A Philosophy of Transport: Michel Serres’ Recursive Epistemology in the Hermes Pentalogy

Focusing upon the five books of his early Hermes series, this article argues that Michel Serres furnishes an accomplished, unconventional philosophical account of communication and mediation-a structuralist epistemology designed to comprehend the sciences in their complexity and plurality-that, even...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Media theory 2021-09, Vol.5 (1), p.202-218
Main Author: Sutherland, Thomas
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Humanities and Social Sciences
Library and information sciences
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:Focusing upon the five books of his early Hermes series, this article argues that Michel Serres furnishes an accomplished, unconventional philosophical account of communication and mediation-a structuralist epistemology designed to comprehend the sciences in their complexity and plurality-that, even decades after its first publication, has significant value for media theory. Two key themes within this pentalogy are highlighted: firstly, its emphasis upon motifs of communication, transport, and circulation, attempting to grasp the scientific field in topological terms, as a kind of networked encyclopaedia; and secondly, its attempt to account for the intricate relationship between the formal and the empirical in all theorization.
ISSN:2557-826X
2557-826X