Interdisciplinary
Journal on Human Development, Culture and Education
Revista Interdisciplinar de Desenvolvimento Humano, Cultura e Educação
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vol.1
n.1 December 2000
Interview
with Michel Serres
Marcelo Guimarães
Lima interviewed Michel Serres in São Paulo (Brazil) in October
of 1999.
Marcelo
Guimarães Lima – The issues of Communication, Education
and Cultural Development were the central themes of the International Conference
on Human Development in São Paulo, Brazil (1999) where
you gave the opening talk. These are themes that, in various ways,you examined
in your many books.
Michel
Serres - In the decade of the 1960s, I wrote five books whose
common title was Hermes. This is the name of the Greek
god of messages, of translation, of trade and even of thieves! At that
time, philosophers around me revered mainly Prometheus, hero of the fire
of forges and of production.I made the bet that our civilization would
soon concentrate more on the transmission of messages, than on the production
of objects. And I won the bet! Also, before it, I had written a book
on Leibniz, philosopher of the 17th Century, who called his philosophy
system of the communication of substances. Thereafter, nearly
thirty years after, I wrote a book on Angels. The word Angel derives from
a Greek term that signifies messenger. As there is only one Hermes,in the
old Greek polytheist religion, but there are millions of angels in the
traditions of the three monotheisms, Jewish, Christian and Islamic, the
shortcircuit between the language of Theology and the language of the technologies
of communication, where each of us produce, stock, send and receive messages,
appeared to me to flash a singular light on our modes of thinking.
MGL
- You have recently reflected on the passage from an information society
to a society of continuous formation, a pedagogical society.
The transformation of the savoir (knowledge) of the individual supposes
and it is presupposed by the transformations of institutional knowledge:
the transformations of scientific knowledge and technical knowledge. This
society of continuous creation and recreation of knowledge is, at the same
time, at least in its present stage, a neo-Darwinian society, in which
the systemic control of information at all levels (economic, social, political)
and the “preferential option” for the universal commodification of all
levels of social existence, intensifies rather than abates the “war of
everybody against everybody else”.
MS-
This is a very important question as it concerns our destiny today. Indeed,
knowledge and Education will be decisive, for people and social groups,
in the world of tomorrow. Since I consider myself heir to the Enlightenment,
I still hope that knowledge is in fact a liberating factor. If that is
not the case, one can always try ignorance! But, it is true that the social
constraints that weigh on knowledge seem to make of it an ordinary space
where the power of the strongest dominates.
MGL- To bridge the Humanities and the, so-called, “Hard”Sciences, has been one of the main objectives of you life long work. Recently, what became known as the “Sokal Affair” has shown that, at least in what regards “public opinion”, or more precisely, a large or prominent sector of the mass media in the US and Europe, the gap between the Humanities and the Sciences is as wide as ever: a young professor of physics from New York has gained instant celebrity (his fifteen minutes of fame, as a commentator observed) by attacking with territorial jealousy philosophers, mostly French, who dare to engage, imagine, represent or interrogate the Sciences in their own philosophical works. Certainly, the representation or misrepresentation of Philosophy and its dangers in the public arena is not something new. In the past, however, the risks of Philosophy were a more direct concern of institutions, such as the State and Church. In the mass media environment of today, reflection and speculative thinking are made spectacular. In the name of truth as spectacle, Philosophy is spectacularly condemned, and the domains of knowledge safeguarded. To what results?
MS-
I don't know the “Sokal Affair” well, but I sincerely believe that it may
have had one positive result, which consists in recommending prudence to
all writers or journalists when they speak of Science. A lot of philosophers,
sociologists or others, speak about the Sciences, indeed, without respecting
the elementary rules of training and practice that they imply. It is necessary,
from time to time, to remind them, even if in a harsh manner and, on this
point, Sokal was not the first; it is first necessary, therefore, to thank
him. This said, we have in French a nice saying: "when one empties the
bathtub, one should not throw the child with the water of the bath", that
expresses very well what I think. It is necessary to throw the dirty water,
certainly, but without killing the child.
MGL- In prior interviews you have mentioned Simone Weil as a formative influence in your early development. Simone Weil was a Jew converted to Christianity, a philosopher who lived religion as a daily task, an intellectual who spoke against the violence of the social order and who took arms against Fascism in Spain. Many times an outsider, her commitment to truth and justice can be seen as utterly “untimely” in these rather cynical times we live in. What was (and is perhaps today) your interest in Simone Weil’swork? MS- I read books by Simone Weil immediately after the war. Atthat time, I was a young scientist. I researched specially mathematics. Simone Weil made me understand the importance of the problem of violence, that I had, of course, lived during the war and that marked my sensibility forever.In years 45/50, no one, generally speaking, had analyzed the relations betweenthe sciences and violence. However, in 1945 the atomic bombs exploded over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. A lot of scientists of that generation experienceda serious crisis of conscience at that time. The majority believed that Sciencewas all good and the only good; they were "scientificists". This event especiallyconcerned Physics. But, thereafter, Chemistry brought questions about theenvironment, Biology questions of genetic manipulations; in short, all disciplineswere concerned by questions of ethics. I can say that I became a philosopherbecause of these questions: the epistemological questions could not be consideredin the same terms as before. And the first to ask important ethical questionsconcerning Science was Simone Weil. MGL - In this respect, we can say that the 20th century excelled in the production and use of weapons of mass destruction. How can Philosophy reflect on violence at the end of this century and at the beginning of a newmillennium? MS
- I became a philosopher by reason of the atomic bombs of Hiroshima and
Nagasaki at the end the War, more specifically, the Japanese-AmericanWar.
All my generation was influenced by a terrifying crisis of Science atthe
time: whereas before we believed that knowledge liberated and pacifiedHumanity,
the physicists of the Manhattan project had just made the inversedemonstration.
MGL-
In Gnomon - The
Birth of Geometry you examine “artificial intelligence”, that
is, the intelligence of the artifact, that “precedes” and, in a strong
sense, makes possible, the “natural”, the “intimate” intelligence of the
subject, which, in philosophical modernity, is considered the source and
foundation of all sense, meaning and truth. Intelligence,we may say with
you, is a property of the real, not a gift of the subject.
MS-The word gnomon, in the Greek language, means "the one that understands", "the one who decides" and, therefore, it refers indeed to the subject in themodern sense, to intelligence or the understanding. But the same word means,also, in the same language and then in the sciences, certain numbers in arithmetic or certain lines in geometry, finally: the needle or the axis of the solar dial. This primitive Greek language, first language of rigorous Science, doesn't seem to make any difference between the knowing subject and some very precise objects. At the dawn of Greek philosophy, and until Plato himself, this difference doesn't exist indeed. I tried, in
my book, to recover this deep intuition, in order to better explain the
emergence of geometry. The sun, for example, writes on the surface of the
earth, by means of the shade of the dial, a certain amount of information
on the world and, in particular on the sun itself.
MGL-
The writer does not necessarily have to be self-conscious about his individual
voice, his personal language and literary means, as he uses them.The “spontaneity”
of the literary écriture, (whether consideredas “cause” or “effect”,
it doesn’t matter here) precludes any excessive “objectification” of the
literary effort. The philosopher, however, can make his way of saying also
an object of philosophical reflection.
MS
- Every scientific specialty has its specific language, that evolves with
the inventions and that is controlled by the community of scientists in
real time. What could be, then, the language of Philosophy? If, for example,Philosophy
studies language, it risks to reduce itself to a specialty: for example,
Linguistics, as in France some years ago, or Logic in the United States.
When this happens, we don't have anymore a language able to make the connections
between all specialties, and allowing the construction of a global world
view. However the construction of such a connection has always
been the major preoccupation of Philosophy, since its Greek foundation
and in all of its history. Therefore, the philosopher must learn the most
he can of scientific specialties, to adapt himself to their languages,
to know their history, to understand how these languages have varied, but
not to restrict himself to these sciences, and to know, also, the literary,
the artistic languages and others, to understand them and to attempt to
master them. This program is, at the end, impossible to achieve; yet, the
History of Philosophy shows that all philosophers worthy of this title
have tried to achieve it: Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Leibniz, Diderot,
Hegel, Bergson have worked to assimilate not
MGL-
In its very language, in its expressive dimension, Philosophy would therefore
link the universal and the particular. Or, the “concrete universal” of
the philosophers’ language approaches it to the work of Art. Aesthetic
reflection, I believe it is correct to say, has been a leitmotif running
throughout your works: less explicit at times, more explicit at other times,
but always underlying the reflection on knowledge, scientific developments
and philosophical developments. In the History of Philosophy there are
moments in which the Aesthetic may constitute the very medium of the philosophical
enterprise. If there is a fundamental relation between the work of knowledge
and the work of art, how can we frame that relation today?
MS
- Yes, I never ceased to be interested in the Arts: literature (I have
written on Balzac, Zola, Verlaine, Musil); painting (I wrote on Carpaccio,
Bonnard, Max Ernst); sculpture, to which I have even dedicated a whole
book: Statues, and specially music. I don't believe to have ever
written a book where I don't speak of it!
translated
by Marcelo Guimarães Lima
copyright
(c) 2001 Centro de Estudos e Pesquisas Armando de Oliveira
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