The Sensorial, Biocentric Philosophy of Michel Serres and Michel Onfray: Rehabilitating the Human Body
ORCID
Moser: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3824-1021
MSU Affiliation
College of Arts and Sciences; Department of Classical and Modern Languages and Literatures
Creation Date
2026-06-01
Abstract
Based upon their conviction that dominant thought paradigms in Western civilization are guilty of overrationalizing the human agent, the unorthodox contemporary philosophers Michel Serres and Michel Onfray attempt to rehabilitate the human body. These encyclopedic epistemologists, who have a marked predilection for scientific explanations of the world and our place in it, deconstruct extreme philosophical positions that correspond to the pervasive doctrine of rationalism. Adopting a rhizomatic vision of knowledge, Serres and Onfray maintain that the human body is one integrated organism in which everything works together in tandem enabling the subject to find meaning in a universe in which nothing has any pre-determined or fixed essence. Urging us to (re-)establish a direct, sensorial connection to the “world of things” to which everything including homo sapiens belongs by honing our deadened senses that have been numbed by the modern lifestyle and the ongoing evolutionary process they refer to as “hominisation,” Serres and Onfray advocate in favor of an all-encompassing sensorial, hedonistic, biocentric ethic. In the current Anthropocene epoch, both philosophers convincingly demonstrate that the implementation of an ecocentric ethos linked to somatic communions with the rest of the material world could hold the key to averting the impending anthropogenic crisis.
Publication Date
4-1-2018
Publication Title
Pacific Coast Philology
Publisher
Duke University Press
First Page
95
Last Page
110
Rights
Copyright © 2018 by The Pennsylvania State University. All rights reserved. No copies may be made without the written permission of the publisher.
Recommended Citation
Moser, Keith. “The Sensorial, Biocentric Philosophy of Michel Serres and Michel OnfrayRehabilitating the Human Body.” Pacific Coast Philology, vol. 53, no. 1, Apr. 2018, pp. 92–110. scholarlypublishingcollective.org, https://doi.org/10.5325/pacicoasphil.53.1.0092.
