PhD defence A.C.P. (Aldo) Houterman

Below is a brief summary of the dissertation: 

Michel Serres was a philosopher and historian of science trained in the tradition of French historical epistemology in the 1950s. Since his first publications in the 1960s, he became known in select philosophical circles for his method of translation between different scientific fields. From the 1980s onwards, Serres developed his own philosophy through a wide range of publications that integrated demographic, technological, and scientific developments into a distinctive vision of human existence. Since his death, numerous studies have examined the relevance of his work for contemporary issues such as interdisciplinarity, globalization, ecological disruption, and the rise of communication technologies. Strikingly, Serres’s analyses of these developments are consistently intertwined with a profound concern for the corporal condition of human existence, which underscores the constitutive role of our bodies in shaping thought and our relation to the world.

Serres’s reflections on the corporal condition can be further specified in three interconnected domains: (a) an ontology of the body, (b) a philosophy of movement, and (c) an independent philosophy of sport. By focusing on these three elements, this doctoral thesis aims to articulate the structural relations between the corporal condition and contemporary developments such as the climate crisis, urbanization, and the rise of communication technology. A secondary aim is to explore possibilities for translating Serres’s philosophy into embodied practices. While the primary focus lies on sports, connections with medicine and education are also considered.

Drawing on Serres’s diverse reflections on the corporal condition, as well as on the sources he mobilizes, this dissertation proposes a framework applicable to the philosophy of sport and to medical ethics. The first part outlines the contours of a Serresian philosophy of the body, movement, and sport; the second part applies this framework to case studies on algorithmization, the climate crisis, and the phenomenon of noise in music.