Musique

French philosopher Michel Serres'' English translation explores the relationship between random sounds, music and meaning.

In his book Musique, Michel Serres asks himself: where do the sounds of the world come from? The sounds of nature, animals, human beings? And where does music come from? Available for the first time in English, this book practices its title as much as it rethinks it, offering a sound analysis of everything. Music, this way, is not limited to melodies, harmonies and rhythms, but echoes just as well the life of Jesus, the mathematics of the Earth and a theory of everything.

The key here is the concept of tension, in French etymologically related to both time (temps) and space (étendue), which allows Serres to conceptualize music as a universal force, as undetermined and ‘white’ (the combination of every possible color), that gives rise to both time and space, both matter and the immaterial, whose movements shape the world as we know it. In line with both the oldest theories of nature (Lucretius) and the newest ones (string theory), Serres offers us a reading of music that therefore resonates with all the fields of knowledge.