When Meteors Vanish in Political Philosophies - Thinking with Michel Serres in Times of New Climate Regime

Abstract

In memoriam of Michel Serres, this essay aims to offer a brief account of the necessity of reading his works in times of political and ecological crisis. Since his opus magnum The Natural Contract, Serres had developed in the last three decades a theory that investigates and rethink the relation of the moderns, since Galileo and Descartes, with what they call “nature” in order to offer a third way to the division between (post-)modern philosophers and dogmatic scientists: the first have been systematically deconstructing all the grand narratives and, the latter have often excluded from their theoretical work any type of moral reflection on the modes of production of scientific practices, and their consequences for humans and non-humans. The path initiated by Serres influenced many contemporary philosophers who have continued and enriched his investigation of the origins and consequences of a new tendency of not doing politics in the epoch of the Anthropocene, of a new escapism that refuses to face the ecological challenges hic et nunc.