Michel Serres (1930b)

Michel Serres, a French philosopher and mathematician, is known for his enquiry into the interrelationships between various systems ranging from science and philosophy to mythology and poetry/literature. Such systems can be compared with one another to determine what each tries to exclude (for example, noise, disorder, or turbulence). This chapter examines Serres’ philosophy and its relevance to processual organization studies. It considers his conceptions of time, translation and mediation, the third-excluded and the third-instructed, multiplicity and complexity, the body and the senses, and interdisciplinarity. In order to understand how Serres can be regarded as an important processual theorist, the chapter analyses his book Genèse or Genesis, which offers an account of creation through a performative poetics. It argues that Serres’ work has the potential to support and deepen processual thinking. It also links the ideas of listening and invention from a Serresean perspective.