Michel Serres: A Critical Introduction

473 Pages·2020·3.274 MB·English

by  Christopher Watkin

MICHEL SERRES
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MICHEL SERRES
Figures of Thought
Christopher Watkin
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Edinburgh University Press is one of the leading university presses in the UK.
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For more information visit our website: edinburghuniversitypress.com
© Christopher Watkin, 2020
Edinburgh University Press Ltd
The Tun – Holyrood Road, 12(2f) Jackson’s Entry, Edinburgh EH8 8PJ
Typeset in 11/14 Bembo by
IDSUK (DataConnection) Ltd, and
printed and bound in Great Britain
A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978 1 4744 0573 7 (hardback)
ISBN 978 1 4744 0575 1 (webready PDF)
ISBN 978 1 4744 0574 4 (paperback)
ISBN 978 1 4744 0577 5 (epub)
The right of Christopher Watkin to be identifi ed as the author of this work has
been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988,
and the Copyright and Related Rights Regulations 2003 (SI No. 2498).
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Contents
List of Figures and Tables vi
Acknowledgements ix
Abbreviations x
INTRODUCTION: MICHEL SERRES TODAY 1
PART I
1. HOW SERRES THINKS: LEIBNIZ, PLATO, DESCARTES 35
2. SPACE AND TIME 93
3. SERRES’S STYLE 154
PART II
4. LANGUAGE 213
5. OBJECTS 270
6. ECOLOGY 329
ENVOI 379
Bibliography 410
Index 447
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Figures and Tables
Figures
1.1 Umbilical thinking 39
1.2 Truth as separation in Plato 50
1.3 Arborescence 50
1.4 Vertically arranged lines 51
1.5 Radially arranged lines 51
1.6 Truth as translation in Serres 58
1.7 Successive fi lters in Descartes’s lines 64
1.8 The sacred model of knowledge 66
1.9 The Cartesian Universal 70
1.10 Opposition by negation 72
1.11 Opposition by generalisation 72
1.12 Leibniz’s superposed fi lters 75
1.13 The procedural universal emerges asymptotically from the
expanding web of relations 84
2.1 The classical understanding of space 94
2.2 The ramble, Ulysses and the fl y 98
2.3 ‘Umbilical’ or ‘queen’ disciplines 110
2.4 Serres’s alternative to umbilical discourse is federation 113
2.5 The classical understanding of time 125
2.6 Serres opposes the classical understanding of time by
generalising and multiplying it 133
2.7 The Baker’s Transformation 142
4.1 The false dichotomy of message and noise 219
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FIGURES AND TABLES 1 vii
4.2 Noise does not obstruct the message, it carries it 220
4.3 The false dichotomy of cosmos and chaos 223
4.4 Noise is not chaos as opposed to order. Both pure chaos and
order are meaningless 224
4.5 In modernity, meaning and truth are the binary opposite of
noise and falsehood 228
4.6 Meaning and existence are found between monotone and
white noise 229
4.7 Material existence and linguistic meaning are found between
monotone and white noise 235
4.8 The important distinction in classical thought is between
being and nonbeing 242
4.9 The important distinction for Serres is between laminar fl ow
and the clinamen 242
4.10 Ecomimesis assumes a double imitation 248
4.11 The sacred model of language 253
4.12 The binary understanding of meaning as either fully present or
utterly absent 259
4.13 Serres’s gradual scale of meaningfulness 260
5.1 The Cartesian object 279
5.2 The Bachelardian object 282
5.3 The Serresian object 286
5.4 Umbilical materialism 291
5.5 Code–matter 293
5.6 Jane Bennett’s ‘bit of anthropomorphism’ 297
5.7 For Serres, humans and non-humans alike receive, process,
store and emit information 298
5.8 The parasite intervenes in an otherwise perfect line
of communication 301
5.9 The roles of emitter, receiver and parasite are not fi xed 302
5.10 The complex, evolving picture of parasitic relations 303
5.11 The cascade of hosts, guests and parasites is turned into a
self-parasitising ouroboros 303
6.1 The double movement of the late modern experience of space 340
6.2 For Descartes, active creation and passive createdness are
dichotomised 363
6.3 In the fetish and world-object, creation and the created are
directly proportional 367
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viii 1 MICHEL SERRES
6.4 In the Cartesian/Neolithic paradigm, relations of affi liation
determine belonging 372
6.5 In cosmocracy, singular identity and general/universal
belonging are directly proportional 373
Tables
6.1 Umbilicisms, abstractive dichotomies and hybrid concepts 341
E.1 Figures of thought across disciplines 396
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Acknowledgements
Special thanks go to David Webb, who generously provided incisive and con-
structive comments on every word of an early version of the typescript. I am
also grateful to Joanna Hodge for her astute observations. I was humbled by the
generosity of everyone who commented on the Introduction when I posted an
early version on academia.edu, in particular Terence Blake, Bryan Lueck, Kalle
Jonasson and Mark Kelly. Thanks are due to the anonymous reviewers who read
the original proposal for this book and fi rst pushed me to write a chapter on
Serres’s style. Carol Macdonald at Edinburgh University Press was more than usu-
ally patient with me on this project, especially in its protracted fi nal stages when
deadlines loomed. This book simply would not exist – and nor would I be the
person I am – without my wife Alison: we have made this. Soli deo gloria.
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