Sign-In
Cart
The Natural Contract
Paperback
Series: Studies in Literature and Science
Literary CriticismEnvironmental StudiesHistory & Philosophy of Science
Currently unavailable to order
Please enter your email and a message will be sent to you when this product becomes available on our website.
ISBN10: 0472065491
ISBN13: 9780472065493
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
Published: Apr 24 1995
Pages: 136
Weight: 0.40
Height: 0.40 Width: 5.30 Depth: 8.40
Language: English
ISBN13: 9780472065493
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
Published: Apr 24 1995
Pages: 136
Weight: 0.40
Height: 0.40 Width: 5.30 Depth: 8.40
Language: English
Global environmental change, argues Michel Serres, has forced us to reconsider our relationship to nature. In this translation of his influential 1990 book Le Contrat Naturel, Serres calls for a natural contract to be negotiated between Earth and its inhabitants.
World history is often referred to as the story of human conflict. Those struggles that are seen as our history must now include the uncontrolled violence that humanity perpetrates upon the earth, and the uncontrollable menace to human life posed by the earth in reaction to this violence. Just as a social contract once brought order to human relations, Serres believes that we must now sign a natural contract with the earth to bring balance and reciprocity to our relations with the planet that gives us life. Our survival depends on the extent to which humans join together and act globally, on an earth now conceived as an entity.
World history is often referred to as the story of human conflict. Those struggles that are seen as our history must now include the uncontrolled violence that humanity perpetrates upon the earth, and the uncontrollable menace to human life posed by the earth in reaction to this violence. Just as a social contract once brought order to human relations, Serres believes that we must now sign a natural contract with the earth to bring balance and reciprocity to our relations with the planet that gives us life. Our survival depends on the extent to which humans join together and act globally, on an earth now conceived as an entity.
Tracing the ancient beginnings of modernity, Serres examines the origins and possibilities of a natural contract through an extended meditation on the contractual foundations of law and science. By invoking a nonhuman, physical world, Serres asserts, science frees us from the oppressive confines of a purely social existence, but threatens to become a totalitarian order in its own right. The new legislator of the natural contract must bring science and law into balance.
Serres ends his meditation by retelling the story of the natural contract as a series of parables. He sees humanity as a spacecraft that with the help of science and technology has cast off from familiar moorings. In place of the ties that modernity and analytic reason have severed, we find a network of relations both stranger and stronger than any we once knew, binding us to one another and to the world. The philosopher's harrowing and joyous task, Serres tells us, is that of comprehending and experiencing the bonds of violence and love that unite us in our spacewalk to the spaceship Mother Earth.
Wise, rich and poetic . . . not simply a philosophical study of the Environment, or an ecological questioning of Philosophy . . . Nature is acknowledged as an inside force which breaks [the philosopher's] discourse, and opens it up to a vigilant poetic meditation.--Substance: A Review of Theory and Literary Criticism
Serres ends his meditation by retelling the story of the natural contract as a series of parables. He sees humanity as a spacecraft that with the help of science and technology has cast off from familiar moorings. In place of the ties that modernity and analytic reason have severed, we find a network of relations both stranger and stronger than any we once knew, binding us to one another and to the world. The philosopher's harrowing and joyous task, Serres tells us, is that of comprehending and experiencing the bonds of violence and love that unite us in our spacewalk to the spaceship Mother Earth.
Wise, rich and poetic . . . not simply a philosophical study of the Environment, or an ecological questioning of Philosophy . . . Nature is acknowledged as an inside force which breaks [the philosopher's] discourse, and opens it up to a vigilant poetic meditation.--Substance: A Review of Theory and Literary Criticism
Also in
History & Philosophy of Science
The Formative Years of Relativity: The History and Meaning of Einstein's Princeton Lectures
Gutfreund, Hanoch
Renn, Jürgen
Hardcover
$66.00
The Darkness Manifesto: On Light Pollution, Night Ecology, and the Ancient Rhythms That Sustain Life
Eklöf, Johan
Hardcover
$12.99
The Mystery of Life Energy: Biofield Healing, Phantom Limbs, Group Energetics, and Gaia Consciousness
Leskowitz, Eric
Paperback
From $11.99
The Day It Finally Happens: Alien Contact, Dinosaur Parks, Immortal Humans--And Other Possible Phenomena
Pearl, Mike
Paperback
$19.00
The Self-Actualizing Cosmos: The Akasha Revolution in Science and Human Consciousness
Laszlo, Ervin
Paperback
From $9.99
The Agi Chronicles: The Inside Story of the Race to Create an Artificial Superintelligence
Roose, Kevin
Hardcover
$29.70
The Edge of Space-Time: Particles, Poetry, and the Cosmic Dream Boogie
Prescod-Weinstein, Chanda
Hardcover
$28.80
I Told You So!: Scientists Who Were Ridiculed, Exiled, and Imprisoned for Being Right
Kaplan, Matt
Hardcover
From $17.99
Hidden Creatures: Luscious Leeches, Bashful Botflies, and the Wondrous, History-Shaping World of Parasites
Martins, Dino
Hardcover
$27.00
Why We Ask Why: The Science of Explanation and the Human Drive to Understand
Lombrozo, Tania
Hardcover
$27.00
The Earth Said Remember Me: How to Revive Our Memories and Restore the Planet
Mark, Jason Dove
Hardcover
$22.49
Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness
Godfrey-Smith, Peter
Paperback
$19.00
The Case for a Creator: A Journalist Investigates Scientific Evidence That Points Toward God
Strobel, Lee
Paperback
$18.99
Prophecy: Prediction, Power, and the Fight for the Future, from Ancient Oracles to AI
Veliz, Carissa
Hardcover
$31.50
Return of the God Hypothesis: Three Scientific Discoveries That Reveal the Mind Behind the Universe
Meyer, Stephen C.
Paperback
From $14.99
Six Easy Pieces: Essentials of Physics Explained by Its Most Brilliant Teacher
Leighton, Robert B.
Sands, Matthew
Feynman, Richard P.
Paperback
From $10.99
Original Sin: On the Genetics of Vice, the Problem of Blame, and the Future of Forgiveness
Harden, Kathryn Paige
Hardcover
From $17.99
What If? 2: Additional Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions
Munroe, Randall
Hardcover
$28.50
Magnifica Humanitas: Encyclical on Safeguarding the Human Person in the Time of Artificial Intelligence
Prevost, Robert
Paperback
$18.99
The Disordered Cosmos: A Journey Into Dark Matter, Spacetime, and Dreams Deferred
Prescod-Weinstein, Chanda
Paperback
$18.99
What Sheep Think about the Weather: How to Listen to What Animals Are Trying to Say
Thomas, Amelia
Paperback
$16.19
2084 and the AI Revolution, Updated and Expanded Edition: How Artificial Intelligence Informs Our Future
Lennox, John C.
Hardcover
$26.59
When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows . . .: Common Knowledge and the Mysteries of Money, Power, and Everyday Life
Pinker, Steven
Hardcover
From $14.99
The Pleasure of Finding Things Out: The Best Short Works of Richard P. Feynman
Feynman, Richard P.
Paperback
$18.04
Notes on Complexity: A Scientific Theory of Connection, Consciousness, and Being
Theise, Neil
Paperback
$19.00
Everything All at Once: How to Think Like a Science Guy, Solve Any Problem, and Make a Better World
Nye, Bill
Paperback
From $9.99
Unvaccinated Under God: Religion and Vaccine Hesitancy in Modern America
Kieffer, Kira Ganga
Hardcover
$44.93
When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows . . .: Common Knowledge and the Mysteries of Money, Power, and Everyday Life
Pinker, Steven
Paperback
$19.80
Do Aliens Speak Physics?: And Other Questions about Science and the Nature of Reality
Whiteson, Daniel
Warner, Andy
Hardcover
$26.99
Aristotle's Revenge: The Metaphysical Foundations of Physical and Biological Science
Feser, Edward
Paperback
$47.88
Technology and Barbarism: Or: How Billionaires Will Save Us from the End of the World
Nieva, Michel
Paperback
$18.00
(Super) Natural Science: The Real Science of Superheroes, Mythic Creatures, and the (Sci-Fi) Universe
Liu, Charles
Paperback
$23.70
The Blind Spot: Why Science Cannot Ignore Human Experience
Frank, Adam
Gleiser, Marcelo
Thompson, Evan
Paperback
$23.70
The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health
Kennedy, Robert F., Jr.
Hardcover
$30.88
A Mind for Numbers: How to Excel at Math and Science (Even If You Flunked Algebra)
Oakley, Barbara
Paperback
$19.00
Scientific Facts in the Bible: 100 Reasons to Believe the Bible is Supernatural in Origin
Comfort, Ray
Paperback
$8.54
The Darkness Manifesto: On Light Pollution, Night Ecology, and the Ancient Rhythms That Sustain Life
Eklöf, Johan
Paperback
From $11.99
The Fabric of Reality: The Science of Parallel Universes--And Its Implications
Deutsch, David
Paperback
$17.10
Living on Earth: Forests, Corals, Consciousness, and the Making of the World
Godfrey-Smith, Peter
Paperback
From $11.99
Misguided: Where Misinformation Starts, How It Spreads, and What to Do about It
Facciani, Matthew
Paperback
$60.00
Return of the God Hypothesis: Three Scientific Discoveries That Reveal the Mind Behind the Universe
Meyer, Stephen C.
Hardcover
$30.88
For Small Creatures Such as We: Rituals for Finding Meaning in Our Unlikely World
Sagan, Sasha
Paperback
$20.90
The Science of Last Things: Essays on Deep Time and the Boundaries of the Self
Wayland-Smith, Ellen
Paperback
$16.20
Everyday Extraordinary: A Scientist Ponders a Lifetime of Magical, Bizarre, and Paranormal Experiences
Markovsky, Barry
Hardcover
$28.45
Ignorance: What We Do Not Know, Cannot Know, Must Not Know, and Refuse to Know
Szpiro, George G.
Hardcover
$42.00
Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco Smoke to Climate Change
Conway, Erik M.
Oreskes, Naomi
Paperback
$18.99
Finding Darwin's God: A Scientist's Search for Common Ground Between God and Evolution
Miller, Kenneth R.
Paperback
$18.04
Superconvergence: How the Genetics, Biotech, and AI Revolutions Will Transform Our Lives, Work, and World
Metzl, Jamie
Paperback
$20.89
The Beginner's Guide to Constructing the Universe: The Mathematical Archetypes of Nature, Art, and Science
Schneider, Michael S.
Paperback
From $9.99
The Passing of the Great Race: The Racial Basis of European History (With Original 1916 Illustrations in Full Color)
Grant, Madison
Hardcover
$28.11
The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe: How to Know What's Really Real in a World Increasingly Full of Fake
Novella, Steven
Paperback
From $9.99
How the World Really Works: The Science Behind How We Got Here and Where We're Going
Smil, Vaclav
Paperback
$17.10
War on Ivermectin: The Medicine That Saved Millions and Could Have Ended the Pandemic
Kory, Pierre
McCarthy, Jenna
Hardcover
$30.88
Until the End of Time: Mind, Matter, and Our Search for Meaning in an Evolving Universe
Greene, Brian
Paperback
From $11.99
Moral AI: And How We Get There
Sinnott-Armstrong, Walter
Conitzer, Vincent
Borg, Jana Schaich
Paperback
$18.99
This Will Make You Smarter: New Scientific Concepts to Improve Your Thinking
Brockman, John
Paperback
$20.90
Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning
Barad, Karen
Paperback
$48.93
Beyond the Quantum: A Quest for the Origin and Hidden Meaning of Quantum Mechanics
Valentini, Antony
Hardcover
$50.75
The Battle for Your Brain: Defending the Right to Think Freely in the Age of Neurotechnology
Farahany, Nita
Paperback
$19.00
Forgotten Landscapes: How Native Americans Created Pre-Columbian North America and What We Can Learn from It
Rice, Stanley A.
Hardcover
$28.45
How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature, and Informatics
Hayles, N. Katherine
Paperback
$26.00
The Random Universe: How Models and Probability Help Us Make Sense of the Cosmos
Jaffe, Andrew H.
Hardcover
$30.88