of parasites and angels
I have been reading quite a lot of Michel Serres recently as his writing style / ideas are such a fresh departure from what we experience in our everyday philosophical language. The recent book I have been reading – Five Senses: The Philosophy of Internmingled Bodies – tries to imagine how philosophy would look like if we try to breakaway from the “prisonhouse” of language. So suddenly we have philosophy created through the skin, through the eyes, through the taste, smell etc. My favorite comment by so far about what motivates especially Serres’ later work:
“There is a time for abstract science and then another one for things…the works of my youth…I henceforth find old, precisely because they are very learned or strictly under surveillance. Luckily, the more one writes, the younger one becomes. Finally, no more surveillance; finally, I can play truant – no more school at all”
As his books are almost indecipherable in terms of clear structure and logical arguement, I found this slideshow here as a OK introduction to him in reference especially to understanding the problems of technology and mediation (even if might disagree with some of the framing of the issues here). Communication & technology as angels and parasites:
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“As his books are almost indecipherable in terms of clear structure and logical argument”