Michel Serres and Material Futures – serie

This book introduces the reader to Serres’ unique manner of ‘doing philosophy’ that can be traced throughout his entire oeuvre: namely as a novel manner of bearing witness.It explores how Serres takes note of a range of epistemologically unsettling situations, which he understands as arising from the short-circuit of a proprietary notion of capital with a praxis of science that commits itself to a form of reasoning which privileges the most direct path (simple method) in order to expend minimal efforts while pursuing maximal efficiency. In Serres’ universal economy, value is considered as a function of rarity, not as a stock of resources. This book demonstrates how Michel Serres has developed an architectonics that is coefficient with nature.Mathematic and Information in the Philosophy of Michel Serres acquaints the reader with Serres’ monist manner of addressing the universality and the power of knowledge – that is at once also the anonymous and empty faculty of incandescent, inventive thought.The chapters of the book demarcate, problematize and contextualize some of the epistemologically unsettling situations Serres addresses, whilst also examining the particular manner in which he responds to and converses with these situations.

Michel Serres captures the urgencies of our time; from the digital revolution to the ecological crisis to the future of the university, the crises that code the world today are addressed in an accessible, affirmative and remarkably original analysis in his thought.This volume is the first to engage with the philosophy of Michel Serres, not by writing ‘about’ it, but by writing ‘with’ it. This is done by expanding upon the urgent themes that Serres works on; by furthering his materialism, his emphasis on communication and information, his focus on the senses, and the role of mathematics in thought. His famous concepts, such as the parasite, ‘amis de viellesse’, and the algorithm are applied in 21st century situations. With contributions from an international and interdisciplinary team of authors, these writings tackle the crises of today and affirm the contemporary relevance of Serres’ philosophy.

Michel Serres captures the urgencies of our time; from the digital revolution to the ecological crisis to the future of the university, the crises that code the world today are addressed in an accessible, affirmative and remarkably original analysis in his thought.This volume is the first to engage with the philosophy of Michel Serres, not by writing ‘about’ it, but by writing ‘with’ it. This is done by expanding upon the urgent themes that Serres works on; by furthering his materialism, his emphasis on communication and information, his focus on the senses, and the role of mathematics in thought. His famous concepts, such as the parasite, ‘amis de viellesse’, and the algorithm are applied in 21st century situations. With contributions from an international and interdisciplinary team of authors, these writings tackle the crises of today and affirm the contemporary relevance of Serres’ philosophy.

Massimiliano Simons provides the first systematic study of Serres’s work in the context of 20th-century French philosophy of science. By proposing new readings of Serres’s philosophy, Simons creates a synthesis between his predecessors, Gaston Bachelard, Georges Canguilhem and Louis Althusser as well as contemporary Francophone philosophers of science such as Bruno Latour and Isabelle Stengers.Simons situates Serres’s unique contribution through his notion of the quasi-object, a concept, he argues, organizes great parts of Serres’s work into a promising philosophy of science as well as a challenge to the narrower field of French epistemology, to which it has often been limited. Simons highlights how the concept encompasses Serres’s commitment to positive relations between science and culture and his rejection of pleas to purify the scientific self from imaginative and cultural elements. It helps to situate Serres between the distinct traditions of Bachelard and Latour as well as progressing the innovative aspects of Serres’s philosophy for current debates in the philosophy, history and sociology of science.Showing how Serres’s philosophy can serve as a normative approach to science and technology, Michel Serres and French Philosophy of Science takes in themes of materiality, religiosity, modernity and ecology to advance a timely alternative to philosophy of science for contemporary life.

Massimiliano Simons provides the first systematic study of Serres’s work in the context of 20th-century French philosophy of science. By proposing new readings of Serres’s philosophy, Simons creates a synthesis between his predecessors, Gaston Bachelard, Georges Canguilhem and Louis Althusser as well as contemporary Francophone philosophers of science such as Bruno Latour and Isabelle Stengers.Simons situates Serres’s unique contribution through his notion of the quasi-object, a concept, he argues, organizes great parts of Serres’s work into a promising philosophy of science as well as a challenge to the narrower field of French epistemology, to which it has often been limited. Simons highlights how the concept encompasses Serres’s commitment to positive relations between science and culture and his rejection of pleas to purify the scientific self from imaginative and cultural elements. It helps to situate Serres between the distinct traditions of Bachelard and Latour as well as progressing the innovative aspects of Serres’s philosophy for current debates in the philosophy, history and sociology of science.Showing how Serres’s philosophy can serve as a normative approach to science and technology, Michel Serres and French Philosophy of Science takes in themes of materiality, religiosity, modernity and ecology to advance a timely alternative to philosophy of science for contemporary life.

This book introduces the reader to Serres’ unique manner of ‘doing philosophy’ that can be traced throughout his entire oeuvre: namely as a novel manner of bearing witness.It explores how Serres takes note of a range of epistemologically unsettling situations, which he understands as arising from the short-circuit of a proprietary notion of capital with a praxis of science that commits itself to a form of reasoning which privileges the most direct path (simple method) in order to expend minimal efforts while pursuing maximal efficiency. In Serres’ universal economy, value is considered as a function of rarity, not as a stock of resources. This book demonstrates how Michel Serres has developed an architectonics that is coefficient with nature.Mathematic and Information in the Philosophy of Michel Serres acquaints the reader with Serres’ monist manner of addressing the universality and the power of knowledge – that is at once also the anonymous and empty faculty of incandescent, inventive thought.The chapters of the book demarcate, problematize and contextualize some of the epistemologically unsettling situations Serres addresses, whilst also examining the particular manner in which he responds to and converses with these situations.

Michel Serres' Dark Society is an urgent call to re-examine our dominant social order in a time of tremendous uncertainty and impending catastrophe, examining how social thought might be reoriented for the Anthropocene by engaging seriously with the work of Michel Serres.Bucking the trend of contemporary social science to treat societal problems as purely dysfunctional and unintended, Steven Brown asks: what if social order is itself a provisional and unstable arrangement? What kind of social science is needed to understand communities living together on borrowed time? Using Michel Serres’ concept of entanglement, this rigorous and accessible book brings his ideas into the sphere of the social sciences, exploring sustainable new ways of living together in the Anthropocene. This new ‘dark’ world is a place of violence, noise and parasites, and swarms of animals – all metaphors that underpin Serres’ worldview and create an entirely new vision of volatile, often feral co-habitation. Situating Serres within contemporary debates in social theory, science and technology studies, and Anthropocene scholarship, Michel Serres' Dark Society offers a non-foundational introduction that resists system-building in favour of interference, translation, and variation. In doing so, it argues that Serres provides not a theory of solutions, but a set of conceptual resources for rethinking what it means to live together amid ecological crisis, technological expansion, and planetary uncertainty.

Throughout his writing, French philosopher Michel Serres described ways of living in the future that could now prove essential in overcoming the destruction of humanity.This introduction to Serres’ ecological thought lays bare a philosophy that drew on a dazzling range of sources from myths, religion, mathematics, advanced science and the humanities and stands out as profoundly relevant to the challenges of what may prove to be the late Anthropocene era. Peter Johnson explores Serres’ key proposals for a new, shared social contract, and draws parallels between his philosophy and indigenous stories about the kinship of all nature. He also explains how Serres questions and enriches popular notions of ‘Big History’, and challenges widespread calls by environmental groups, politicians and corporations for sustainability and adaptability. Throughout, Serres’ thought is contrasted with a variety of contemporary arguments about the social and political roots of the current crisis.Most importantly, Serres’ thought offers hope about possibilities to come, with a particular emphasis on the skills of young people, the opportunities offered by global communication and access to knowledge. The book’s final section describes Serres’ vision for global knowledge sharing and new forms of communication technology and education, making it essential to all those who wish to explore the underlying roots of the ecological crisis and what we must confront if we are to avoid further destruction.