Reading the World through Somatic Encounters with the Universe in Michel Serres's Philosophy and Sylvain Tesson's Petit traité sur l'immensité du monde

Abstract

"Building upon Michel Serres’s transdisciplinary, sensualist outlook on life, this article proposes a Serresian interpretation of the contemporary travel writer and nomadic explorer Sylvain Tesson’s critically acclaimed essay Petit traité sur l’immensité du monde. Specifically, this exploration focuses on Serres and Tesson’s attempts to rehabilitate our much-maligned five senses by demonstrating that our sensorial faculties are vital epistemological and spiritual vectors that enable us to comprehend the biosphere and our small place in it more fully....When we reconnect ourselves to the universe by revitalizing our dulled senses, which entails a removal of the physical and digital barriers standing in the way of experiencing the splendour of the cosmos to which we are directly and inextricably linked, Serres and Tesson maintain that a more biocentric 'lecture du monde' (Tesson, Petit traité 79) emerges that is paramount
to restoring our lost sense of ecological awareness preventing us from taking action in defence of an imperilled planet on the brink of collapse."