Hermes I: Communication

Michel Serres' introductory volume in his poetic transdisciplinary works, Hermes I: Communication, is recognized as a significant contribution to postwar French philosophy of knowledge. It explores the history of mathematics through Descartes and Leibniz, culminating in a Bachelardian logoanalytic reading of Homer, Dumas, Molière, Verne, and the story of Cinderella. It bridges the gap between the liberal arts and sciences through a profound mathematical and poetic fable regarding information theory, history, and art, offering a new way to think about the production of knowledge during the late twentieth century.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 360 pages
Publication date: 12 December 2023
Publisher: University of Minnesota Press

Michel Serres is a prominent figure in postwar French philosophy of knowledge, alongside Gilles Deleuze, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, and Gilbert Simondon. His early five-volume series, Hermes, which appeared in the 1960s and 1970s, was a significant intellectual event that proposed that culture and science shared the same mythic and narrative structures. Hermes I: Communication is the first volume in a major publishing endeavor to introduce this foundational series into English. Building on the figure of the Greek god Hermes, who presides over the realms of communication and interpretation, Hermes I explores the history of mathematics through Descartes and Leibniz and culminates in a Bachelardian logoanalytic reading of Homer, Dumas, Molière, Verne, and the story of Cinderella. The book presents a unique poetic philosopher's quest to bridge the gap between the liberal arts and the sciences through a profound mathematical and poetic fable regarding information theory, history, and art, establishing a new way to think about the production of knowledge during the late twentieth century. Students and scholars of philosophy will find an extraordinary project of thought as vital to critical reflection today as it was fifty years ago.

Weight: 510g
Dimension: 229 x 152 x 15 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780816678839