Hermes contra Dionysus
Michel Serres's critique of Nietzsche
pp. 151-159
in: Babette Babich (ed), Nietzsche, epistemology, and philosophy of science II, Berlin, Springer, 1999Abstract
Michel Serres is one of the most prolific and increasingly influential contemporary thinkers who has analysed developments in philosophy, literature, and across the arts against the backdrop of the history of science in a series of highly original interdisciplinary studies which collectively represent one of the most illuminating contributions to bridging the divide between "the two cultures." One of the many ways in which Serres stands out among philosophers of his generation in France is by his antipathy to Nietzsche, for where Nietzsche styles himself "the last disciple of the philosopher Dionysus,"1 Serres places his own work under the sign of a different deity, Hermes, and devotes five volumes to his celebration, the first of which (1968) concludes with an opposition of the two gods — respectively, "the father of Tragedy" and "the father of Comedy"2 — which sets Serres programmatically at odds with "Nietzsche's French Moment."3
