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Of Troubadours, Angels,
and Parasites:
Reevaluating the Educational Territory in the Arts
and Sciences
Through the Work of Michel Serres
Michalinos Zembylas
Michigan
State University
Abstract
This article examines
Michel Serres' philosophy of the "educated
third" and considers his views on a philosophy of
communication. Serres' interdisciplinary writing
constructs themes that can be traced across literature,
philosophy, science, mythology and art, borrowing ideas and
approaches from them and transforming those into original,
provocative and synthetic voices that cut across traditional
disciplinary boundaries. Serres' views provide a refreshing
perspective to educators, especially, those in art education and
science education and advocate a reevaluation of some
contemporary educational ideals to emphasize invention and
imagination.
Contemporary
French theoretical writing is at odds with the project of
Enlightenment and the subversion of the idealism and humanism of
its philosophers. Whether one speaks of Foucault, Baudrillard,
or Lyotard, there is a consensus in critiquing the tradition
inherited by Enlightenment and an interest in deconstructing
rationalism and its pretensions to totalization in various guises
and by different means. But there is one contemporary French
philosopher, Michel Serres, who is not clear whether he should be
included in this arena, in spite of the "common
enemy" he has with these various theoreticians (i.e.,
Enlightenment).
Michel Serres is a
provocative and unorthodox thinker, very little known in the
English-speaking world, although he is one of the best-known
contemporary French philosophers. Serres'
interdisciplinary writing constructs themes that can be traced
across literature, philosophy, science, mythology and art,
borrowing ideas and approaches from them and transforming those
into original, and synthetic voices. By creating these themes
Serres wants to eliminate the distance which is perceived to
exist among the humanities (arts are included here) and the
sciences. His writing style is prophetic, evocative yet
demanding and difficult. This difficulty is partly related to
the rigor with which he constructs the argumentation and
demonstration of his ideas. Serres rejects the traditional
scholarly apparatus of writing, thus one will rarely find any
references or footnotes in his books. As he explains: "If
one had to recopy everything one had read, books would become
alarmingly obese. Even more important, this repetition would
make them not very informative. The day that every text copies
or summarizes that part of the library that concerns it, we will
enter the age of the thesis, of the newspaper, and of
stuttering" (1995b, p. 80). In his books, Serres explores
numerous ways to bridge the sciences with the arts, literature,
and philosophy and argues that the best contemporary education
requires the "crossbreeding" of the humanities and
the sciences and a new educational ideal that nurtures invention
and imagination.
A question that emerges
right upfront is: What new does Serres offer to philosophy
of education and to educational practice? For one thing, he is
not exactly saying totally new things. Take for example his
discussion of the split between the humanities and the sciences.
This has been well explored almost half a century ago by C. P.
Snow's classic essay The Two Cultures and The Scientific
Revolution (1959). In this famous work Snow described the
dangerous split that exists between our literary and scientific
communities and argued that we entered a new age in which
science, tradition, and art have no choice but to unite. The same
can be said about invention and imagination. In curriculum,
Kieran Egan (1992; Egan & Nadaner, 1988) has contended that
developing imagination is crucial in education, and Douglas Sloan
(1983)—at a time when A Nation at
Risksparked a national campaign for more strenuous political
and economic demands on schooling—has argued for the
importance of a way of knowing that engages
the whole person in a deeply meaningful relationship with the
world. Thus, what new does Serres has to offer? Because if he
offers no more than a more detailed or more philosophically
articulated vision of ideas we already know, then educators may
not wish to add yet another philosopher to the
catalogue.
In my view, there are
some distinctions between Serres and others that are of
significance for the educator. I will mention three points now
and explore further their meanings later in the text. First, as
Maria Assad (1999) states, Serres "brought a radical twist
to the controversy over the degree to which scientific discourse
and literary and philosophical theories can coincide without
weakening the persuasive force of their respective models"
(pp. 1-2). Perhaps more than any other contemporary critical
theorist, Michel Serres is attracted by what some consider a
paradoxical venture: a journey in which the distinct voices of
literature, art, and science are mingled in unprecedented way
(what he calls "will to synthesis"). Second, Serres
uses a writing style that seems most uncontrolled and operates
within a space that it is hard to say whether he engages in wacky
theorizing or provides the most brilliant insights. In one
sense, Serres is ahead of his time, because he understands that
the re-evaluation of commonly held ideas and assumptions about
art, science, and literature within contemporary paradigms
signals (and demands) a cultural and intellectual shift of
immense importance; perhaps, such a project has no choice but to
be provocative. Finally, Serres offers an alternative vision and
a new image of vitality that shift our thinking and feeling about
our place in the world and the ways to respond to the new
challenges facing humanity: a life and an education that think
outside of metaphysical categories of unity or rational order and
sense, feel, and hear the "noise" that is the
background of living in the world.
In all three points, one
recognizes critiques that were earlier or later articulated not
only by Marxists, but also feminists, environmentalists,
anti-Imperialists, and even New Age intellectuals (see Fritjof
Capra's The Turning Point, 1982). Serres'
works share a common concern with the ways that modern life as a
whole, although providing possibilities for broader expression
and development, simultaneously subverts those possibilities and
actually ends up threatening to absorb life and thought. But
Serres has created a beautiful meditation bred of the
destabilizing multiplicity of the present age and has emphasized
the importance of nurturing "the multiple" against
the development of a universal culture that only expresses
singularity. His views mark an important contribution to
education because they describe the essential philosophical
issues that we must confront if we are to replace contemporary
educational models of schooling with ways of teaching and
learning that require painful yet exhilarating departures from
"home" and encounters with "the other."
In short, Serres heralds a new pedagogy that advances learning as
"crossbreeding," full of passion and intellectual
daring.
There are
important themes that pervade all of Serres' work: the
relations between local and global, science and philosophy,
history and myth, the world as a network of messages, chaos,
multiplicity, time, education, peace, ecology… Retracing
the steps of Serres' own journey would be as presumptuous
as to undertake the journey he proposes. Because of the
centrality of their position as major themes embedded in
Serres' philosophy about art, science, philosophy and
literature, in this article, I undertake the task of examining
the following two themes and their implications for science and
art education: the first theme seeks to analyze Serres'
ideas on a philosophy of communication modeled after the Greek
messenger god, Hermes (the angel messenger in the Latin
tradition), and the second theme refers to his views on the
"educated third," (le tiers-instruit) or the
"troubadour of knowledge." My aim is to find a way
one might read Serres and problematize his views, as they are
relevant to the education in the arts and the sciences in
contemporary times. Critics of Serres' work have been
quick to point out an excess of poetic language and a lack of
rigorous scientific expression and notation (see Assad, 1993). I
will examine this and other criticisms in the context of his
writing and ideas, and I will explore how Serres' vision
for the "educated-third" and the angel-messenger
represent critical metaphors for re-evaluating some current
educational conditions such as the separation of school subjects,
the lack of passion and enthusiasm for learning or teaching, and
the extreme value put on scientific and engineering employment
with the simultaneous devaluing of the arts and the
humanities.
The article is
organized into five parts. The first part provides brief
information on Serres' background and training with an
emphasis on the events that led to the development of his major
ideas. The second part provides an overview of Serres'
philosophical approach and tries to address some of the problems
in reading him. The third part examines Serres' views on
communication and the forth part his conception of
education—in both these parts a first attempt is made to
indicate some areas in which Serres' thought might connect
with philosophy of education. In the final part of the article, I
make these connections more explicit and I outline where and why
Serres' views on communication and education are useful for
educators in the arts and the sciences both in terms of
philosophy and of educational practice.
Serres'
Background and Training
Serres' background and training first as a mathematician
and then as a philosopher created the backbone of his triple
affirmation: sciences, philosophy, and literature. Serres'
journey from a student of traditional science to revolutionary
science in the late 1940s, then from sciences to philosophy in
the 1950s and finally from traditional philosophy to literature
and philosophy in the 1960s marks the trajectory of his thought.
In his conversations with Bruno Latour (Serres, 1995b), Serres
describes how he was formed by three personal
revolutions.
First, there
was Serres' study of classical science under Bachelard
where he pursued modern concepts in mathematics (algebraic and
topological structures) which confirmed in him "the idea
that this structuralism must be the true one" (Serres,
1995b, p. 35). From his mathematical transformation, Serres
emerged with a whole new way of thinking. "From
there," he says,
I became highly
sensitized to analogous transformations in other
domains—whence my swift acknowledgment of the importance of
Brillouin's work, of information theory in physics, and,
much later, of questions of turbulence, percolation, disorder and
chaos. As changes in attitude, these seemed to me as important
as the revolution in algebraic method. Physics was changing, was
revealing a whole new outside world. After fractal curves and
strange attractors, you no longer feel the same wind, no longer
see the same waves or the same shores as before. (1995b, pp.
11-12)
This epiphany in
Serres' life was followed by a second one in the world of
physics. His revolution marks the passage from classical to
quantum mechanics, and especially in the theory of information
with Brillouin's Science and Information
Theory. Serres admitted that reading this book made
him understand what "an authentic physics and philosophy at
the same time" (1995b, p. 12) would be like. His third
revolution came later (in the 1960s) in the field of life
sciences after reading Jacques Monod's Chance and
Necessity. As he says, he "emerged [from this third
school] with a changed life" (1995b, p. 13).
Serres
points out that his formation (education or training) through
these three revolutions have taught him a new philosophy
"outside the system of ordinary programs and
outside the social milieu that gives rise to what the
press calls ‘mainstream intellectual
movements'" (1995b, p. 13, my emphasis). Serres
emphasizes that he developed the habits of his thought (which
many critics find strange) outside of his contemporary canon of
thinking. And then he tells us that he left the sciences and
arrived at philosophy "for very precise reasons"
(1995b, p. 15), namely, out of will and need.
Serres'
Philosophical Approach
Serres
argues that the Age of Enlightenment was very instrumental in
categorizing as irrational any reason not formed by science. He
holds the Enlightenment responsible for the split between
literature and science, which favors a definition of rationality
supported exclusively by scientific research. The
epistemological rupture between literature and science took place
in the eighteenth century, which sought to label as irrational
anything that was not science. In other words, science aimed at
taking over the totality of reason relegating literature to the
irrational or the imaginary. But as he states:
I maintain that
there is as much reason in the works of Montaigne or Verlaine as
there is in physics or biochemistry and, reciprocally, that often
there is as much unreason scattered through the sciences as there
is in certain dreams. Reason is statistically distributed
everywhere; no one can claim exclusive rights to it (Serres,
1995b, p. 50).
Serres strongly opposes
the division between literature and science—what in
Genesis he calls the "dualistic hell" of
organizing one's understanding of the world in terms of
binary oppositions—and his writing is the best evidence of
that. His approach combines ideas from various fields. For
instance, in the same book, he discusses chaos theory, virtual
reality, the Belgian comic book Tintin, myths, the history of
religions, classical mechanics, weather, distance education,
painting, astronomy and mystical ceremonies of Baal.
In going
through his three personal revolutions, Serres came to realize
that transcending the traditional boundaries between the
different disciplines within the sciences or between sciences and
humanities provides new possibilities for understanding the
world, nature, and life. For example, Serres borrows techniques
and ideas from the sciences and translates them into philosophy,
literature, painting and other "disciplines" and
tries to discover new directions of knowledge or research at
their "crossroads" (Serres, 1997). In Serres'
work, stories and myths, events and anecdotes, pictures and
paintings, all have their place and construct multiple voices and
journeys that cross space and time boundaries. The following
remarks by Rene Girard give an excellent description of
Serres' philosophical approach:
Serres' major
interest is the parallel development of scientific,
philosophical, and literary trends. In a very simplified manner,
one might say that Serres runs counter to the prevalent notion of
the two cultures—scientific and humanistic—between
which no communication is possible. In Serres' view
‘criticism is a generalized physics,' and whether
knowledge is written in philosophical, literary, or scientific
language it nevertheless articulates a common set of problems
that transcends academic disciplines and artificial boundaries.
(As cited in Harari & Bell, 1982, p. xi)
Serres' passionate skepticism and rejection of the
traditional French philosophy of Critique—the rational
separation between nature and culture in the line of Descartes,
Marx, and Sartre (see Latour, 1988;Wesling, 1996)—have been
condemned both by postmodernists and traditional empiricists.
Katherine Hayles says that Serres is confused and needs a logic
lesson; Luc Ferry writes that Serres is a dangerous prophet who
might unite with other mystagogues, get power, and overturn the
order of modernity; Jean Baudrillard, one of Serres'
fiercest critics, argues that Serres should be almost admired as
a small morbid symptom of a doom to be welcomed (Wesling, 1996,
p. 1999). The reactions to Serres' work range "from
admiration for a maverick thinker to incredulity, and finally to
outright rejection" (Assad, 1999, p. 4).
It is true
that Serres' style is difficult and exclusive. He does not
affiliate himself with any traditions. As he said in his
conversations with Bruno Latour (Serres, 1995b) he has
"neither masters nor disciples." Serres emphasizes
that freedom of thought always has to be reinvented; this, at
least partly, justifies his style of making unexpected
connections through space and time. For instance, in one
paragraph we may find ourselves with the Romans, then with Jules
Verne, then suddenly Serres takes us for a journey with the space
shuttle Challenger, and before we realize it, we are among the
ancient Carthaginians enclosing humans in gigantic brass statues
of the god Baal. Serres gives us the impression that he has an
amazing freedom of movement from one space and time to another
without any boundaries. In fact, many readers complain that
although his writing is beautiful and poetic, they cannot
understand anything. As Assad (1999) says, the reader needs
"a sharp mental eye" to catch Serres' metaphors
and the provocative ideas formulated around them. Reading Serres
is therefore a challenge, but we need to learn how to read
provocatively, if we wish to comprehend fully what is at stake
when an epistemological enterprise such as Serres' uses a
vast terrain of scientific, philosophical, mythological,
literary, and artistic expressions (Assad, 1999).
Serres' justification for developing this synthetic
approach comes from at least two ideas that underlie his work:
first, there is the growing dichotomy between the sciences and
humanities and the immense technological and scientific
development that has tremendously empowered science; as a result,
people in the industrialized world view science and technology as
a primary means for progress and relief from their sorrows
(Serres, 1995b). Second, Serres posits a major challenge (since
his early work on Leibniz) to the (problematic) rationalist
assumption that the passage from local to global is always
possible. The question of science and its success in the modern
world is directly related to this assumption and to
science's dreams for determinism and objectivity. Progress
then, according to Serres can only be conceived as a series of
regional, local, temporary transformations. His pursuit of
empirical localities, as Latour points out in his conversations
with Serres, allows him to talk about things from the point of
view of the known, without having to employ the idealist's
trick "of talking about our knowledge of
things" (Assad, 1999, p. 8, author's emphasis).
Serres' work, then, and his emphasis on synthesis have
important relevance to some of the major concerns in modern
society.
Further,
Bruno Latour observes that Serres' style allows him to use
formalism to develop a generalized comparativism that is
linked to the idea that Serres does not believe in linear time
(Serres, 1995b). His "method" is actually an
"anti-method," as Harari and Bell (1982) point out,
precisely because Serres is opposed to the idea of linear
progress and development as exemplified in following a series of
methodological steps.
Method is the
illustration of a given type of knowledge through the set of
results that the method can produce. But the term method itself
is problematic because it suggests the notion of repetition and
predictability—a method that anyone can apply. Method
implies also mastery and closure, both of which are detrimental
to invention. On the contrary, Serres' method invents: it
is thus an anti-method. (Harari & Bell, 1982, p.
xxxvi, authors' emphasis)
Serres' approach
is based upon a synthetic style that allows him to move beyond
time and space boundaries and to demonstrate his arguments by
comparing how messages travel from one place to another. His
aim, Harrari and Bell (1982) add, is not to establish relations
between different domains, or to discover analogies or even to
mix philosophical with scientific contents. Therefore, to speak
of borrowing or of importing and exporting between disciplines,
argue Harrari and Bell, is to miss Serres' point. His
attempt is about discovering new translations and connections
through the sciences and humanities. This is why Serres views
philosophy as the genuine love (philos) for wisdom
(sophia) that encourages unrestricted thinking, one that
recognizes no dichotomies in knowledge; the love for wisdom is so
powerful that it is enough to transcend any rationalist
boundaries. This attitude should explain Serres'
resistance to be identified within any traditions of
epistemology, methodology or school of thought.
One way to
understand Serres' method and style of writing is to
consider his idea that "all authors are our
contemporaries." What really enables Serres to bring
together in the same time frame such different genres,
authors, books and myths? First of all, Serres questions the
traditional definition of "contemporary." He
provides several examples that are illuminating; here is
one.
Consider a
late-model car. It is a disparate aggregate of scientific and
technical solutions dating from different periods. One can date
it component by component: this part was invented at the turn of
the century, another ten years ago, and Carnot's cycle is
almost two hundred years old. Not to mention that the wheel
dates back to neolithic times. The ensemble is only contemporary
by assemblage, by its design, its finish, sometimes only by the
slickness of the advertising surrounding it. (Serres, 1995b, p.
45)
The car, then, can be
dated from several eras. "Every historical era is likewise
multitemporal, simultaneously drawing from the obsolete, the
contemporary, and the futuristic. An object, a circumstance, is
thus polychronic, multitemporal, and reveals a time that is
gathered together, with multiple pleats" (1995b, p. 60).
Likewise, one may ask, how many books appearing today are really
and entirely contemporary. In a sense then, Serres is completely
indifferent to temporal distances and maintains that everything
is contemporary. For him Lucretius and Pythagoras are no more or
less distant than La Fontaine or Newton. The fact that a
human-made product is an assemblage of various scientific
solutions and techniques during different historical periods
should be enough to make all authors and products
"contemporary."
Serres' view about the "multitemporal"
character of objects is reminiscent of the work of Lewis Mumford
(1895-1990), the great urban historian, who described something
similar in his book the Pentagon of Power (1970). In that
book Mumford writes of the "polytechnic" in which an
era will be utilizing techniques from many times all at the same
time, that technology does not simply disappear to be replaced by
better technology (except in our contemporary times in which we
seem to ruthlessly discard things). Serres meets Mumford in
arguing that specific technologies carry with them not merely
particular mechanical ways of doing things but cultures and lives
and values. To shear these off from our modern lives is a great
loss. Any approach to current problems that aims us toward
oblivion of this notion of the "multitemporal" holds
us within the same illusory dimension that enabled us to neglect
and forget the deep ecological and spiritual
roots of human existence.
Serres
develops a metaphysics of prepositions, which he articulates in
Conversations on Science, Culture and Time (with Bruno
Latour) andAngels, (both translated in English in 1995).
Serres is dissatisfied with traditional philosophy which speaks
in verbs and stresses nouns instead of relationships inspired by
prepositions. Take for example, the prepositions from, by,
to says Serres. "From... indicates origin,
attribution, cause, and thus almost anything one wishes...
Likewise, the preposition to or by denote ways of
tracing relations more than they fix the outlines of these
relations. A verb or a substantive would fix them" (1995b,
p. 106). Serres' critique of traditional metaphysics is
that it is concerned so much with substantives (Being, God etc.)
at the expense of mobility, directionality, and relationality
expressed by prepositions. Parallel to this idea is Serres
preference for topology instead of geometry. As he explains,
geometry provides a "static" description of space
whereas topology is more dynamic and sensitive to the
prepositional dimensions of place.
In addition
to his metaphysics of prepositions, Serres uses a wide range of
metaphors that enable him to connect his travels beyond the
traditional boundaries of space and time. For example, Serres
uses scientific concepts throughout his work (e.g., chaos, noise,
singularity) in both metaphorical and aesthetical manner. His
poetic and metaphorical language is powerful in pointing out
analogies and connections that are truly unpredictable by his
reader. Since the use of metaphors is being traced in
Serres' texts and is central to his writing, I will explore
two of the metaphors that have established two important themes
in Serres' philosophy. The first metaphor/theme seeks to
analyze Serres' ideas on a philosophy of communication in
which the Greek messenger god, Hermes (the angel messenger in the
Latin tradition) brings together various
"disciplines," and the second metaphor/theme refers
to his views on the "educated third," (le
tiers-instruit) or the "troubadour of knowledge."
Because of their importance, the metaphors of communication and
education will allow us to approach his views about what is
currently at stake in our world and how educators can benefit
from considering Serres' inquiry into the cultural,
epistemological, and spiritual foundations of
education.
Hermes,
Angels and the
Parasite: Serres' Philosophy of
Communication
In his
five-volume collection of essays, Hermes I to V
(selections of these essays are published in the book Hermes:
Literature, Science, Philosophy), Serres introduces Hermes,
the Greek god, his main character and alter ego, the messenger
who travels across space and time, making unpredictable and
unexpected connections between objects, persons and events.
Hermes is mediation, translation, multiplicity, communication.
Hermes embodies the figure of a free mediator who wanders through
time and space and who establishes connections. What is
surprising in Serres' conception of Hermes as a mediator
who rapidly moves from place to place through time (as is evident
from Serres' writing) is its mathematical aspect. Perhaps
it should not be that surprising after all, if one considers that
Serres was trained as a mathematician interested in mathematical
logic. Serres has imported into his philosophy a mathematical
style of argumentation. Thus, in a sense he is a technical
philosopher, as Latour points out. But as Serres says in The
Troubadour of Knowledge (1997), quoting from
Montaigne's Essays: "Where mathematics
can't go, let myth go, and where myth does not want to go,
let Gascon dialect go."
Serres' use of Hermes is reminiscent of hermeneutics. The
word derives from Hermes and implies that the idea of
hermeneutics as a theory of interpretation (and consequently of
communication) is necessary when there is a possibility for
misunderstanding. Hermes translated the "word of
Gods"; an interpreter translates the written text, and a
teacher "translates" the literature. In all cases we have the
assumption that the first is alienated from the second and is in
need of more appropriate assimilation. Understanding then is
aided by the mediation of a hermeneut, which accomplishes this
assimilation. According to Gadamer (1975), the pleasure such
understanding elicits is the joy of knowledge (which does not
operate as an enchantment but as a kind of
transformation). It is worth exploring this idea a bit
more since there are interesting connections with Serres'
work.
Gadamer (1975) wrote
extensively about "play" and posits that it is an
ontological event in which horizons of understanding are tested
and explored. Play for Gadamer makes evident that the participant
is interwoven into an event, that one can only understand, if one
allows oneself to be lifted into its play. The "losing of
the self" in play is not a negation but rather the
emergence of true being, a kind of transformation. An
essential characteristic of understanding is the imagination of
the interpreter. Also, the creative aspects of understanding
consist a particular manifestation of imagination. Serres'
metaphor of Hermes and his emphasis on invention and imagination
imply a similar kind of transformation in which the person who
wishes to learn must risk a voyage beyond one's assumed
horizons. To be educated then, according to both Serres and
Gadamer, is to become a different person, to depart from
"home" and encounter otherness, to emulate Hermes and
travel across diverse fields/endeavors, to be separated from the
familiar and determined.
Further, in
his book The Parasite, Serres (1982b) develops one of his
most powerful metaphors, "the parasite" which he
describes as an "uninvited guest," "a dangerous
pest," and "a transmissional noise." As it is
known, if the parasite eats too much, then it will kill its host
and it will die by the same token. Serres argues that the term
"parasite" has three meanings. Firstly, in French
(and in Greek too) the parasite is someone who eats at the table
of another without being invited. Secondly, if one draws the
term from parasitology, the parasite can be a microbe, a single
cell organism or even an insect that feeds on a host. Finally,
the third meaning has to do with the notion of static on the
line, that is, "noise" within communication. Serres
explains that there is a common thread between these three
meanings that makes the issue of communication extremely
significant. Their link is the parasitic relationship, one that
is unbalanced such as in social relationships. One gives the
parasite food and in return it makes fine speeches (words), as
Serres points out (see Mortley, 1991). However, the view of
parasite in negative terms misses the point, because the parasite
is an integral part of the system that brings perturbation. In
this sense, the parasite, says Serres, constitutes the
"condition of possibility of the system." By way of
disorder, the parasite invents something new and produces a more
complex order (Harari & Bell). For Serres, then, the
parasite does not have only a negative presence; on the contrary,
the parasite can be a source of invention precisely because it is
part of a complex system that produces something new. An example
of appeal of this notion in educational theory is the attempt to
think outside of determined categories of rational
order—both in terms of content and form—and hear the
"noise" that generates new understandings.
Serres' bewildering juxtapositions of contemporary
scientific phenomena with mythic and religious narratives have
baffled many critics and readers. His unorthodox translations
and transportations of knowledge from and to different times and
spaces reflect the holistic way he perceives the problems of life
and human existence, that is to say, a world where everything is
interrelated with everything else. Serres undertakes a task of
discovering these interconnections in his books. For example,
The Parasite (1982b) is about animals, our relations to
our closest neighbors, to work, meals, sickness; The Natural
Contract(1995d) is about the land, cities, the law,
justice, the planet earth; The Troubadour of Knowledge
(1997) is about rivers, mountains, love, youth, education
(Serres, 1995b, p. 168). As Serres tells Bruno
Latour,
May these...
[interconnections like the above in the three books I mention]
never cease and, like the pieces of a mosaic, may they fill all
of existence and all that can be thought about, from a blade of
grass to the fate of the gods, but, especially, may the answers
come less from books that are read and recited or from a packet
of index cards than from direct and often painful experience of
the state of things. Whoever does not construct a
world—place by place, object by object, faithfully, with
his hands, with his own flesh, creating a totality—is
devoting himself not to philosophy as to criticism, logic,
history etc. (Serres, 1995b, p. 168)
Serres wants philosophy
to have the courage to embrace differences and multiplicities and
to be open to new directions and possibilities that avoid paying
allegiance to rationalistic assumptions that want to portray the
world in neatly framed packages. Serres is like Hermes in that
he wants to address the multiplicities of the world and therefore
he has to travel over multiple times and spaces. Ultimately, in
this world we are all messengers like Hermes, and if we want to
construct a meaningful communication among ourselves, we need to
"travel" and transcend the artificial boundaries we
(or others) impose (whatever these may be). This idea is of
interest to educators in the arts and sciences who explore issues
like space against time, universalism versus localism, and the
link of communication to invention (and creation), because such
issues mirror the problems of life and human existence in a
holistic universe, i.e., a universe wherein nothing can exist on
its own terms, but rather must exist as part of a complex web of
interrelations. (A similar idea is found in Fritjof Capra's
recent book The Web of Life, 1996). This philosophy may be
regarded as one that offers help to art and science educators to
inspire their students to be open to multiple directions and
create alliances between sciences and arts—something that
Serres views as a value of adaptation, of tolerance, and above
all, of future survival.
Serres
acknowledges that his aim at constructing a synthesis is one of
the most serious difficulties that readers face when they read
him. "No doubt the greatest difficulty," he says,
"lies in my wish to be encyclopedic, followed by my desire
for synthesis, in the hope of going everywhere, of not missing
anything, in order to gradually build a world" (1995b, p.
89). He views this synthesis as the ultimate goal of
philosophy. The function of philosophy (and of education, as he
points out in The Troubadour of Knowledge) is to invent
the conditions of invention. This is precisely why Serres values
the practice of total solitude, the necessity for freedom from
all bonds. The metaphor of Hermes allows Serres to achieve this
by constantly moving around; it is an intellectual strategy that
avoids metalanguage. As he explains: "I avoid
metalanguage, because usually it is only used for publicity.
What's the point of saying, ‘I just did this or
that'? If one really does it, it's obvious"
(1995b, p. 91). This approach is related to Serres' idea
that there is no universal method one needs to follow to reach
some place. Serres demonstrates in his various books—which
follow a variety of pathways—that the most appropriate
method is drawn from the very problem one has undertaken to
resolve. Therefore, as he argues, "the best solutions are
local, singular, specific, adapted, original, regional"
(1995b, p. 91). Universal metalanguage, in his opinion, is
comfortable and lazy, it doesn't invent, it just follows,
it repeats. In suppressing the local, Serres asserts, we blind
ourselves to the actuality of the world.
Serres' conception of synthesis is based on relations which
he develops through systems of expressions that allow him to
produce all possible connections and expositions. His
abstractions and his argumentation are unrelated to any
metalanguage or any preconceived hypotheses. He makes his
synthesis on the basis of modes of relation, of transports, of
wandering. This is why he uses Hermes to establish these
connections, because Hermes allows him to move freely beyond
traditional boundaries of space and time. Serres seeks to
synthesize ideas based on the local, risk, chaos and
fluctuation. His systematic destruction of metalanguages of
essences advocates a fragile synthesis; this fragility though is
not fragmentation, but is defined as a desire for unity that is
local and only useful once. In other words, it cannot be found
in any metalanguage under any circumstances.
On the other hand, if we
think about what is happening at this point in Serres'
argument, we may observe that he is trying to make
"synthesis" (against the tendency for order) into a
kind of principle, a metalanguage that explains communication,
disorder, and knowledge. The irony is that in transforming
synthesis into a principle it no longer speaks of diversity but
of "a nostalgic unity recoverable only in myth"
(Hayles, 1988, p. 11). But his effort nevertheless represents a
vision that helps us understand that "our thought, our
understanding, our life, our masteries would just be foolish and
simple if they maintained ties only to an orderly world"
(Serres, 1995c, p. 133).
Serres rejects the
classical perception of interpretation (which implies a certain
pre-established harmony and order) and promotes local
interpretation that reconciles the need for synthesis while
maintaining the usual aspects of a demonstration—unity,
clarity, economy, closure, saturation—without assuming
fixed points or pre-determined structures (Serres, 1995b). In
his approach, new, localized and adapted tools have to be always
re-invented when one is engaged in exploring something. This is
why he defends the empirical and the non-reducibility of the
empirical over the logical, because he does not think that the
linguistic aspect exhausts all the ways one can know the
world.
Most recently, Serres
uses angels as the means to construct relations. This is an
extension of his reflection on global space as a worldwide
network of messages, as a space filled with angels, figures of a
plural Hermes. In his book Angels: A Modern Myth (1995a),
Serres offers a philosophy of movement, of communication, showing
how angels as message-bearers—appeared in religion and
ancient legends for thousands of years—are still part of
our modern world, our means of bringing together and
understanding science, art, and literature. As he explains:
"They [angels] are restless, unsystematic [...]
troublemakers, boisterous, always transmitting, not easily
classifiable, since they fluctuate. Making noise, carrying
messages, playing music, tracing paths, changing paths, carrying
[…]" (1995b, p. 118). But alongside these
message-bearing systems of modern life, we create unspeakable
injustices, poverty, famine, and wars. The role of the
messenger, Serres argues, is as important now as it was in
Biblical times, thus we need a philosophy of communication to
deal with the grotesque inequalities of modern life.
Angels is illustrated with an astounding breadth of
images, ranging from Renaissance paintings, to film stills,
satellite photographs, computer microchips, and photographs of
sculptures in India. Serres views the role of the messenger
(Hermes or angel) as ethical in search for ways to bring people
together and eliminate injustice.
The "Educated
Third"
In his book
The Troubadour of Knowledge, Serres uses the metaphor of
the "educated third" through which he analyzes his
philosophy about learning and pedagogy:
Learning consists of
such crossbreeding. Strange and original, already a mixture of
the genes of his father and mother, the child evolves only
through new crossings; all pedagogy takes up the begetting and
birthing of a child anew: born left-handed, he learns to use his
right hand, remains left-handed, is reborn right-handed, at the
confluence of both directions... There is no teaching without
this self-begetting... This holds for bringing up bodies as much
as it does for instructing. The half-breed, here, is called the
third-instructed. (Serres, 1997, p. 49)
The idea of
crossbreeding emphasizes that any efforts to separate the
sciences from the arts and the humanities is "dangerous and
foolish" (Serres in Huyghe, 1993). An "educated
third" can be imagined in a context of a "third
place" where a mixture of culture, nature, sciences, arts
and humanities is being constructed. "When something is
learned," says Serres, " a third person is produced
[...] The moment you acknowledge otherness, learning has this
modifying effect. It is not a matter of developing a philosophy
of the Other. The Other is the second person. We are talking
about the educated third person begotten by the encounter between
the self and the other" (Serres in Huyghe, 1993, p. 6).
This "educated third" will blend together our
multiple heritages and will integrate the laws; he/she will be
the inventor of knowledge, the eternal traveler who cares about
nature and his/her fellow human beings.
I call this Sage
"le Tiers-Instruit," the Instructed Third,
knowledge's troubadour: expert in formal or experimental
knowledge, well-versed in the natural sciences of the inanimate
and the living; at safe remove from the social sciences, with
their critical rather than organic truths and their banal,
commonplace information; referring actions to relations, direct
human experience to surveys and documents, traveler in nature and
society; lover of rivers, sands, winds, seas, and mountains;
walker over the whole Earth; fascinated by different gestures as
by diverse landscapes; solitary navigator of the Northwest
Passage, those waters where scientific knowledge communicates, in
rare and delicate ways, with the humanities... ceaselessly
wandering across the span that separates hunger from surfeit,
misery from wealth, shadow from light, mastery from servitude,
home from abroad; knowing and valuing ignorance [...] finally,
above all, burning with love for the Earth and humanity. (1995d,
pp. 94-95)
Education is a mixture
of cultures, a connection among the arts, sciences, and
humanities. The educated third represents the value of tolerance
for multiplicity and difference, the alliance between nature and
humans and above all, of the future survival of human
beings.
Implicit in
the notion of the "troubadour of knowledge" is the
belief in the potency of imagination and invention that subverts
fixed, steady knowledges (and school curricula) and enacts
his/her transitions across space and time without any
teleological purposes. "Learn everything, certainly, but
only in order to know nothing. Doubt in order to create,"
says Serres (1997, p. 98). Serres argues that teaching and
learning should be about how to invent new knowledge, new
alternatives in life. "This invention and the hope of it
thus entice one to an adventure from which one does not return
and that can be described in terms of exodus and not of method,
of birth and crossbreeding, as wandering rather than as an
itinerary or a curriculum" (1997, p. 99). In other words,
it is crucial to provide the space and the opportunities to
children to recover their imaginative and creative learning (what
Egan calls "imaginative learning," 1992, p. 53).
The failure to stimulate and develop the
imagination in teaching and learning shapes education theory and
practice. This means that the teachers' own use of
imagination and creativity is an important aspect of teaching.
Therefore,
The goal of
instruction is the end of instruction, that is to say,
invention. Invention is the only true intellectual act, the only
act of intelligence. The rest? Copying, cheating, reproduction,
laziness, convention, battle, sleep. Only discovery awakens.
Only invention proves that one truly thinks what one thinks,
whatever that may be. (Serres, 1997, p. 92-93)
Serres' philosophy
and the education he pushes for are ones of invention—of
the creation of concepts and connections—which is close to
Deleuze's definition of philosophy (see Deleuze &
Guattari, 1994). Imagination and invention are highly valued by
Serres; thus, for him education is nonexistent and oppressive
without aiming at invention. He writes:
I have passed enough
of my life on warships and in lecture halls to testify before
youth, which already knows, that there is no difference between
the purely animal or hierarchical customs of the playground,
military tactics, and academic conduct: the same terror reigns in
the covered playground, in front of torpedo launchers, and on
campus, this fear that can pass for the fundamental passion of
intellectual workers, in the majestic shape of absolute
knowledge, this phantom standing behind those who write at their
table. I sense it and divine it, stinking, slimy, bestial,
returning as regularly as the bell rang, opening and closing
colloquia where eloquence vociferates in order to terrify
speakers all around. (1997, p. 134).
Serres despises
conformity, rules, and norms that exercise a form of intellectual
terrorism on people, because these prescribed rules destroy
creativity and imagination by imposing limits on what should be
done in order to achieve something. It is invention that
breathes life and excitement in learning, says Serres, not
prescribed curriculum content with pre-assigned roles for
teachers (who "teach") and students (who
"learn"). All learn from each other. This is how
people empathize with others; when they can "see" the
other's point of view and travel with him/her in a
different world from one's own. Imagination helps transcend
conventional thinking and provide meaning to experience; teaching
and learning which ignores imagination ignores a central
component that will help learners to make meaning of their
experience (i.e., enact Hermes' journeys, or the
troubadour's travels).
One might argue that
this image of the "troubadour" romanticizes the
notion of instruction and learning. However, I believe that
Serres' ideas resist romantic temptations, because first of
all, he rejects the notion of any kind of center of knowledge and
second, he warns us about the danger of the (global) threatening
of localized epistemologies, the only possibilities that can make
a real difference in practice. Serres is clearly against the
fragmentation of knowledge that is responsible for reproducing
power relations at the global level (the power accumulated by
science on the expense of the arts is one example of this). His
philosophy of communication and his conception of education are
inspirations for educators in the arts and the sciences who want
to provide opportunities to their students to have evocative
learning experiences. The "troubadour of knowledge"
is the future subject of our society and designates an inventive
sort of becoming that travels across boundaries in order to
discover new paths of transformations and translations of his/her
experiences. The notion of interdisciplinarity, for instance,
(at all levels of education) establishes the lost link between
science and ethics, since one sees the wider implications of an
act, a belief or a decision across artificial boundaries, as it
really affects the lives of other peoples.
In this
respect then, the "troubadour of knowledge" is an
example of a "rhizomatic" knower—in
Deleuze's (1987) terms—or a "hybrid" and
a "cyborg"—in Haraway's (1991)
terms—and represents an effort by Serres to define a
political and ethical ontology that is not separated from other
aspects of life. Such a description provides the foundations for
a post-humanist view of subjectivity and education in which the
"troubadour" refuses to be defined in terms of the
"ex" prefix, as in the word ex-cluded.
This
exclusion is a serious problem in education, as Serres says.
When teachers or children are excluded from their own profession
or from learning, respectively, education becomes a site of
terror and isolation.
There are thousands
of books on teaching that have never served any purpose other
than to enable inspectors to terrorize teachers. No amount of
teacher training can provide you with specific details about the
individual pupils in such-and-such a class at such-and-such a
time of day, and so the more specific the textbook, the more
illusory it is. As far as teaching is concerned, giving
practical instructions—advising teachers to get their
pupils to read the newspapers, for instance—often amounts
to giving abstract instructions. The reality consists of
particular cases and particular types of pupil. Generally
speaking, educational theory is middle-of-the-road, neither
specific nor abstract. It is much less useful than it claims to
be or is thought to be. The issue I am interested in is, what
are the necessary conditions for learning? (Serres in Hughe,
1993, p. 6-7).
For Serres, then, the
important question (as a philosopher) is to describe the
conditions that make learning possible and not to prescribe the
content of a curriculum or a set of rules children and teachers
should follow; such an attitude will undoubtedly destroy
people's creativity, excitement, and intuition.
Throughout
his books, Serres argues for an intimate connection among wisdom,
invention, and love. This connection is what needs to guide
practical reasoning and action; thus, practical reasoning is open
to doubts and uncertainties and rejects the dualisms of
reason/emotion, theory/practice, sciences/arts and so on.
Success in education depends on our wisdom about the ways of
love. Therefore, wisdom (and philosophy) is not about knowledge,
for even if one had all the knowledge in the world, one would not
necessarily be wise about how to live his or her life. In fact,
Serres says that with the development of science—and
consequently, our knowledge—we have not become more wise or
moral about how we treat each other and nature. The role of a
good philosophy and a good education, according to Serres, is
about helping people become wiser about loving and caring for
each other and their world around them.
Looking at
contemporary educational curricula, it seems that almost all
subjects and objectives are cognitive and intellectual (Garrison,
1997). The sciences, arts, and humanities are taught as isolated
subjects that aim at "disciplining" their followers
into following predetermined rules and staying within their
"normal" boundaries. But Serres emphasizes,
"we are exchangers and brewers of time" (Serres,
1995b); the exchange is what defines us, not the modern
definition of time (or "discipline") that bifurcates
past from present, and sciences from arts/humanities. As
exchangers we are "nomads"—as Deleuze (1987)
says and Braidotti (1994) also reiterates—with new
figurations of subjectivity that do not follow any prescribed
hierarchies. Serres' vision of the "educated
third" is a nomad who is always becoming, moving
across established categories, "blurring boundaries without
burning bridges," as Braidotti (1994, p. 4) says. bell
hooks (1990) describes this kind of nomadic consciousness as
"yearning." Yearning transcends boundaries of race,
class, ethnicity and gender and builds on empathy and love for
the construction of solidarity and coalition. In this respect,
both hooks and Serres speak of a nomadic consciousness that has
both epistemological and ethical/political implications and aims
for an education founded on the wisdom of love.
Implications
The attempt has already
been made, in the preceding discussion, to indicate some areas in
which Serres' thought might connect to philosophy of
education. Here some slightly more focused connections will be
discussed, as these are relevant both to educational philosophy
and educational practice in the arts and the sciences.
In the midst of various
efforts for school reform around the world, there seem to be some
things that never change. Subject matter is still most often
taught in inflexible blocks, and facts and skills are further
isolated from meaning and real life to be memorized in an
unexcited manner (Jagla, 1994). Although at the beginning of the
previous century John Dewey did an immense amount of work on the
topics of wisdom, the education of practical reasoning,
experiential learning and the encouragement of excitement and
discovery, we enter the new century with the same problems as
those in Dewey's time: our schools are boring places, the
time for teaching arts is decreasing, there is no enthusiasm and
excitement for learning as the children move from lower to upper
grades, not to mention the increasing violence. What does
Serres' views have to offer in all these?
I believe
that Serres' views—especially those about invention
and love in education—offer a number of ideas that
problematize some of the contemporary educational ideals and help
us move to more holistic ways of teaching and learning. First of
all, Serres recognizes the importance of education (the way he
defines it, i.e., in an organic, ecological manner) for the
survival of humanity: "All we have is education," he
states, "to make us adaptably prepared for the
future" (1995b, p. 184). Ultimately, then, as he assures
us elsewhere in his books (especially inThe Natural
Contract), what is at stake is about being prepared for the
future in order to survive. It is an issue of survival because
with the growing technology and its use for committing more
violence against our fellow human beings, there are not many
options left. Serres suggests a new educational philosophy that
aims at achieving more tolerance which does not exclude. Serres describes a holistic way of knowing through
feeling, imagination, and invention, a way of knowing which
leads, not to the possession of scientific facts, but to genuine
insight that has moral significance.
Second,
Serres proposes that to overcome evil and violence, educators in
all areas need to pursue invention instead of imitation. His
argument is that a pedagogy of invention goes against homogeneity
that increases categorization and linear thinking. Linear
thinking leads to absolute order and exclusion of the other; this
is, in turn the root of evil (Assad, 1999). This is particularly
important in art and science education where linear thinking
shuts down imagination and creates minds that are incapable of
problem solving. But Serres adds a new dimension to this by
arguing that invention is not simply a cognitive issue but
ultimately an ethical response to evil and violence.
Serres' notion of a new time is linked to how invention
works against evil, because his moral philosophy is enacted in a
topological space that moves beyond linear boundaries of time.
This new time connects people and discourses in a context of
inventive freedom and promotes tolerance for the
"different." In other words, by emphasizing
invention, educators in the arts and the sciences promote more
tolerance.
Third,
Serres' views help us elaborate further the role that art
and science education can play in promoting peace and justice.
As he points out, we need to be prepared to learn from each
other, even if, what others can "learn" us
("learn" here is used in a bi-directional way) is
what it means to be poor and miserable. Serres considers us
ethically responsible to protect the weakest and poorest; at the
moment that there are other fellow human beings who are suffering
in this world (primarily because the economical progress of the
North does not come without a loss for the rest of the world)
then it is as if we have forced them to stay poor and
miserable with our actions, laws, and decisions. Such a
perspective emphasizes the importance of caring and empathy that
humans need to show for each other, if we are going to overcome
violence and poverty in modern society. Many of us in the North
think that there is nothing interesting or valuable to be learned
from the countries of the South. The concept of technological
and economic progress—as emerged especially after Second
World War—became the primary driving force for human
progress and a source of a great division between North and
South. Rethinking the idea of progress—art and science
education can help problematize "progress"—is
necessary, if we want to establish a new, more holistic
relationship among nature and ourselves. These views point to the
role that art and science education can play in preparing the
people for cooperation and peaceful coexistence.
Further, in
Angels, Serres (1995a) argues for a conception of justice
as mercy and pushes for the idea of justice that is based on
equality of access and "the share of things."
Justice, says Serres, is prior to judgment, reason and law where
the human is defined as the being that "cries out in pity
in the face of the poor tortured victim." In both
Angels and The Troubadour of Knowledge, Serres
re-defines philosophy as the love of wisdom and argues that
philosophy is the wisdom of love: "Love is the sum of all
philosophy," he says, echoing similar ideas expressed by
Pascal, Rousseau and Levinas. There is not a reason why art and
science educators cannot inspire their students to actualize
their potential through passion, love, and desire for
learning.
Fourth,
Serres emphasizes that the wisdom of love needs humility and
humans seem to forget the lessons from history about humility,
i.e., he links love with the need for humility. This notion helps
art and science educators put things in a wider perspective:
promoting passion and love can actually bestow values of humility
on students. Such feeling of humility is necessary, if one
considers the history of the species on earth.
Species disappeared,
and others, literally, were humbled. Those that survived
remained because they renounced unique mastery, power and glory,
the horrifying competition, when they were faced with the
announcement of collective death that would immediately follow
definite victory. In order to survive, then, in themselves and
by themselves, they made this mute decision, tacitly imprinted in
their coded gene. There lies the mark of their humility.
(Serres, 1997, p. 88-89)
The arrogance that
characterizes humans is evident in how we mistreat both each
other and nature. This attitude is not unrelated to the power of
reason and science that humans have accumulated since
Enlightenment. Serres predicts that one day humans will learn
their lesson.
Today, the animal
seems to bend, humbled, before man. Our forgetting induces this
stupid illusion [...] Too young, having arrived late, only a few
million years old, we never acquired the memory of previous
reigns: the era of the creeper, that of the spider, of the
scarab, the reign of the mammoth, of the fly, or of the cow
[...] Proud, arrogant, filled with power and glory or actively
stretched toward them, homo humilis seems not to know that
his destiny, written in his name (just as the primordial, final,
and definitive decision of plants and animals is mutely inscribed
in the genome of the species) will one day lead him to humble
himself. (1997, p. 89).
Serres' stance against arrogance and the coming days where
humans will be humbled is a call for peaceful democracy that is
ethically based on love. At the end, says Serres, "[T]here
is nothing real but love [of the world and one another], and no
other law" (1995d, p. 50). Love signifies what people can
become, if they are humble and care for each other.
Serres' view sounds idealistic and reminds us of the
education of "eros" in ancient Greece (see Garrison,
1997). Wisdom of love allows us to recognize what is valuable
for others, the world, and ourselves. Serres implies that the
supreme aim of philosophy and education is indeed love. It is
from this thought that the theory of the "educated
third" and the parasite emerges, traversing a path that can
only be negotiated in an idealist language.
Fifth,
Serres' views help educators in the sciences and the arts
to question the very nature of knowledge, as it is structured and
presented in school systems.
Our textbooks teach
us very early on to separate those who study the humanities from
those who manipulate slide rules, those who work with letters and
texts from those who use numbers, those concerned with
interpersonal relations from those concerned with the physical
world. We have now institutionalized this separation in our
universities by distinguishing between the faculty of arts (or
letters, or humanities) and the faculty of sciences. (Harari
& Bell, 1982, pp. xi-xii)
As a result of this
bifurcation, we create, at least, two kinds of populations of
learners: the "smart" children who are
"inclined" to the sciences and will become scientists
and engineers and the "not so smart" children, the
artists and the humanists who lack scientific knowledge. Of
course, Serres is not the first one to point out the gulf between
the two populations as it continues to grow, especially as more
and more specialization in the sciences becomes the canon.
"Education today," says Serres, "produces
scientists who, generally speaking, are ignorant outside their
own fields, and cultured people who know nothing about science.
Most of today's problems stem from the separation between
these two groups" (Serres in Huyghe, 1993, p. 6). One
wonders (with a great dose of sarcasm but genuine concern)
whether with this rate of specialization we will soon reach the
point where all humanist subjects will be extinct from science
programs at the university level (and vice versa).
Further,
Serres' views help educators (especially in the sciences)
problematize the evolution of modern knowledge. Harrari and Bell
(1982) discuss how the increasing complexity of the problems to
be solved calls for more and more specialization (divisions,
separations, territories, disciplines, schools of thought etc.).
As Serres emphasizes, modern science has acquired its
effectiveness precisely because of the growing specialization of
knowledge. He observes that the division among the disciplines
into very narrow areas is certainly one of the causes of the
"success" of science. His criticism of the modern
university—I would also include education at all levels
starting from the elementary school to the university—is
that its structure and organization perpetuates the artificial
divisions between science and arts/humanities. Serres provides
strong argumentation to educators who wish to find ways to
subvert this evolution—e.g., through nurturing
students' intuition.
Intuition,
according to Serres, is one of the most significant
characteristics of invention. "Do you want to talk about
invention?" asks Serres. "It's impossible
without that dazzling, obscure, and hard-to-define emotion called
intuition. Intuition is, of all things in the world, the rarest,
but most equally distributed among inventors--be they artists or
scientists" (1995b, p. 99). Education has a basic
responsibility for promoting the use of imagination, intuition,
and emotion. Openness and creativity in a classroom provide
experiences for both teachers and students to make the
connections that Serres is talking about, connections that
transcend the boundaries of school subjects and are constructed
because one has the desire and passion to pursue an exciting idea
and enjoys exploring it. Serres suggests that what is missing in
education today are intuition, caring, invention and
imagination. Although I hardly know anyone who disagrees on
that, very few educators have the will or take action to make the
transformations that will bring about dramatic
changes.
Finally,
Serres' perspective brings important ideas to educational
practice. The consequences of his call for invention and
imagination inevitably manifest a different kind of classroom.
The art of teacher who wants to be inspired by Serres'
ideas is to get to know his or her students and present the
significance of Serres' recognition of multiplicity and
imagination through writing poetry, creating fantasies, drawing,
photography, songwriting, and dramatizing problems or situations
as some media for stimulating imagination of alternatives
(Brookfield, 1987). Immersion in a scientific or artistic
experience can lead to imagining and inventing alternatives,
especially for learners who normally think in linear
problem-solving ways. Engaging learners' imaginations and
encouraging invention are not simply a matter or technique.
Teachers must themselves be emotionally engaged. As Egan writes:
"[T]he call on teachers to construct affective images
requires primarily that they vivify their own feelings
with regard to the subject matter. This framework cannot be
adequately used if planning is seen solely as a conceptual task;
it has to bealso an affective task (1992, p. 113,
author's emphasis). This requires the development of a
broader view of professional practice, and above all, an
empathetic understanding of the subject matter and the
learner (Zembylas, 2002).
Conclusion
In the
course of this article, I have shown the new opportunities that
are open when educators in the arts and the sciences consider
Serres' philosophy of the "educated third" and
his views on a philosophy of communication. Serres'
philosophy can be empowering for educators precisely for its
potential to open up, through the encouragement of invention,
intuition, imagination and emotion, spaces where alternative
possibilities and forms of agency can be discovered both for
educators and students. His views can be politically empowering
too, because they aim at creating coalitions that respect
differences and multiplicities while engendering transformations
that build on empathy and caring. His notion of the
"troubadour of knowledge" as well as his metaphors of
Hermes, the parasite, and the angels provide a powerful vision
for art and science education, one that is capable of freeing
children and educators from the effects of dogmatism, one that
can bring back to schools the lost liveliness and beauty of
learning.
My deepest
desire in writing this article about Serres' views and
their implications in art and science education was to show how
his pedagogy transforms our perception of teaching and learning.
With Serres in mind, there are more possibilities to be
perceived, inquired into, and actualized. Throughout his
philosophy, Serres argues for an intimate connection among,
learning, love, imagination, invention, peace, and justice. But
above all, Serres reworks the taken-for-granted territories among
the sciences, the arts, and the humanities and enhances our
understanding in interpreting and freeing ourselves from
contemporary educational ideals. He has created a conceptual
landscape that is of immense richness, full of passion, emotional
and intellectual daring. It may well be Serres as an
"interdisciplinary" teacher that best represents his
educational contribution into creating a new image of vitality in
teaching and learning.
Note : For their insightful critical
observations, I am indebted and thankful to the editors of the
International Journal of Education and the Arts,
Tom Barone and Liora Bresler, and to two anonymous reviewers.
Their encouraging critical comments helped me explore fascinating
connections of Serres' work with other philosophers and
educators. They have my gratitude because their insights made
this whole "adventure" of reading Serres so much more
wonderful.
References
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About the
Author
Michalinos
Zembylas
Michigan State
University
Email:
zembylas@msu.edu
Michalinos Zembylas is
an adjunct professor of teacher education at
Michigan State
University. His research interests are in the area of
emotions in
teaching and learning science and technology, science
and
technology studies,
curriculum theory, international comparative science
education, and
postmodernism/poststructuralism. His research has been
recently published
in a variety of education journals including the
Journal
of Research in
Science Teaching,
International Journal of Science
Education,
Research in Science Education, Educational Theory,
Journal
of Curriculum
Studies, Educational Philosophy and Theory, Teachers
and
Teaching: Theory
Into Practice. He also
contributed chapters to various
edited
collections.
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