Keith Moser

I waited a little while to review this as I wanted to re-read some of the works commented on within which I remembered as rather stimulating, but my memories were sketchy due to the hurried circumstances of the initial readings.

As already mentioned by others, this probably works best as a pleasant introduction and overview to a rather expansive and eclectic body of works, directed to readers in a language which may not have facilitated their noticing and accessing those books, than an in-depth discussion of the issues raised.… (mehr)

Keith Moser’s monograph has brought me a great insight into the philosophy of this accomplished French son of a barge man. The sheer breadth of the fields that Serres has devoted himself to is sufficient in and of itself to command more interest than he currently receives and that is not to mention the very deep thinking that he has obviously given to his chosen topics. Mr Moser is perhaps too enthusiastic in his proselytisation but it seldom gets in the way of his explanations of Serres’ thinking although it does colour his presentation of Serres as some sort of visionary (his subtitle for the book - “WRITING THE MODERN WORLD AND ANTICIPATING THE FUTURE” - indicates his position).

In five fairly chunky chapters Moser covers the different strands of Serres’ publications so far (Serres is both prolific and still active). Chapter one covers his analysis of late capitalism/post Marxism and the effect of the genesis of the information economy. Chapter two gives us Serres' understanding of previous philosophy from Descartes onward as being entirely anthropocentric to the exclusion of all other life forms and thus engendering the current ecological crises although he also takes a sideswipe at Genesis in this chapter.

The chapter that I found most interesting (Chapter 3) addresses itself to his current musings on what he refers to as Exo-Darwinian evolution. By this somewhat awkward nomenclature Serres manages to bring together a grab bag of human technology developments that in his thinking sets humankind free from purely genetic evolution: modern medicine, the internet, the printing press and some several others come under Serres’ watchful eye and his incisive mind.

The following 2 chapters pick up these themes of correcting anthropocentric thinking and the potential for Exo-Darwinian evolution to improve the lot of the planet and its inhabitants. At this point though I find Serres’ optimism in technology and particularly the advent of the internet and social networking more than a little Walter Mittyish and frankly I wondered whether Serres has ever used Facebook.

Serres is clearly an important philosopher and I hope that more philosophers will critique and clarify his work to bring a more relevant branch of philosophy forth that can help mankind fix the future. Keith Moser has done us all a service by bringing him to our attention.… (mehr)

Keith Moser gives an extensive overview of the original – and very apocalyptical – philosophy of Michel Serres. The oeuvre of the French thinker encompasses interdisciplinary works especially in the fields of 1) semiotics, 2) ecology and 3) peace research.

1) In his early studies Serres talked about ‘consumer citizens inundated by the nectar of simulation created by the establishment media’ who had already lost the outside world of reality. Serres suggests that our species possesses a pathological desire to incorporate every single space within our reach into our pervasive realms of symbolic representation. For him, the reproduction of simulacra and no longer production were – positing that in the 1960s – already the driving forces of the global economy.
And now? He states that the cognitive faculty of memory is already exclusively located within the confines of an external source. He pinpoints this phenomenon as one of the most salient features of the exo-Darwinian, hominescent epoch.

2) In the field of ecology, for him, there is only ‘biotic egalitarianism’ as the only philosophical position ‘that aligns with contemporary scientific erudition’. Homo terminator must give way to Homo humilis, he says. He talks about the need of a natural contract as a renewed foundation, both ethical and theoretical, for collective life. He even suggests that non-human agents should be granted legal protection.
Serres thinks that to grapple with the effect of global warming there should a worldwide panel erected where the ‘most gifted scientists’ should give their enlighted advices and warnings, respectively.
As in economics generally this thinker doesn’t even grasp the merits of strictly enforced private property rights and freedom to act within a true liberal society. Instead he laments ‘neoliberalism’ and suggests Soviet-style institutions that should rescue the planet from overheating. Maybe that’s attractive to French communists – it’s definitely not my cup of tea.

3) Most original I found his thoughts about our societal institutions: Matrimony as well as the military draft are – thanks to a larger lifespan which modern medicine helped to foster – no longer adequate: Serres argues that modern man is already a quite different species than Homo sapiens living a few decades ago. For example, living almost completely without pain and defacing scars in our quotidian live we are able to show our naked bodies more freely. And outdated are the modes of teaching that are not adapted to this already ‘different human animal’ whose memory capabilities are reduced dramatically and which uses the all-encompassing memory of the Internet instead.

In sum, Michel Serres is represented here as an inspirational thinker with very apocalyptical leanings. Most disturbing are his solutions of his described most pressing problems which always consists of more or less top-down central planning – as if we didn’t try that thing already?
But, I give him his due: His thought that modern humans are already in a different evolutionary stage than our not so far gone ancestors is really provoking.

The overview itself is a bit too redundant.… (mehr)