De Noordwestelijke Doorvaart

The French philosopher of sciences Michel Serres uses the infamous Northwest Passage between the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean as a metaphor for the connection between the humanities and the natural sciences. In this essay I discuss the meaning of this metaphor and Serres his own transdisciplinary work.

Apart from bringing the seemingly distant disciplines into close connection, Serres also uses the geography and the history of science of the Northwest Passage to illustrate the unpredictable and dynamic territory of transdisciplinarity. Many questions arise when one envisions the voyage Serres invites us to take. And many of these questions Serres answers by narrating what he calls the ‘Grand Narrative’ of the interconnected human and planetary evolution.

This essay follows Serres questioning of disciplinary boundaries, of what keeps these boundaries at place and of the role of philosophy in their overcoming. By weaving together different forms of knowledge and by bringing thought closer to the physical world, we will see how Serres prepares a philosophy which is meant to not only bridge the disciplinary divide but also brings science closer to society.