The Five Senses: A Philosophy of Mingled Bodies
Oct 2016 · Bloomsbury Publishing
Ebook
368
Pages
reportRatings and reviews aren’t verified Learn More
About this ebook
Marginalized by the scientific age the lessons of the senses have been overtaken by the dominance of language and the information revolution. With The Five Senses Serres 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?
The book won the inaugural Prix Médicis Essai in 1985. The Revelations edition includes an introduction by Steven Connor.
The book won the inaugural Prix Médicis Essai in 1985. The Revelations edition includes an introduction by Steven Connor.
About the author
Michel Serres (1930-2019) was Professor of the History of Science at Stanford University, USA, and a member of the Académie Française. He is the author of Eyes (2015), Statues and Times of Crisis (2014) all published by Bloomsbury.
Rate this ebook
Tell us what you think.
Reading information
Smartphones and tablets
Install the Google Play Books app for Android and iPad/iPhone. It syncs automatically with your account and allows you to read online or offline wherever you are.
Laptops and computers
You can listen to audiobooks purchased on Google Play using your computer's web browser.
eReaders and other devices
To read on e-ink devices like Kobo eReaders, you'll need to download a file and transfer it to your device. Follow the detailed Help Center instructions to transfer the files to supported eReaders.
