesson of “labor,” to consume what we need… but perhaps we need more than what matters? Serres’ Biogea has several functions on this manner, if it is indeed a book to be consumed. First, readers searching for novelistic entertainment have a place to dwell. Biogea deserves a place in your back pocket; biographical generosity and poetic fluidity should satisfy most textual fetishes. For lay philosophers who want to refresh their acumen, Biogea deserves a place on the book shelf, one already reads a sorely needed postmodern tune-up here. Serres’ style is clearly French; he leaves few cheese crumbs on his words, rather preciseness and breathing in the work give way to a sweeping manner that breaks the narrative line of sight. A circular narrative and anachronistic fragmentation of terms allows an abyssal atmosphere to swell, if only to pump into the book the externality of its broader text. Biogea aspires to a higher standard and the book, at times, is thinking this negentropic problem too. Univocal, the publisher, has crafted a book appropriate for the hands to hold and the translations are an achievement of an otherwise difficult writer to translate. Terms are the conditions of a broader text. It is important to note that Serres’ content is as much a thinking of terminal ports. There is a regard for the transportation technology of the written word. For me, this is the mark of genius, a craftiness that tells of a book device that I may trust. Serres is an accomplished thinker and a necessary voice to check the putative trendiness of anti-postmodernist and market-driven theory of endless cultural liquidation. Offering interventions on subjectivity as an open system we are given a chance to affirm the human, not merely to discard it, but to engage its poetic image emotion, the calibratory silent sense of the analogic world; the terms on which we base our efforts. 1 The human is the center of its own negation, constantly mediating it. Something deeper at stake appears in the work then, and it is quite obvious from the onset. Certainly, a book is an intensification of possible text and those who brought this actual book into existence have captured a rarity in regards to the subject matter and artistic accomplishment. I mentioned terms as conditions, so let us understand Biogea as bio-yea, a yes to bios . An affirmation of living and accepting presence for all of its defiance of images, words, and things temporal. Therefore Serres’ existence and its existants plays parts; out of linearity and still like a porous bone pumping blood it manufactures into the fleshy life it becomes. Starting from a man named silence chaos emerges, or the man “Old Taciturn” takes up a journey anticipating a great flood. In other words, a development akin to the one in Genesis. In dealing with this ancestral occupation, fusing Genesis with contemporary philosophical terms, Serres initiates this anachronistic fragmentation under the forming subjectivity of his own autobiography. This mutation in the open system is precisely one of Serres’ terms. There an abyss is at work, stated, but also measured by heels on the ground—the abyss dispatching earthen tensions, that which plays our tunes, that which we abide by and recognize in volcanoes, rivers, oceans, earthquakes and weaponry in the battles of the world. Set in later stages of the book, such tensions are harnessed through scientific principles in an attempt to unify the terms of natural force if only to terminate the world. Thus the elevation of the earth into the world is clearly set forth. Here already, and few pages in, a resonance is set forth under appellations such as the river Garonne, a subjectivity as much as it is inhuman, the river is the inhuman that makes us human. I get the sense that Serres is taking up a challenge issued by Wallace Stevens; namely, that the great poems of heaven and hell have been written, but that only the poem of the earth has resisted composition. 2 On this level we cannot avoid the killing factor of silence, given that our cognition blocks its pure, radical obliteration. Thus a silence of attunement to the earth is in a novel dialectic of the rithmic and rhythm. A technological world, a triumph of termination is set forth. If a text imposes its will given the reader who authorizes it, it is made to convey or convect a presupposition to a reader or its inhabitant(s). Text is therefore both, in-content, contenting, contentedness, and in reading it, a way to navigate self-destruction (dis-content). Here then would one note that the “inhuman” reveals itself, “an aperiodic rhythm of lovers and beloved…the sea as our friend…but as our enemy…maternal vivifying sea.” The sea is an open book, or vaginal birth canal, where the engagement of text comes forth: “…woman sea, open vulva.” One sees like the sea, but only after it, when the uninhabitable truth of inhabiting it switches the polarity of the sailors soul: “I was seeing like the sea” (9-11). In other words, we are invited to embrace the nonsense of the visible. At this point I am taken to Jean-François Lyotard’s work The Inhuman , specifically the first entry on negentropy that would be congruent with Serres’ thematic. 3 The human being exports, deports, or transplants its relation through text, through the system— and this is its sense or relation to silence, to music. Unaware of Serres’ proximity to this work, the concept of gender interrelation as regards a solar catastrophe runs clear. It would be, on this basis, that Serres references his peers, the other texts that, as mentioned above, are discarded in philosophy today. For students of philosophy what we have here is perhaps a gift, a needed project. If silence and death are at work, there is a political valence to deal with, and here, much like the domain of the text and the dominion of the reader, we confront the world of natural, fluid violence. The anti-postmodernist critique is in part based on a weak idea that the loss of ideology, of a world vision, motivates the “correlationist” project. 4 Serres seems to offer another way to view this when he notes that whereas persons “sometimes kill,” it is clearly “the collective” that “always kills” (17). What is the collective today, if not an organizing function we never see yet acts in its favor in the name of truth? One feels a sense of enigma here, if only to link to what Stevens remarked of communism as a “grubby faith,” providing this applies for capitalism as well, namely any ideology of progress overly interested in absolutes. Here we get the sense that the inhuman, silence, this type of killing, always killing, could not be matched by human-made, political dynamos. Or that if it comes to an equilibrium, a catastrophe is never too far from us to read with our heels. We are left to note that the forces of nature presuppose and permeate political systems, the more these systems obtain force, the more the system takes upon itself the proper name of nature that motivates its dissemination, albeit falsely. This note, that in an age of ecocide and technological captivity (sustainability and transparency) political regimes won’t grow our soul-learning ears any larger than our tongues, stands clear to us. The promise of technological desubjectification is here pushed aside. Regarding politics, Serres illustrates this fact: Where did this corpse come from? Who was it? Who killed it? I don’t know. I won’t try to find out. I refuse to get vengeance for it. And I only see Garonne. For our victims, today, are the rivers, too. Their waters have irrigated my life, enchanted my thought, invigorated my body; I’ve known them to be threatening, untamable, as dangerous as the sea when it rages. Yes, murderous. They decided to control their courses; dams, sometimes senseless, destroying sites and valleys, reduced entire populations to servile displacements; programs for the irrigation of thirsty farmland, often beneficial of course, completed their drying up.(22) Serres enters into his idea concerning the captivity of language from the natural into a world system: For thousands of years, we have been licking things with our tongues, covering and daubing them so as to appropriate things for ourselves. If language boils down to a convention, this convention took place between the speakers without consulting the thing named, become as a result the property of those who covered it in this way with their drawn or voiced productions. Malfeasance analyzes these acts of appropriation. Thus every inert object, every living thing as well, sleeps under the covers of signs, a little in the way that, today, a thousand posters shouting messages and ugly riots of color drown, with their filthy flood, the landscapes, or better, exclude them from perception because the meaning, almost nil, of this false language and these base images forms an irresistible source of attraction to our neurons and eyes. This appropriation covers the world’s beauty with ugliness. (38-39) Technological concealment coming to bear, we begin to get a sense of another commentary on the condition of sensing, driving home the necessity of a text dealing with such subject matter to be what its terms insist. Thus toward new openings: The new opening. As low beneath our feet as you like, the Biogea opens us to another space, high enough for us to be able to acquire a wisdom there, that of redeveloping this same place differently from our fathers, this place that’s still politically cut up by old hatreds, beneath the flood of tears and blood that we call history. Without this soft place, spiritually very old, but newly conceived in this way, without the juridical construction of a common good, opposed to our filthy ownership, I don’t see how our planet, hard, will survive. Hardness that depends on a softness, material belonging that depends on this temporary rented location (51). Serres enters into a summit on the content and the structure of his work. Archimedes is brought in with the concept of three volcanoes. Meaning fire, but as well earth, water, air. For it was Archimedes’ war machines that sought to lift the earth, thus bringing in the question of principles of science: “can a principle be invented while controlling its consequences?” (66-7). May the earth be put in a sentence, terminated by terminology, appellations, gone wild? By means of these element-dominating laws, this old physicist began to tear nature away from the ancient myths; by a strange return, today we’re plunging our successes back into the anxieties and terrors from which that ancient physics was born. Yes, our new history of science and technology is plunging, today, as though in a loop, into the fundamental human myths from which Empedocles’ first laws came. A major progression and a regression on the nether side of the origins. Consequently, the contemporary time requires that we try to return to that unity in which the principles of hate and love are at the same time human, living, inert and global. We will never attain a deontology of our knowledge and actions without thinking the subjective, the objective, the collective, and the cognitive all together simultaneously. Here, hate and love are the result of these four components.(71) Working then on the concept of fire-starting mirrors to the atomic annihilation of the Second War, Serres works into the subjectivity in question on the matter of rhythm—say rithmic— precisely at that point: Knowledge is changing today. The all-political is dying; the monarchy of the sciences said to be hard is coming to a close. The science of the things of the world will have to communicate just as much as the things of the world do, which do it much better than humans do, who don’t always want to do it. Let’s celebrate two changes this morning. The first one strikes a new blow to our narcissism. No, knowledge and the world don’t resemble our analytical enjoyments of refined cutting up, of endless debates and of exclusions full of hate. They, on the contrary, form a bloc and a sum, alliance and alloys. Uniting the fields of knowledge among themselves the way the things are connected among themselves, the second newness puts into place sets united by interlacing, webs and simplexes that combine with the things of the world, themselves combined, the combined knowledge that understands them.(130-1) Biogea closes on its opening flood thematic, approaching the initial telos of Genesis. Here the trees are brought into a position with atmosphere, the opaque abyssal reservoir, the tomb of the sun, sea in the polarity of the earthen heaven and hell. The poem of the earth then is silent but deadly, indeed, as funny as that phrase is, mainly a tomb gas. The meaning of the living and the non-meaning of things converge in the muteness of the world; this meaning and non-meaning plunge there and come out, the ultimate eddy. Mundus patet: through a fissure, through an opening, a fault, a cleft come noises, calls as small as these apertures. I’m listening, attentive, I’m translating, I’m advancing in the scaled-down meaning and science. Mundus patet: should the world open greatly, it will launch me into its silence. The totality remains silent. Knowledge expanded in elation. White origin of meaning, fountain of joy. (198) Final Remarks One test of a review is the long term trajectory the referee thinks the book will have. I see Serres’ text lending greatly into the vision of Biogea . In fact, in the vision of the novel inquiries of Stephen Jay Gould’s work there is something to be thought on the level of the individual and the species; namely, that humanity and its uniqueness is in its deferral, its thinking and naming, a thinking surrounded by silence that filters into everything, that pulls us through the world, the kinetic pulse we recognize, and all of that we cleave away in the base philosophical maxim of difference itself. Unique individuals are spatial creatures: we dwell, and we ought to get good at it. Yet this is an imaginative space that, if you are crazy enough to believe it, de-term-ine the conditions of its own terms. That is why we are not merely creating spaces on the acceleration of time, or so this ignoramus thinks, to accidentally transcend. Imagination already has this insatiable silence that we drink up and fail to manifest. Space is timeless. The imagination itself, shared by humans for themselves, their objects, and the species as a whole, is a non-defined space of relation; a whole human trajectory as part of nature, and part of worlds that are the other side of thinking nature, the consequence of it, at least our attempt to do so. Our survival is based on our deliberation, our caution, our natural deconstructive sense toward this silence that is already part of the song, sung, singing of this century without end. Good books will let us inhabit this space and recognize a form of life. Serres’ text moves toward dwelling, as noted, in masterful and accessible ways. The pitched battles are the falling replays of anemic and dead politics. As soon as we realize there is humanity, we may be able to enjoy the end of it, our inhuman capability of listening to silence. NOTES 1. See Michel Serres. The Parasite . Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. 2007. 2. Wallace Stevens, “Imagination as Value” [ca. 1945], in Collected Poetry and Prose . New York: The Library of America. 1997. 724-39. 3. Jean-François Lyotard. The Inhuman: Reflections on Time . Trans. Geoffrey Bennington & Rachel Bowlby. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. 1992. 4. See the introduction: Quentin Melliassoux. After Finitude: An Essay on the Necessity of Contingency . Trans. Ray Brassier. New York: Continuum. 2008. EDITOR'S NOTE: This review was updated on August 8, 2012. Substantial edits include block quotes from the book under review as well as the inclusion of comments from the author. (shrink)

This chapter from Michel Serres’s comprehensive study on Leibniz—"The System of Leibniz and its Mathematical Models [Le système de Leibniz et ses modèles mathématiques]"—examines Leibniz’s epistemological framework. This framework, which Leibniz developed for a large part in his “Meditations on Knowledge, Truth, and Ideas [Meditationes de cognitione, veritate et ideis],” is pitched against Descartes’s "Meditations on First Philosophy [Meditationes de Prima Philosophia]" and the method of systematic doubt developed therein. While Descartes rejects any knowledge with the slightest possibility of (...) falsehood, Leibniz accepts knowledge with even a minimal degree of truth. Leibniz’s approach involves a progressive genesis of truth through a series of filters, each further refining knowledge. This process is intrinsically linked to infinitism and combinatorics, allowing for a gradual differentiation of the distinct from the indistinct. The filters are applied sequentially, with each filter proceeding through its own oppositions, resulting in a spectrum of knowledge ranging from obscure to clear, confused to distinct, inadequate to adequate, and symbolic to intuitive. This framework facilitates pluralism within rationalism that proceeds through evolving or regional truths. The filters overlap, and only the final stage of knowledge is devoid of mixture. Leibniz’s epistemology is non-Cartesian, as it relativizes truth and falsehood at each stage of the filtering process. It also accounts for the limitations of sensory perception, attributing them to the imperfection of the human mind in its current state. (Translated by Martijn Boven). (shrink)

Influential philosopher Michel Serres’s foundational work uses fable to explore how human relations are identical to that of the parasite to the host body. Among Serres’s arguments is that by being pests, minor groups can become major players in public dialogue—creating diversity and complexity vital to human life and thought. Michel Serres is professor in history of science at the Sorbonne, professor of Romance languages at Stanford University, and author of several books, including _Genesis._ Lawrence R. Schehr is (...) professor of French at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Cary Wolfe is Bruce and Elizabeth Dunlevie Professor of English at Rice University. His books include _Zoontologies: The Question of the Animal _. (shrink)

« D’où jaillit la Musique? Des bruits du monde? Des clameurs issues des assemblées? De nos émotions? Et comment la définir? Rien de plus difficile que de répondre à ces questions. J’ai préféré dire ce qu’elle est en trois contes. Légendaire, le premier suit la vie d’Orphée, son initiation auprès des Bacchantes et des Muses, puis sa plongée dans les Enfers à la recherche d’Eurydice, son amante. Comment aimer en Musique? Autobiographique, le second envahit le Grand Récit de la connaissance (...) qui devient ici une Grande Symphonie. Peut-on penser en Musique? Biblique enfin, le dernier psalmodie, de la Genèse à la Nativité. Doit-on prier en Musique? » Michel Serres. (shrink)

La présence de la francophonie dans la culture chilienne s'est manifestée, à travers le temps, en réponse aux nécessités de genèse, d'organisation, de consolidation et d'insertion internationale de l'État-nation. L'intellectuel, acteur fondamental dans l'organisation de la culture, se révèle être l'agent décisif pour la sélection réalisée dans le large spectre des valeurs de la culture française. Avec pour axe l'action de ce médiateur, une périodisation de l'histoire culturelle met en relief les moments significatifs de l'influence du modèle francophone dans la (...) formation, au Chili, d'une culture nationale de contenu américain, telle que la postule Andrés Bello, dès l'étape de l'organisation de la République. L'examen de la particularité chilienne permet de dévoiler les noyaux importants de la fonction qu'a exercée dans le passé, et qu'exerce à l'heure de la globalisation, la francophonie dans le développement de la variante de la culture européenne née en territoire américainIn Chilean culture, Francophony has grown in reaction to the genesis, organisation and international position of the nation. As fundamental actors in the process of cultural organisation, intellectuals have proved essential to help select useful French cultural values from the extensive range that exist. A study of the specific case of Chile reveals the important core factors of the role Francophony played in the development of a variant of European culture in Latin America. The paper shows the distinctive stages of Chilean development with a particular emphasis on globalisation. (shrink)

Michel Serres is a major twentieth-century thinker who has made decisive contributions to major debates across disciplines ranging from the history of science to literary studies and philosophy. This is the first monograph to offer a comprehensive assessment of Serres’ thought from his early work on Leibniz to his final publications in 2019. The first three chapters carefully explore Serres’ ‘global intuition’, how he understands and engages with the world, and his characteristic ‘figures of thought’, the repeated intellectual (...) moves that characterize his unique approach. Chapters Four to Six explore in detail Serres’ revolutionary contributions to three key areas: language, objects, and ecology. (shrink)

Ce livre raconte la pensée de Michel Serres à travers des entretiens vivants où le penseur revient sur son itinéraire, depuis la traversée de la guerre au bord de la Garonne jusqu'à aujourd'hui. Passeur des savoirs, capable de faire comprendre l'histoire des idées au travers de récits savoureux, Michel Serres reste insuffisamment connu. Sait-on que ce philosophe pour qui "penser, c'est anticiper", a vu venir avant tout le monde toutes les grandes révolutions de notre temps : la fin (...) de l'agriculture, l'avènement des communications, la crise de l'écologie, la révolution numérique, l'éloignement de la mort. Pour saisir ces événements, il a forgé des concepts nouveaux - l'Hominescence, le Contrat Naturel - mais également imaginé des personnages grâce auxquels ces expériences neuves de notre humanité s'incarnent : Hermès, Le Tiers-Instruit, Petite Poucette. Pantopie (du grec "pantopos", "tous les lieux") est l'espace où tous ces personnages prennent sens. Martin Legros, philosophe, et Sven Ortoli, historien des sciences, ont su amener Michel Serres à organiser la présentation de son œuvre autour des grands personnages qui l'habitent et à la replacer dans le paysage intellectuel et philosophique contemporain. (shrink)

"Provides an extremely valuable introduction to the work of Michel Serres for an English-speaking audience, as well as offering useful critical approaches for those already familiar with its outlines." ---Robert Harrison, Stanford University [blurb from review pending permission] The work of Michel Serres---including the books Hermes, The Parasite, The Natural Contract, Genesis, The Troubadour of Knowledge, and Conversations on Science, Culture, and Time---has stimulated readers for years, as it challenges the boundaries of science, literature, culture, language, and epistemology. (...) The essays in Mapping Michel Serres, written by the leading interpreters of his work, offer perspectives from a range of disciplinary positions, including literature, language studies, and cultural theory. Contributors include Maria Assad, Hanjo Berressem, Stephen Clucas, Steven Connor, Andrew Gibson, René Girard, Paul Harris, Marcel Hé naff, William Johnsen, William Paulson, Marjorie Perloff, Philipp Schweighauser, Isabella Winkler, and Julian Yates. (shrink)

When all the people of the world finally speak the same language and commune in the same message or the same norm of reason, we will descend, idiot imbeciles, lower than rats, more stupidly than lizards. The same maniacal language and science, the same repetitions of the same in all latitudes–an earth covered with screeching parrots. The goal of instruction is the end of instruction, that is to say invention. Invention is the only true intellectual act, the only act (...) of intelligence. The rest? Copying, cheating, reproduction, laziness, convention, battle, sleep. Only discovery awakens. Only invention proves that one truly thinks what one thinks, whatever that may be. (shrink)

Comment s'écrit un grand texte, un classique de l'autobiographie? Des spécialistes de la critique génétique ont étudié les avant-textes, brouillons et manuscrits successifs qui au bout de dix ans (1953-1963) ont donné le livre. Sartre voulait élucider les déterminations qui ont fait de lui un écrivain. Ces analyses montrent la construction progressive d'une image de soi avec la prédominance d'une problématique narcissique déniée par l'auteur. La notion d'«universel singulier» fondatrice de l'oeuvre est particulièrement étudiée.

In the debate on the origin of modern natural rights, the French philosopher Michel Villey became famous for his counter current theses: that the origin of modern subjective rights was a “deformation” or “degeneration” of the ancient and medieval concept of law; that those responsible for this rupture were Ockham and his nominalist disciples, as well as the Scholastics of Salamanca; that these last ones betrayed the thought of Aquinas on the right adhering to the nominalist. These theses serve (...) the purpose of justifying Villey’s radical opposition to the subjective foundations of modern human rights. The reply of the historian of medieval law, the Englishman Brian Tierney, is that Villey’s conception of ancient and medieval law is too restricted; that already in Roman law there was a notion of subjective rights; that the origin of modern subjective rights does not depend only on Ockham’s nominalism, but was already present in the medieval canonists; that the scholastics of Salamanca did not betray the Thomist thought, but they brought it up to the challenges of the new times; and that the idea of ​​subjective natural rights does not depend on a particular ideology, but is compatible with different ideologies and worldviews. In revisiting this debate, our main interest concerns the conclusions that Villey draws from the entire long historical trajectory he has studied, and the criticism that Tierney makes of his radical opposition to human rights. Finally the debate gives rise to some more general considerations about the history of concepts and the distinction between the historical genesis of the ideas and their validity. (shrink)

La privatisation de la connaissance est en contradiction avec la possibilité d'accéder à l'ensemble des savoirs disponibles à travers les nouveaux réseaux de communication. La qualification de l'accès au savoir en ligne comme « bien public international » répond à la demande des populations des pays en développement qui n'ont pas les moyens de s'équiper à domicile et encore moins de payer l'accès à des contenus en ligne à des tarifs élaborés par les marchands des pays développés. Les modalités de (...) mise à disposition des savoirs incluent des composantes techniques, informatiques et juridiques qu'il est nécessaire de mettre au point. Quant au régime de propriété intellectuelle, il devrait être modifié en conséquence.Privatization of knowledge is in contradiction with the ability to access all the knowledge available through the new communication networks. Qualification for access to online knowledge as "international public good" meets the needs of people in developing countries do not have the means to equip themselves at home and even less to pay for access to content Online prices developed by merchants developed countries. The terms of knowledge available include technical components, IT and legal need to develop. As for the intellectual property regime, it should be amended accordingly. (shrink)

On the basis of his unpublished thesis ‘Gewohnheit und Gesetzerlebnis in der Erziehung’ a historical reconstruction is given of the genesis of Popper's ideas on induction and demarcation which differs radically from his own account in Unended quest. It is shown not only that he wholeheartedly endorses inductive epistemology and psychology but also that his ‘demarcation’ criterion is inductivistic. Moreover it is shown that his later demarcation thesis arises not from his worries about, on the one hand, Marxism and psychoanalysis (...) and, on the other hand, Einstein's physics, but rather from his urgent preoccupation with providing pedagogy with a psychological foundation, which has its sources in Karl Bühler's cognitive psychology as well as, surprisingly, Adler's Characterology. Aside from Adler some lesser known psychologists, such as Karl Groos, will also be seen to have played a formative role on Popper's early thinking. (shrink)

‘68 in Italy, compared to the same movement in other European countries, is characterized by its long duration and its particular intensity. It is in fact a movement that has produced powerful and lasting effects on the Italian society for at least a decade, as it is visible in its central presence in the historical memory of the country, still today. But the outbreak of ‘68, like the social and legislative achievements of the 70s, owe their conditions of possibility to (...) a break – a political break but above all a theoretical break – which occurred earlier, at the beginning of the 1960s. Going back to the genesis of the breakdown of the conservative imagery of the 1950s, while being an operation of intellectual history, can be useful to investigate how the “theoretical novelty” emerges, in this case through a break with its own tradition, albeit aiming to its reactivation. (shrink)

RésuméIl y a, dans la notion de dialectique moderne, deux perspectives de l'évolution intellectuelle: l'intelligence peut n'ětre encore que la pointe extrěme de l'adaptation biologique ou elle peut ětre déjà l'expression de la raison. C'est ce caractère ouvert des dialectiques scientifiques que nous retrouvons dans les interprétations étudiées ici: le pancalisme de Baldwin, la pensée sans images de Binet, l'interprétation de Janet et celle de Piaget, qui contribuent à enrichir la notion de genèse de l'intelligence et à en faire (...) saisir l'évolution.ZusammenfassungDie geistige Entwicklung wird in der modernen Dialektik aus zwei Gesichtspunkten erfasst, und zwar mag die Intelligenz wohl nur noch das äusserste Ende der biologischen Anpassung oder schon der Ausdruck der Vernunft sein. Das Offene eben der wissenschaftlichen Dialektiken finden wir in den hier erörterten Deutungen wieder, im Baldwinschen Pancalismus, im Denken ohne Bilder von Binet, in den Deutungen von Janet und von Piaget, die dazu beitragen, den Begriff von der Entstehungsgeschichte der Intelligenz zu bereichern und deren Evolution verständlich zu machen.There are two prospects of intellectual evolution in the notion of dialectics: intelligence can either be the ultimate point of biological adaptation or it can already be the expression of reason. Within this open characteristics of scientific dialectics are to be found the interpretations studied here: Baldwin's pancalism, Binet's » thought without image «, Janet's and Piaget's interpretations which help to enrich the knowledge of the genesis of intelligence and its evolution. (shrink)

Jacques Derrida argues that the feminist and intellectual Hélène Cixous is the most important writer working within the French idiom today. To prove this, he elucidates the epistemological and historical interconnectedness of four terms: genesis, genealogy, genre, and genius, and how they pertain to or are implicated in Cixous's work. Derrida explores Cixous's genius and the inspiration that guides and informs her writing. He marvels at her skillful working within multiple genres. He focuses on a number of her works, (...) including her extraordinary novel _Manhattan_ and her lyrical and evocative _Dream I Tell You_, a book addressed to Derrida himself and one in which Cixous presents a series of her dreams. Derrida also delves into the nature of the literary archive, the production of literature, and the importance of the poetic and sexual difference to the entirety of his own work. For forty years, Derrida had a close personal and intellectual relationship with Hélène Cixous. Clever, playful, and eloquent, _Geneses, Genealogies, Genres, and Genius_ charts the influence these two critical giants had on each other and is the most vital work to address Cixous's contribution to French thought. (shrink)

Foucault n’a pas laissé de texte de nature autobiographique. À de nombreuses reprises, il a revendiqué l’anonymat, embrassant le désir d’envelopper son « je » dans le discours et d’y avancer pour ainsi dire, « masqué ». Ce serait cependant une erreur d’identifier ce désir au slogan de la mort de l’auteur et à partir de là, au courant du structuralisme. Car Foucault n’a jamais voulu renoncer à questionner la subjectivité, son histoire aussi bien que ses terrains d’interventions. Plutôt que (...) de chercher à interpréter les raisons qui ont poussé Foucault à ne pas livrer les secrets de sa vie, l’article nous invite à les reconnaître à même son œuvre. (shrink)

Paul Ricœur laisse comme testament une œuvre immense.Elle est justement saluée aujourd'hui pour s'être confrontée aux principaux enjeux intellectuels du XXe siècle, sans jamais cesser de dialoguer pour autant avec le "grand livre de la philosophie". A travers la diversité des thématiques abordées par le philosophe, cet ouvrage nous éclaire sur ce qui fait la trame et le moteur de cette pensée en mouvement : une réflexion sur l'homme en tant qu'être agissant.L'auteur propose de reconfigurer le parcours de cette philosophie (...) de l'agir humain en suivant trois perspectives à la fois distinctes et complémentaires. Selon une première perspective, il s'agit de retracer la genèse d'une anthropologie philosophique qui porte sur les fondamentaux de l'agir humain. Selon une deuxième perspective, l'auteur cherche à resituer l'épistémologie de Paul Ricœur, ressourcée dans la tradition herméneutique, au contact des sciences de l'homme.Selon une troisième perspective, il s'agit de reconstituer les jalons d'une philosophie normative qui ouvre la morale, le politique, la justice et le droit à l'horizon de l'universalité, sans dénier l'incarnation de l'agir humain dans un "monde de la vie" déjà structuré par des valeurs. A l'opposé d'une rhétorique hagiographique ou d'une critique systématique, la "juste distance" prise par l'auteur permet de restituer l'unité profonde de l'œuvre ricoeurienne et d'en dévoiler en même temps les tensions et les paradoxes.Cet ouvrage accorde une large place à la réception philosophique du travail de Paul Ricœur sur l'agir humain en le présentant comme une "œuvre ouverte", élevée au "conflit des interprétations". C'est dire qu'après la mort du penseur, sa pensée ne fait que commencer, que renaître dans l'esprit de chaque nouveau lecteur. (shrink)

Résumé Le projet intellectuel de Jean-Claude Perrot a été formé à l’occasion de la préparation de sa thèse sur la genèse de la ville de Caen. Au cours de cette enquête, il a mesuré les limites de l’histoire économique et sociale qui s’imposait alors comme modèle et les apports d’une histoire des connaissances économiques et sociales contemporaines des phénomènes étudiés. Cette vision d’ensemble a mûri pendant une trentaine d’années pour aboutir d’une part à des propositions neuves relatives à l’histoire (...) class='Hi'>intellectuelle et d’autre part à un programme historiographique qui conjuguerait ces deux dimensions. Ce programme a inspiré le « tournant critique » de la revue Les Annales (1989) et il a été exploré par ses continuateurs directs ou indirects. Finalement l’article opère une consolidation conceptuelle selon le principe analysé ailleurs par l’historien. (shrink)

Jacques Derrida argues that the feminist and intellectual Hélène Cixous is the most important writer working within the French idiom today. To prove this, he elucidates the epistemological and historical interconnectedness of four terms: genesis, genealogy, genre, and genius, and how they pertain to or are implicated in Cixous's work. Derrida explores Cixous's genius (a masculine term in French, he is quick to point out) and the inspiration that guides and informs her writing. He marvels at her skillful working (...) within multiple genres. He focuses on a number of her works, including her extraordinary novel _Manhattan_ and her lyrical and evocative _Dream I Tell You_, a book addressed to Derrida himself and one in which Cixous presents a series of her dreams. Derrida also delves into the nature of the literary archive, the production of literature, and the importance of the poetic and sexual difference to the entirety of his own work. For forty years, Derrida had a close personal and intellectual relationship with Hélène Cixous. Clever, playful, and eloquent, _Geneses, Genealogies, Genres, and Genius_ charts the influence these two critical giants had on each other and is the most vital work to address Cixous's contribution to French thought. (shrink)

La publication presque simultanée de L'Ordre biologique d'André Lwoff (1969), de La Logique du vivant de François Jacob (1970), du Hasard et la nécessité de Jacques Monod (1970) et les débats qui s'ensuivirent, ont constitué un moment fort de la vie intellectuelle française. Comme il serait difficile aujourd'hui d'imaginer des débats analogues, réunissant philosophes et scientifiques autour de questions aussi fondamentales que la nature de l'objectivité scientifique et l'explication des phénomènes vivants! Le contexte scientifique et culturel explique la genèse (...) de ces trois ouvrages et les réactions qui suivirent leur publication. Dès 1971, un bel article de Georges Canguilhem en soulignait les convergences. Ce livre montre qu'ils sont le fruit des avancées rapides survenues dans la description moléculaire des organismes vivants. L'impact de ces découvertes est d'autant plus important en France que les transformations précédentes des sciences du vivant, l'essor de la génétique et de la synthèse moderne dans les années1930 - nouvelle version de la théorie de l'évolution -, y étaient passées inaperçues. Ce recueil vise à rappeler, mais surtout à faire mieux comprendre, ce moment si riche - avec l'espoir secret d'y trouver des recettes pour réanimer une vie intellectuelle devenue aujourd'hui bien fade. (shrink)

Dies ist der erste Teil einer zweibändigen Studie zur Genese unseres heutigen, vom Anspruch her den chronologischen Verlauf der gesamten Menschheitsgeschichte strukturierenden „Epochen“-Systems. Der Band skizziert zunächst die geistesgeschichtlichen Prämissen. Von der rudimentären paläolithischen Zeiteinteilung führt er über die ältesten schriftlich dokumentierten Ordnungsversuche in den sumerischen bzw. ägyptischen „Königlisten“, griechische und römische Autoren, Petrarca, Bruni und Vasari bis zu Cellarius, der am Ende des 17. Jahrhunderts die Drei-Zeitalter-Distinktion „Antike-Mittelalter-Neuzeit“ zum zentralen chronologischen Gliederungsprinzip der Weltgeschichte erhob. Anschließend stehen die drei klassischen, (...) von Pyrrhon, Polybios bzw. Ptolemaios entwickelten „Epoché“-Konzepte sowie deren Auftauchen und Rezeption im lateinischen Europa im Fokus. Sodann wird die erstaunlich spät, nämlich erst nach Mitte des 16. Jahrhunderts einsetzende Transformation der „Epoché“ zur fundamentalen historiographischen Ordnungskategorie thematisiert. Schließlich verfolgen wir anhand zahlreicher Autoren sowie der kontemporären Lexikographie ihren auf Latein wie in den relevanten europäischen „Volkssprachen“ (Englisch, Französisch, Deutsch, Spanisch, Portugiesisch, Italienisch) stattfindenden Divulgationsprozeß. Dabei erweist sich der Ausgang des 17. Jahrhunderts erneut als Wasserscheide. Der erste Band endet deshalb an dieser Stelle, der zweite wird dann die weitere Entwicklung von 1700 bis zur Gegenwart analysieren. This is the first part of a two-volume study of the genesis of our modern-day system of epochs, which claims to structure the chronology of the entire history of mankind. The volume sets out by sketching the intellectual premises. It leads from the rudimentary Palaeolithic division of time via the oldest attempts at structuring to have been documented in written form, through to the Sumerian and Egyptian “King Lists”, to Greek and Roman authors, to Petrarch, Bruni, and Vasari, and finally to Cellarius, who in the late 17th century introduced the distinction between the three epochs of “Antiquity, the Middle Ages and the Modern Era” as the basic chronological principle of organising the history of the world. This is followed by a closer look at the three classical concepts of “Epoché” as defined by Pyrrhon, Polybios and Ptolemaios, respectively, as well as their surfacing and reception in Latin Europe. Not until the second half of the 16th century, which is an astonishingly late point in time, can the transformation of “Epoché” into a fundamental category of historiographic structuring be detected. Finally, by studying numerous writers as well as the contemporary lexicography, we will outline the process of divulgation that took place both in Latin as well as in the relevant European “vernaculars” (English, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian). In the process, the late 17th century again proves to be a kind of divide. As a consequence, volume one ends here; a second volume (forthc.) will analyse the further development to the present day. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Sacred Game: The Role of the Sacred in the Genesis of Modern Literary FictionAndrew J. McKennaThe Sacred Game: The Role of the Sacred in the Genesis of Modern Literary Fiction, by Cesareo Bandera; 318 pp. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1994, $16.50.When we consider the early relations of philosophy and literature, we most often think of Republic X and about degrees of separation between reality and (...) its image. That is a mistake, according to Cesareo Bandera, who shows in his deft reading of Laws that Plato expelled the poets chiefly because of their threat to the difference between sacred and profane: their mournful harmoniae polluted sacred rites. In this Plato is closer to the religious world examined by Durkheim, where the absolute difference between sacred and profane alone guarantees all other differences. Aristotle is shown to be starkly misleading here, since his Poetics discuss tragedy as if it had nothing to do with the ritual practices in which it originates. His vaunted realism can only save poetry—and ontological appearances—by ignoring, by virtually expelling the sacred from its purview.This expulsion of the sacred from the horizon of our rationality is the thematic core of Bandera’s argument about modern literary fiction as it [End Page 189] emerges in the Renaissance. He does not bring the religious back to our attention to enthrall us with it anew, but to explain via formidable literary and historical scholarship how we stand with respect to it, and how we misunderstand our enlightened disrespect for it. Our modern scientific spirit, our really amazing freedom of inquiry, has a different genealogy than we commonly suppose.It is not primarily philosophy which grounds our humanist irreverence, but our Western religious tradition, which Bandera reads, along with René Girard, Roberto Calasso, and Marcel Gauchet, as a uniquely desacralizing agency in culture. His book’s central endeavor is to expand the implications of Girard’s sacrificial theory of social formation across close readings of ancient and Renaissance literature and criticism in order to show the constraints on rationality within a culture where the sacred veiled human violence. According to this view, that veil is rent irreparably with the revelation of the innocent victim as the vantage point from which to interpret the murderous fury of the crowd, however ritualized as awe for the god(s), or as art. A stunning analysis of Virgil (with an assist from Michel Serres’s reading of Lucretius) reveals a writer holding back from his appalled understanding of violent foundations. With the Renaissance, art is cannily deritualized; not pious Aeneas, born of a goddess, but Don Quixote, born in prison, sets the course for modern fiction.Bandera’s astute readings of Renaissance literature and criticism shed decisively new light on the significance of this axial period, poised at the fulcrum of his argument. His vast and probing research reminds us how modern literary fiction nourished its self-consciousness and freedom amidst lavish and vehement debate over mixing the human and divine. Stripped of the taboos limiting classical thought, the sacred’s monopoly on violence had eroded to reveal individual culpability—but also vast, new possibilities for thought and action. A clear ethical impulse accompanies these readings, in which Calderon and Cervantes are shown to deprive us of a sacred alibi for human violence, which is now a matter for me to resolve with my neighbor. Organically cultural imperatives lose ground to a sense of individual responsibility, which Bandera traces back to the historically documented ascendancy of devotio moderna in late medieval Europe.Despite and because of debates over its cultural role, Renaissance literature’s very marginality freed it to explore every dimension of human error. And we learn how those who unwittingly conspire to resacralize it, from Tasso and Shelley through Arnold and Frye, only continue to play the sacred game that caused shudders in Plato and inspires just plain silliness among our own critical anarchs and demystifyers.Bandera’s net is cast wide and deep, including a bracing debate with Milbank and Blumenberg, whose sweep he emulates successfully, and whose powerful analyses he corrects. Witty and adroit scrutiny of our “sacred allergy” extends... (shrink)

This paper reflects on a genesis that seems inseparable from that of the human, namely, the coming into being of social organization. It seems impossible to think of a time when humans were not embedded in some social configuration, but it is equally impossible to think of the human species evolving complete with sociocultural formations attached. Even deciding on the word for the beginning of organization prejudges the issue: are we speaking of an emergence, a development, a making, or a (...) virgin birth? Calling on three authors – Giambattista Vico, Michel Serres, and Paolo Virno – I present three kinds of processes of becoming: one as a directional sequence of interlocking steps, one as the fertility of unintended consequences, and one as the creativity of linguistic ruse. Glancing at these different versions sideways one can make out some universal features of the genesis of organization: a self-referential circularity at its inception which hides the starting point, a unique engagement with language and the symbolic, and an intentional act that creates the possibility of a new and different future. (shrink)

Qu'ont en commun Diderot, D'Alembert et l'abbé de Saint-Pierre? Voisenon et Pluche? Fontenelle et Sade? La Font de Saint-Yenne et Condillac? Casanova et Buffon? Batteux et Barruel? Peu de chose a priori réunit les auteurs qui dialoguent au sein de ce volume, sinon que tous, quel que soit leur domaine de réflexion, ont été amenés durant leur parcours intellectuel à se confronter à la question du système et à se prononcer sur sa nécessité, sa pertinence et sa valeur. A lire (...) les études ici rassemblées, il apparaît que la pensée du système innerve les champs du savoir et de la création au XVIIIe siècle. Mais ce tropisme systématique étonnamment persistant ne signifie nullement la permanence de la valeur accordée à l'esprit de système : ces systèmes omniprésents traduisent plutôt la perte de majesté du système, détrôné par d'autres manières de penser et d'écrire le monde et les hommes."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

Michel Serres is one of the most influential living theorists in European philosophy. This volume makes available a work which has a foundational place in the development of chaos theory, representing a tour de force application of the principles underlying Serres' distinctive philosophy of science.

With this profound final work, completed in the days leading up to his death, Michel Serres presents a vivid picture of his thinking about religion—a constant preoccupation since childhood—thereby completing Le Grand Récit, the comprehensive explanation of the world and of humanity to which he devoted the last twenty years of his life. Themes from Serres's earlier writings—energy and information, the role of the media in modern society, the anthropological function of sacrifice, the role of scientific knowledge, the problem (...) of evil—are reinterpreted here in the light of the Old Testament accounts of Isaac and Jonah and a variety of Gospel episodes, including the Three Wise Men of the Epiphany, the Transfiguration, Peter's denying Christ, the Crucifixion, Emmaus, and the Pentecost. Monotheistic religion, Serres argues, resembles mathematical abstraction in its dazzling power to bring together the real and the virtual, the natural and the transcendent; but only in its Christian embodiment is it capable of binding together human beings in such a way that partisan attachments are dissolved and a new era of history, free for once of the lethal repetition of collective violence, can be entered into. (shrink)

How can the friction between genesis and validity be understood? Is it possible to »dissolve« it? This paper argues that the genesis/validity-problem reflects the fundamental epistemological differences between History and Philosophy, and it takes Michel Foucault's »Archeology« as a model case for this problem. Since Foucault's »archaeological« methodology, i.e. his discourse analysis, is deeply affected by these tensions, I will show, firstly, that the epistemological model for Foucault's anti-hermeneutical and genealogical approach was rooted not in philosophy, but in medicine, (...) especially in anatomy. Secondly, I will argue that the »paradoxical« position of discourse analysis, in Foucault's eyes, is necessarily a political one – i.e. as a position within political struggles. (shrink)

The philosophy of Bruno Latour has given us one of the most important statements on the part played by technology in the ordering of the human collective. Typically presented as a radical departure from mainstream social thought, Latour is not without his intellectual creditors: Michel Serres and, through him, René Girard. By tracing this development, we are led to understand better the relationship of Latour’s work, and Actor-Network Theory more generally, to traditional sociological concerns. By doing so we (...) can also hope to understand better the role that objects play in structuring society. (shrink)

World-renowned philosopher, Michel Serres writes a text in praise of the body and movement, in praise of teachers of physical education, coaches, mountain guides, athletes, dancers, mimes, clowns, artisans, and artists. This work describes the variations, the admirable metamorphoses that the body can accomplish. While animals lack such a variety of gestures, postures, and movements, the fluidity of the human body mimics the leisure of living beings and things; what's more, it creates signs. Already here, within its movements and (...) metamorphoses, the mind is born. The five senses are not the only source of knowledge: it emerges, in large part, from the imitations the plasticity of the body allows. In it, with it, by it knowledge begins. (shrink)

Veils -- Boxes -- Tables -- Visit -- Joy.

Le livre de Caroline Petit, Galien de Pergame ou la rhétorique de la Providence, constitue la première étude d’ensemble du rôle de la rhétorique dans l’œuvre de Galien, aux sources du discours médical et scientifique, et de l’autobiographie intellectuelle. Caroline Petit’s Galien de Pergame ou la rhétorique de la Providence is the first comprehensive study of the role of rhetoric in Galen’s oeuvre, a cornerstone of medical and scientific discourse and of intellectual autobiography in the West.

"Depuis l'embryon lové dans le ventre de sa mère, jusqu'aux métropoles qui couvrent la Terre de leurs lumières permanentes, les humains ont inventé de nombreuses façons d'habiter. Mais les animaux et, plus étonnant, les végétaux avaient déjà exploré de nombreux modes d'habitat. Michel Serres nous dévoile les secrets de ces architectures séduisantes et multiples, nous en montre le sens et les mots, et esquisse ainsi le monde de demain." Présentation de l'éditeur.

This book is an English-language translation of a bestselling book in France that explores the relationship between humans and new technologies.

Biogea is a mixture of poetry, philosophy, science, and biography exemplary of the style that has made Michel Serres one of the most extraordinary thinkers of his age. His philosophical and poetic inquiry sings in praise of earth and life, what he names singularly as Biogea. In these times when species are disappearing, when catastrophic events such as earthquakes and tsunamis impale the earth, Serres wonders if anyone “worries about the death pangs of the rivers.” And for Serres, one (...) can ask the same question of philosophy as the humanities increasingly find themselves in need of defenders. Today, all living organisms discover themselves part of this Biogea. “Today we have other neighbors, constituents of the Biogea: the sea, my lover; our mother, the Earth, becomes our daughter; this beautiful breeze which inspires the spirit, a spiritual mistress; our light friends, the fresh and flowing waters.”. (shrink)

In this reflection on the relation between nature and culture, Michel Serres relates the present environmental catastrophe to pollution generated by humanity's efforts to appropriate.

This article explores the topic of technology in Michel Serres’ work. Although a great deal has been said about Serres’ treatment of parasitic relations, noise, interdisciplinarity and communication, little has been written about his approach to questions of technology. The author first outlines general trends in the philosophy of technology and indicates how Serres fits within the field. He then suggests a way to read Serres by identifying ‘landmarks’ in his texts, which are used for explicating his position on (...) technology. Three of these landmarks are explored. The first is Serres’ philosophy of world-objects, which moves him to think through the relationship between humans, technology and natural evolution. The second is Serres’ notion of technologies ‘setting sail’ from the body, which allows him to build on Leroi-Gourhan’s work, and the third is Serres’ description of information technologies and the world of millennials, which leads to his position on pedagogy and technology. From an examination of these three landmarks, a picture emerges of a thinker for whom technology acts as a disturbance around which collectives form, establishing relations and deviations between ourselves and others. (shrink)