Study on the Hominescent Body in Michel Serres’ Thinking

Abstract

This contribution discusses Michel Serres’ idea, expressed in the eighties, of the «reappropriation» of the senses (and body) in the way of aesthetics as a «reunified» discourse on the data of sensations and fine arts, and his idea expressed in the nineties of the metamorphism and mimicry of the body, reading them as emergencies of his recent idea of the new «hominescent» body; in order to focus on the latter meanings and implications. First will be examined, precisely in the horizon of Serres’ philosophy of hominescence, Serresian proposal «to return» to the senses and body in the perspective of aesthetics understood as said. Then will be considered Serres’ theming of body metamorphism and mimicry, within which the senses are considered to act as body’s mimicry control. These steps are intended to shed light on the implications of Serres’ recent idea of the «hominescent» body. The objectives of this study are therefore, first of all, the investigation of the Serresian rethinking of the body through the rediscovery of the senses, and highlighting of bodily metamorphic and mimetic processes; secondly, the delineation of Serresian concept of «hominescent» body/bodily hominescence, which is, so to speak, the perspective/result of this re-evaluation of the body.