Ocean

A Philosopher’s Route

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Roberto Casati

‘If you want to know, you can’t stay at home, and you have to be prepared to pay a high price.’

The ocean is a kind of otherness. Beneath a glittering surface, it is black. It is one. It teems with life. It is a place, but also the content of that place. It is not inexhaustible and cannot forgive everything. It is the space of doubt and a challenge to knowledge. It is not made for us human beings, yet we depend on it.

Crossing the ocean as a sailor-philosopher, Roberto Casati takes the reader on a truly initiatory journey. The sea’s otherness makes us rethink it from a new perspective, to understand the extent to which it has made us who we are and who we are destined to become. Navigating in a space of seemingly limitless freedom radically changes one’s relationship to the environment, to people, and even to objects. The boat becomes a school of life that compels one to rethink everything in order to act differently. Sailing leads to new ways of knowing: a philosopher’s route.

Roberto Casati is a Senior Researcher with the French National Center for Scientific Research, and Professor at the School for Advanced Study in the Social Sciences (EHESS) in Paris, where he holds the Philosophy of the Ocean Chair.

Published December 1st. Available for pre-order now!

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