A philosophy of transport: Michel Serres’ recursive epistemology in the Hermes pentalogy

<p>When considering the reception of Michel Serres’ oeuvre in relation to the broader corpus of 'theory', as far as it is constituted within the humanities departments of English-language universities, two things stand out: first, that the still- untranslated status of his Hermes pentalogy (1968; 1972; 1974; 1977; 1980) has led to this thoroughgoing philosophical account of communication and mediation being largely neglected; and second, that the lack of significant traction gained by French epistemology within the Anglosphere has meant that the crucial connections between Serres' philosophy and that of Gaston Bachelard are rarely addressed in detail. As such, in this article, I signal toward a couple of themes and motifs contained within these five books that I would regard as potentially valuable for media theory – and in particular, that might help contribute to a media theory better able to reckon with its own status as a mediated (and mediating) object.</p>