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Gilbert Simondon

Gilbert Simondon (2 October 1924 – 7 February 1989) was a French philosopher whose work centered on the processes of individuation and the ontology of technical objects.^[1] Born in Saint-Étienne and educated at the École Normale Supérieure, Simondon developed his ideas under the influence of Gaston Bachelard and Georges Canguilhem, earning his agrégation in philosophy in 1948.^[1] His main doctoral thesis, L'individuation à la lumière des notions de forme et d'information (defended in 1958 and published in 1964), posits individuation as an ongoing operation resolving metastability in a pre-individual field, applicable across physical, vital, psychic, and transindividual domains, thereby challenging hylomorphic schemas of substance and form.^[2] Complementarily, Du mode d'existence des objets techniques (1958) examines technical objects as evolving entities with their own reality, advancing from abstract elemental stages to concretized forms adapted to environments, and critiques the cultural estrangement from technics that treats them as mere tools rather than mediators of human becoming.^[3] Simondon's framework emphasizes the primacy of relation and becoming over fixed essences, influencing thinkers such as Gilles Deleuze and Bernard Stiegler in their ontologies of difference and technics.^[3]

Early Life and Education

Childhood and Initial Interests

Gilbert Simondon was born on October 2, 1924, in Saint-Étienne, a city in central France renowned for its mining and manufacturing industries.^[1] His father, Hyppolite Simondon, originated from Tence in Haute-Loire and sustained severe injuries at Verdun during World War I at age 19, subsequently training at a school for the disabled before working as a postal employee in Saint-Étienne.^[1] His mother, Nathalie Giraud, came from a farming background in Issoire, Puy-de-Dôme, providing a contrast between rural agrarian roots and the urban industrial setting of his upbringing.^[1] From an early age, Simondon displayed attentiveness to the technological and human challenges arising from mechanization in both industrial and agricultural contexts, shaped by his immersion in Saint-Étienne's manufacturing environment.^[1] This exposure to operational technical processes fostered nascent speculative inquiries grounded in direct observation of machinery and production systems, rather than abstract theorizing or external ideological frameworks.^[1] His initial intellectual pursuits reflected a broad curiosity spanning philosophy, literature, and history, with an empirical orientation toward understanding the functional realities of technical objects in everyday life.^[1]

Formal Education and Influences

Simondon entered the École Normale Supérieure (ENS) in Paris in 1944, commencing his studies at the institution during the final years of World War II.^[1] ^[4] He remained at ENS until 1948, where his curriculum emphasized an interdisciplinary integration of philosophy with scientific disciplines, including physics and engineering.^[4] This exposure to technical and empirical methods contrasted with more abstract philosophical traditions, fostering Simondon's later preference for analyzing causal processes through concrete, observable mechanisms rather than idealized forms.^[1] In 1947, while at ENS, Simondon deepened his scientific training by studying physics and earning a certificate in mineralogy from the Faculty of Sciences at the University of Paris.^[1] He completed a Licence de Philosophie in 1948 and a Licence de Psychologie in 1950, both from ENS, which provided a foundation in rational inquiry informed by experimental validation over speculative metaphysics.^[5] These qualifications underscored his commitment to bridging humanistic and technical domains, evident in his early explorations of how physical and engineering principles could inform philosophical individuation without reliance on preformed essences.^[1] Simondon's formative influences included the epistemological rationalism prevalent at ENS, shaped by figures like Gaston Bachelard, whose emphasis on scientific epistemology and epistemological breaks encouraged a break from hylomorphic dualisms toward dynamic, process-oriented analysis.^[6] This environment privileged hands-on technical reasoning, as seen in Simondon's preparatory work in the early 1950s, where he linked educational insights to empirical studies of technical operations, anticipating his doctoral research at the Sorbonne.^[5]

Academic Career

Teaching Roles and Institutions

Simondon began his academic career teaching philosophy and preparatory courses at the Lycée Descartes de Tours from 1948 to 1955.^[1] Concurrently, he served as a lecturer in psychology at the Institut de Touraine from 1950 to 1963, an institution that evolved into the Collège littéraire de Tours.^[1] In 1955, he joined the University of Poitiers as an assistant professor in the Faculty of Letters and Human Sciences, later advancing to full professor around 1960, where he directed certificates in psychology and founded an experimental psychology laboratory that same year.^[1] During this period, he also taught social and industrial psychology at the University of Lyon from 1961 to 1963, alongside shorter appointments at the University of Saint-Étienne in 1961–1962.^[1] Simondon's career progressed to the Sorbonne (University of Paris), where he was appointed associate professor in 1963 and elevated to professor holding Chair B of Psychology in 1965, a position he maintained until his retirement in 1983.^[1] In this role, he directed the general psychology course and established the Laboratory of General Psychology and Technology, reflecting his integration of psychological instruction with technical applications drawn from student empirical observations.^[1] He further taught agrégation preparation seminars at the École Normale Supérieure in 1968, and held visiting positions at the Universities of Nice in 1969 and Lille in 1970.^[1] These extensive teaching responsibilities across multiple institutions, spanning psychology and related empirical domains, constrained his output of published works, as administrative and instructional duties predominated over dedicated research time.^[1]

Major Publications and Theses

Simondon's earliest significant publication, Du mode d'existence des objets techniques, appeared in 1958 and originated as a report drawing on empirical examinations of concrete machines, including the guillotine, to delineate stages of technical evolution from rudimentary mechanisms to advanced systems characterized by increasing integration and efficiency.^[1]^[3] This work emphasized verifiable processes of concretization observable in historical and operational developments of machinery, such as the transition from disparate components to unified functional ensembles.^[7] In 1958, Simondon defended his dual doctoral theses at the University of Paris: the principal L'individuation à la lumière des notions de forme et d'information, which integrated concepts from information theory to analyze metastable systems and genesis through potentiality and actualization, and the complementary L'individuation psychique et collective.^[8] A partial version of the principal thesis, retitled L'individu et sa genèse physico-biologique, was issued in 1964, focusing on individuation processes in physical and biological domains grounded in observable phenomena like crystal formation and cellular organization.^[3]^[9] The complementary thesis, L'individuation psychique et collective, remained unpublished until 1989, when it detailed the extension of individuation principles to human psychology and social structures, employing causal applications of information dynamics to explain relational emergences without reducing them to preformed substances.^[10] Similarly, the complete principal thesis saw its final unpublished sections released in 1989, completing the framework's exposition on form, information, and technical mediation in ontogenetic terms.^[1] These delayed publications underscored Simondon's reliance on precise, empirically anchored delineations of technical and informational operations, often derived from contemporaneous scientific advancements in physics and engineering.^[11]

Core Philosophical Concepts

Critique of Traditional Metaphysics

Simondon rejected the Aristotelian hylomorphic scheme, which posits the individual as arising from the union of pre-existing form and passive matter, as fundamentally inadequate for explaining the empirical reality of genesis.^[12] In this model, form acts as an organizing principle imposed externally, while matter serves as inert potential, but Simondon argued that such a dualism abstracts from the internal dynamics and energies driving actual processes, treating becoming as a mere assembly rather than an irreducible operation.^[13] This critique, central to his 1958 doctoral thesis L'individuation à la lumière des notions de forme et d'information, underscores how hylomorphism privileges static substances over relational and causal mechanisms, failing to capture the primacy of process in ontological reality.^[12] Central to Simondon's objection is the scheme's empirical inadequacy when confronted with physical phenomena, such as the formation of crystals from a supersaturated solution, which exemplifies a metastable system resolving internal incompatibilities.^[13] Here, the pre-individual medium—charged with potentials in a state of provisional equilibrium—undergoes transduction upon nucleation, propagating ordered structure through physical propagation rather than by form being stamped onto undifferentiated matter.^[13] Traditional metaphysics, by contrast, overlooks this causal realism, deriving from observable physical and informational interactions, in favor of idealistic preconceptions that render genesis secondary to already individuated terms.^[14] Simondon thus advocated reconceiving ontology through the lens of metastable systems, where pre-individual reality harbors unresolved tensions amenable to causal resolution, dismantling the form-matter binary as a socially conditioned abstraction that obscures the primacy of becoming.^[12] This shift prioritizes first-principles analysis grounded in verifiable physical operations, exposing classical philosophy's neglect of how individuals emerge as phases within ongoing processes rather than as finalized composites.^[13]

Principle of Individuation

Simondon's principle of individuation reframes ontology by conceiving the individual not as a pre-existing substance or hylomorphic composite of form and matter, but as the outcome of an ongoing operational process that resolves inherent tensions within a pre-individual metastable reality.^[15] This pre-individual state constitutes a dynamic system charged with potentials, akin to a supersaturated solution or supercooling where equilibrium is provisional and pregnant with incompatibilities across scales of magnitude, such as molecular and macroscopic levels.^[16] Rejecting substantialist traditions that posit individuation as secondary to a unified being, Simondon argues that individuation is primordial, generating both the individual and its defining traits through mediation of these tensions.^[13] The process unfolds via transduction, an amplification of structure from an initial nexus—such as a seed crystal—propagating information and resolving the metastable disequilibrium in successive phases, thereby organizing energy and establishing relative compatibilities.^[15] This operation does not exhaust the system's potentials; the resulting individual remains a theater for further individuations, retaining residual metastability as a source of ongoing becoming rather than achieving final stability.^[16] Simondon emphasizes relational dynamics over isolated entities, where individuation emerges immanently from the system's internal resonances without reliance on external substantial principles.^[13] Centrally, Simondon distinguishes genetic individuation—the causal genesis through which structure propagates and tensions resolve—from mere chronological sequencing, prioritizing the former's empirical verifiability in physical analogies like phase transitions.^[13] For instance, in crystallization, a metastable supersaturated medium undergoes transduction upon perturbation, yielding a structured lattice that manifests the resolution of energetic incompatibilities without presupposing a prior individuated form.^[16] Such examples underscore a causal realism grounded in observable physical mechanisms, where individuation operates as a verifiable operation bridging disparate magnitudes through propagated compatibility.^[15]

Philosophy of Technology

Existence and Evolution of Technical Objects

In Du mode d'existence des objets techniques (1958), Gilbert Simondon posits that technical objects possess an autonomous mode of existence, distinct from mere human artifacts or extensions of vital impulses, characterized by their capacity for self-coherent evolution through interaction with a technical milieu.^[17] These objects emerge as solutions to human needs but gain intrinsic reality via a phylogenetic lineage, progressing from initial abstract schemas—disunified assemblies of disparate elements—to concretized forms where components integrate multiple functions for enhanced efficacy.^[18] This evolution is not anthropocentric projection but a causal process driven by empirical invention and adaptation, privileging the object's functional unity over subjective interpretations.^[19] The developmental trajectory of technical objects unfolds in verifiable historical stages, beginning with primitive tools that impose form on raw matter in a hylomorphic manner, yielding rudimentary efficacy limited by external dependencies.^[20] Subsequent phases yield associated technical objects, such as early machines, where elements begin converging toward systemic coherence; for instance, the Newcomen atmospheric engine of 1712 operated as a segmented system reliant on separate boilers and condensers, achieving basic pumping but lacking internal harmony.^[17] Concretization advances this toward modernity, as seen in James Watt's 1769 separate condenser design, which unified thermal cycles into a more self-sustaining operation, reducing energy loss and amplifying output through multifunctional components compatible with industrial milieus.^[21] Analogous progress marks transitions from manual forges to automated steel production, where iterative refinements embed sensing, regulation, and amplification within the object itself, fostering autonomy without romanticizing pre-technical simplicity.^[19] Simondon counters alienation narratives—prevalent in cultural critiques that portray machines as dehumanizing abstractions—by emphasizing the causal dignity of technical lineages, wherein evolution manifests genuine individuation rather than imposed estrangement.^[18] Alienation arises not from the objects' inherent nature but from a cultural failure to grasp their genesis and operational logic, mistaking dynamic systems for static tools devoid of vitality. This perspective underscores functional efficacy as the metric of progress: concretized objects, like the Guimbal turbine, achieve equilibrium by aligning internal structures with environmental demands, yielding reliable performance metrics—such as sustained hydraulic output under variable loads—over ideological tropes of technological rupture.^[17] Thus, technical evolution demands recognition of the object's milieu-embedded reality, enabling informed mediation rather than defensive abstraction.^[21]

Concretization and Technical Milieu

Simondon described concretization as the maturation process of technical objects, wherein initially abstract and heterogeneous elements—unified only through external human intervention—progress toward internal coherence, with structure and function becoming increasingly unified to resolve inherent tensions and incompatibilities.^[18] This evolution is not teleological but arises causally from the progressive integration of scientific principles into technics, narrowing the gap between theoretical abstraction and practical operation, as seen in the transition from primitive artisanal tools to industrialized machinery where disparate components, such as mechanical linkages and energy sources, consolidate into self-regulating systems.^[22] For instance, Simondon analyzed the concretization of the steam engine, where early designs relied on separate boilers, cylinders, and condensers with manual adjustments, eventually evolving through iterative inventions to integrated assemblies that minimized energy loss and maximized operational unity by the mid-19th century.^[23] The technical milieu, or associated milieu, functions as the co-individuating environment projected by the technical object itself, comprising a techno-natural nexus that sustains and is sustained by the object's operation, rather than a pre-existing backdrop.^[24] This milieu rejects anthropocentric dualisms positing tools as mere extensions of human agency, emphasizing instead reciprocal causality where the object conditions its milieu through operational necessities, such as the heat dissipation and material synergies required for a turbine's function, which in turn shape surrounding infrastructural elements like cooling systems and fuel supplies.^[25] Empirical observation of industrial evolutions, such as the refinement of milling machines from 18th-century wooden frames to 20th-century alloy-integrated units, verifies this dynamic: inventions resolve structural incompatibilities by aligning the object with its emergent milieu, enhancing efficiency without presupposing external teleology.^[19] In Simondon's framework, concretization advances through phases of invention that address metastable tensions within the technical lineage, verifiable via historical case studies of machinery where initial over-determination by abstract schemata gives way to empirical convergence, yielding objects that operate as unified individuals in harmony with their milieus.^[26] This process underscores causal realism in technics, prioritizing the object's internal logic over hylomorphic impositions, as evidenced by the progression from vacuum tubes—comprising isolated glass envelopes, filaments, and grids prone to failure—to semiconductor transistors by the 1950s, which internalized amplification functions into a singular crystalline structure, drastically reducing externalities like vacuum maintenance.^[21]

Extensions to Other Domains

Individuation in Nature and Biology

Simondon theorizes physical individuation as emerging from a pre-individual metastable equilibrium, where a system harbors latent potentials and incompatibilities that propel transduction—a propagative resolution of tensions—toward partial structuration without achieving full stability.^[15] This process manifests empirically in phenomena like phase transitions, such as the supercooling of water below 0°C, where molecular incompatibilities trigger nucleation and crystallization into ice, propagating order through the medium as of 1850 experiments by François Monge confirmed metastable states in liquids.^[16] Electromagnetic individuation similarly arises in charged particle fields, where potential gradients resolve into polarized structures, as observed in 19th-century electrostatic experiments yielding dipole formations from uniform charge distributions.^[27] In biological systems, individuation extends physical transduction into vital regimes, characterized by recurrent causality and sustained metastability that amplifies resolution across scales, such as in plasma membranes where lipid bilayers maintain voltage gradients—typically -70 mV in resting neurons—facilitating selective permeability and signaling cascades.^[28] Cellular differentiation exemplifies this, as totipotent embryonic cells in metastable states, driven by morphogen gradients (e.g., Bicoid protein concentrations in Drosophila embryos, peaking at 10-100 nM), undergo asymmetric divisions resolving into ectoderm, mesoderm, and endoderm lineages by resolving informational tensions without hylomorphic pre-formation, as evidenced by 1980s lineage-tracing studies in C. elegans revealing 959 somatic cells from invariant cleavages.^[29] Simondon critiques vitalism causally, rejecting irreducible élan vital as mysticism; instead, vitality intensifies physical individuation through topological continuity, where life's unity stems from perpetual resolution of pre-individual charges rather than a discontinuous leap, aligning with empirical observations like ATP-driven proton pumps in mitochondria (yielding 3-4 ATP per NADH oxidation) that sustain dissipative equilibria without invoking non-physical forces.^[30] ^[27] Information functions here not as static code but as dynamic modulation resolving metastable incompatibilities, preserving ontological parity between physical crystals and biological organisms by treating both as genesis events, thus evading reductionist atomism while grounding claims in observable transduction phases.^[31]

Psychic and Collective Individuation

In Simondon's framework, psychic individuation extends the ontogenetic process beyond the biological individual, resolving persistent pre-individual metastabilities through the emergence of an interior polarity that distinguishes subject from world. This phase arises when the vital being confronts unresolved tensions from prior individuations, necessitating a transduction that integrates perception and affectivity to perpetuate becoming.^[32] Unlike substantialist views of the psyche as a preformed essence, Simondon posits it as a dynamic resolution, where the pre-individual charge—energetic potentials inherited from physical and vital phases—demands causal propagation via relational operations rather than static unity.^[33] Emotion plays a central causal role in psychic individuation, functioning as a mediator that discloses and structures pre-individual tensions, such as anxiety or boredom, into coherent phases of subjectivity. Far from epiphenomenal reactions, emotions signal metastabilities requiring resolution, enabling the psyche to reflexively intervene in its own ontogenesis and link the individual to broader relational fields, including rudimentary technical engagements that amplify perceptual structuration.^[29] This process avoids reduction to isolated mental states, emphasizing transduction's empirical propagation: emotions propagate changes across the subject's interior-exterior relations, fostering a non-substantialist unity grounded in ongoing crisis resolution rather than predefined harmony.^[32] Collective individuation operates concomitantly with the psychic, forming transductive ensembles where multiple psychic individuals converge on shared pre-individual potentials, yielding a transindividual dimension that exceeds solitary subjectivity. These groups emerge through mutual causal interactions, propagating resolutions across participants and sustaining metastability via functional compatibilities, often mediated by technical objects that align human operations with environmental demands.^[33] Simondon identifies the collective as ontogenetically anterior in process, not as a subsuming totality but as a relational becoming that individuates through dephasing—disclosing tensions for collective transduction—thus critiquing ideologies of atomized individualism or homogenized collectivism as failures to engage this dynamic.^[29] In contrast to mass society's alienation, where individuals devolve into interchangeable elements disconnected from causal individuation, Simondon affirms collectives as metastable systems—such as institutions—that channel technical and social mediations for ongoing ontogenesis, prioritizing functional hierarchies rooted in transduction over egalitarian abstractions or power critiques detached from empirical resolution. Institutions, as ensembles of compatible operations, resolve pre-individual incompatibilities by propagating technical norms that enhance collective vitality, ensuring hierarchies serve causal perpetuation rather than arbitrary domination.^[32] This transindividual relation underscores that full individuation demands both psychic interiority and collective exteriority, rejecting normalized views of social forms as mere aggregations in favor of their role in perpetual becoming.^[33]

Reception and Influence

Posthumous Recognition

Simondon's death on February 11, 1989, coincided with the publication of the previously unpublished concluding section of his 1958 doctoral thesis L'individuation à la lumière des notions de forme et d'information, addressing psychic and collective individuation, which had remained in manuscript form.^[1] ^[9] This 1989 edition, facilitated by his son Michel Simondon, served as a catalyst for broader scholarly discovery of his corpus, previously limited by sparse dissemination during his lifetime.^[34] Subsequent republications in the 1990s and 2000s revived key texts, including the complete version of L'individu et sa genèse physico-biologique in 1995 by Éditions Millon, expanding on the incomplete 1964 Presses Universitaires de France edition.^[11] The psychic and collective individuation section saw reissue in 2007, further consolidating access to his individuation framework.^[9] These efforts addressed the fragmentation of his oeuvre, with additional posthumous materials such as courses on imagination and invention emerging from archives.^[35] The 2010s marked a surge in translations and reprints, enhancing accessibility beyond French academia. Du mode d'existence des objets techniques (1958) received a 2012 French reprint by Éditions Jérôme Millon and an English translation in 2017 by Cecile Malaspina and John Rogove for Univocal.^[24] This period also saw dedicated English-language volumes, such as Gilbert Simondon: Being and Technology (2012), the first monograph solely on his philosophy.^[36] Archival openings and interest in his technical analyses contributed to this momentum, evidenced by rising scholarly engagements without reliance on transient ideological currents.^[35]

Impact on Contemporary Thought

Simondon's theory of individuation exerted a significant influence on Gilles Deleuze, who drew upon it to develop concepts of the virtual and modulation, integrating Simondon's emphasis on pre-individual metastable states into his ontology of difference and becoming.^[37] Deleuze explicitly referenced Simondon's originality in establishing new concepts of individuation, applying them to rethink subjectivity and relational ontology in works like Difference and Repetition (1968).^[16] This causal link manifests in Deleuze's adoption of transduction as a process of ontogenetic resolution, extending Simondon's framework to critique hylomorphic models of form-matter duality.^[38] In philosophy of technology, Simondon's ontogenesis informs object-oriented ontology debates, where his processual account of technical objects' concretization provides a realist counterpoint to static object relations, prioritizing causal individuation over speculative post-humanist abstractions.^[39] Thinkers like Graham Harman engage Simondon's metastable systems to analogize laws of nature with technical evolution, grounding object emergence in empirical transduction rather than withdrawn essences. This application underscores Simondon's causal realism, focusing on verifiable phases of technical becoming—from invention to milieu integration—over interpretive excesses in relational ontologies.^[39] Empirical uptake in artificial intelligence and systems theory applies Simondon's individuation to analyze the genesis of complex computational models, treating AI systems as undergoing transduction within technical milieus akin to physical objects' evolution.^[40] A 2024 study frames AI's technicity through Simondon's mechanology, positing individuation as key to resolving metastable tensions in model training and deployment, with phases mirroring concretization from rudimentary to allied machine ensembles.^[40] Similarly, 2025 analyses reinterpret AI lifecycles via Simondon's formalism, emphasizing iterative resolution of incompatibilities to yield functional coherence, distinct from anthropocentric projections.^[41] Post-2010 developments integrate Simondon into invention studies and informational ontology, as in the 2022 English translation of Imagination and Invention (originally 1965–66 lectures), which elucidates transduction's role in creative technical genesis through case studies of crystal formation and machine design.^[42] Monographs like Cecile Malaspina's An Introduction to Gilbert Simondon (2015) extend this to informational realism, positing pre-individual fields as causal substrates for digital and biological individuation, influencing systems-theoretic models of interoperability.^[43] These texts verify Simondon's framework in contemporary ontogenesis, linking metastable information to empirical invention processes without diluting into vitalist indeterminacy.^[31]

Criticisms and Philosophical Debates

Key Objections to His Framework

Critics have argued that Simondon's conception of concretization in technical objects posits an overly autonomous, quasi-biological evolutionary process driven by internal functional logic, neglecting the role of socio-economic and political contingencies that empirically derail progress. For instance, historical cases of obsolete technologies, such as the decline of airships in favor of airplanes due to regulatory and economic pressures rather than inherent technical inferiority, illustrate how external "capture" by institutional interests interrupts the purported inevitability of concretization toward optimal forms.^[44] This optimism, rooted in viewing invention as a "pure beginning" stimulating neutral innovation, is challenged by evidence from economic histories showing technical lineages shaped by class struggles and market dominance, as in Marx's analysis of machinery as a tool of labor exploitation rather than pure functional advance.^[44] Simondon's extension of the individuation process across domains—from physical crystals to psychic and collective systems—has drawn objections for analogical overreach, risking anthropomorphic projections that impose human-like emergent properties onto non-biological entities without cross-domain empirical validation. Scholars note that applying individuation to technical or computational objects, such as deep neural networks, may conflate genuine ontological emergence with mere functional evolution, lacking rigorous data to bridge disparate scales and avoid reducing complex systems to a unified paradigm implicitly modeled on vital processes.^[40] This critique echoes Simondon's own caution against anthropomorphic pitfalls in hylomorphic traditions but highlights the absence of quantitative metrics or experimental protocols to substantiate the universality of metastable pre-individual fields in non-technical realms.^[40] Further logical challenges target Simondon's integration of information theory into individuation, which posits metastable tensions resolving via transduction but potentially underplays irreducible physical contingencies, such as quantum indeterminacy, where probabilistic outcomes defy deterministic informational resolution. While Simondon draws on quantum discontinuity for his metastable systems, detractors argue this framework inherits cybernetic limitations, treating information as a neutral operator across scales without accounting for causal breaks in subatomic regimes that empirical physics deems non-reducible to higher-order organizational principles.^[45] Such objections underscore a first-principles tension: Simondon's ontology privileges systemic compatibility over granular causal realism, as evidenced by discrepancies between his transductive models and quantum field theory's handling of vacuum fluctuations.^[45]

Debates on Interpretation and Application

Scholars debate whether Simondon's ontology of technical objects promotes an anti-Heideggerian technophilia that risks endorsing technocratic determinism, particularly when contrasted with Herbert Marcuse's critical theory of technology. Simondon critiques Heidegger's Gestell as an overly abstract enframing that neglects the concrete evolution of technical ensembles, instead emphasizing technology's capacity for increasing coherence through concretization and alliance with natural milieus.^[46] This positions Simondon as advocating a realist affirmation of technical becoming, yet interpreters caution that his internal logic of technological progress—wherein objects evolve toward optimal functional unity—mirrors deterministic tendencies Marcuse attributed to advanced industrial society, where technology ostensibly liberates but enforces one-dimensional conformity unless subordinated to human ends.^[47] Unlike Marcuse's Hegelian-Marxist framework, which prioritizes social praxis to redeem technology from capitalist alienation, Simondon's causal emphasis on pre-individual potentials resists such anthropocentric overrides, fueling disputes over whether his view invites unchecked technocratic optimism or provides tools to mitigate it via attuned human-technical relations.^[48] Post-structuralist appropriations, notably Gilles Deleuze's, have sparked contention for allegedly diluting Simondon's empirical and physicalist focus on individuation with vitalist interpretations. Deleuze draws on Simondon's rejection of hylomorphic substantialism to theorize metastable processes and metastable fields in works like A Thousand Plateaus, yet reframes individuation through a Spinozist lens of differential becoming and intensive multiplicities, subordinating technical causality to a broader ontological flux.^[49] Critics argue this vitalist spin—evident in Deleuze's transcendental empiricism—misaligns with Simondon's insistence on the primacy of physical and technical transduction over purely differential or virtual potentials, transforming a causal theory of concretization into a metaphysical apparatus that obscures empirical verifiability.^[50] Realist readings, prioritizing Simondon's alignment with scientific processes like crystal formation and feedback loops, counter that such post-structuralist adaptations, prevalent in academia despite their departure from source texts, undermine his intent to ground philosophy in ontogenetic mechanisms rather than speculative intensities.^[51] In contemporary applications to artificial intelligence ethics, Simondon's framework generates tensions between debunking alienation myths and cautioning against ungrounded utopian tech critiques. His theory of technical individuation posits AI systems as metastable ensembles requiring progressive concretization—via integration with operational milieus—to achieve functional unity, challenging narratives of inherent human-machine estrangement by revealing alienation as a failure of transduction rather than essence.^[40] Applications in AI design ethics invoke this to advocate for "techno-aesthetic" alignments that foster reciprocal invention between human and machine, as in models where AI evolves through iterative information processing akin to Simondon's guimbal turbine example.^[52] However, debates persist over risks of technocratic overreach, where unexamined concretization in opaque algorithms could entrench deterministic control structures, echoing Simondon's warnings against abstract technical objects divorced from ethical and collective individuation—thus critiquing both Luddite alienation fears and naive accelerationist optimism in AI discourse.^[53]

References

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Jun 25, 2008 · The French philosopher Gilbert Simondon wrote a classic book on the philosophy of technology, Du mode d'existence des objets techniques, ...
[26]
[PDF] On the Mode of Existence of Technical Objects by Gilbert Simondon ...
technical objects is that they tend towards concretization, whereas natural objects, as living beings, are concrete right from the beginning. There should.
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[PDF] DISSIPATIVE INDIVIDUATION - Parrhesia journal
Simondon in this passage posits the metastable equilibrium as the ontogenetic condition of the possibility of individuation. The concept offers a new mode in ...<|separator|>
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From physical to biological individuation - ScienceDirect.com
Simondon also says that we go from physical to biological individuation through a recursive procedure (recurrence of causality, “récurrence de causalité”).
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On Psychic and Collective Individuation: From Simondon to Stiegler
Simondon sees that the biological individual arises as the resolution of a problematic that cannot be resolved through physical individuation alone.
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Simondon and the Case of Synthetic Biology | Foundations of Science
Apr 18, 2025 · As such, in his analysis of individuation, Simondon describes a ... Even traditional vitalism can be seen to exemplify hylomorphism, as ...
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[PDF] The Meaning of Gilbert Simondon's Concept of Individuation
The French philosopher Gilbert Simondon (1924-1989) was the first true philosopher of information, yet he remains relatively unknown outside of his native ...
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[PDF] Gilbert Simondon's Psychic and Collective Individuation – Introduction
“Reflective intuition” is how Simondon describes the nature of thought's operationality when thinking is engendered in thought. And more specifically, ...
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Gilbert Simondon's Psychic and Collective Individuation: A Critical ...
Dec 23, 2014 · Jacques Garelli, Préface, Gilbert Simondon, L'individuation à la lumière des notions de forme et d'information (Grenoble: Millon, 2005) 9-19.
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Gilbert Simondon and the Philosophy of Information: An Interview ...
... published for the first time in 1989: the year he died. This publication is. also the origin of the real discovery of his work. Who else has written on or ...<|separator|>
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[PDF] a new notion of the image: gilbert simondon, imagination and ...
Aug 9, 2024 · “Imagination and Invention” was also the title of the course that Sorbonne students in psychology and philosophy were expected to complete as ...Missing: formative | Show results with:formative
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Gilbert Simondon - Edinburgh University Press
This collection of essays, including one by Simondon himself, outlines the central tenets of Simondon's thought, the implication of his thought for numerous ...
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How Do We Recognise Deleuze and Simondon Are Spinozists?
Nov 3, 2017 · Deleuze himself references Simondon's need to fashion an Ethics (Simondon uses Morality and Ethics interchangeably) through the process of ...I. The Structuralist Frame · Ii. Deleuze's And Simondon's... · Iii. Why Spinoza?
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Monstrous Individuations: Deleuze, Simondon, and Relational ...
Dec 1, 2009 · Influenced by Simondon's ontology, Gilles Deleuze's concept of nomadism is taken up in order to develop the idea of a principle of ...
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Gilbert Simondon: From Ontology to Ontogenesis (Chapter 1)
Mar 4, 2025 · This chapter analyses Gilbert Simondon's theory of ontogenesis, which describes the processes of the individuation of living and non-living ...
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On the individuation of complex computational models: Gilbert ...
Dec 12, 2024 · This paper posits that the work of the French philosopher of technology, Gilbert Simondon (1924–1989), can help overcome some of the challenges ...Missing: formative | Show results with:formative
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[PDF] A Techno-Philosophical Interpretation of the AI Lifecycle - arXiv
Aug 21, 2025 · To address this, we advance a formal reading of AI inspired by Gilbert Simondon's philosophy of technology, reworking his concept of ...
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(PDF) Gilbert Simondon, "Imagination and Invention" - ResearchGate
Gilbert Simondon, Imagination and Invention. Trans. Joe Hughes and Christophe Wall-Romana. University of Minnesota Press 2022. 240 pp. $28.00 USD (Paperback 978 ...Missing: informational post-
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Gilbert Simondon: Information, Technology and Media 1783481501 ...
Gilbert Simondon: Information, Technology and Media is a comprehensive introduction to the work of the French philosophe<|control11|><|separator|>
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[PDF] Invention and capture: a critique of simondon
This essay will critically examine Gilbert Simondon's notions of technical evolution and invention that he elaborates in his book On the Mode of Existence of ...Missing: formative | Show results with:formative
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[PDF] SIMONDON AND BOHM BETWEEN DETERMINISM AND ...
The main contention of this article is that the work of Gilbert Simondon – whose magnum opus possesses a scope uniting the most basic philosophical concerns.
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(PDF) Concretizing Simondon and Constructivism - ResearchGate
Mar 9, 2017 · This paper argues that Gilbert Simondon's philosophy of technology is useful for both science and technology studies (STS) and critical ...Missing: obsolete | Show results with:obsolete
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(PDF) Simondon and Constructivism - Academia.edu
... Gilbert Simondon Marc J. de Vries Eindhoven University of Technology/Delft ... childhood and knowledge belonging to a state of adulthood. In the first ...
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(PDF) Meaning, Being, and Technology in Heidegger and Marcuse
Drawing on the work of Gilbert Simondon and mobilizing his conception of ... Heidegger on the connection between nihilism, art, technology, and politics.
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[PDF] The Problem of Method: Deleuze and Simondon
Abstract. This paper examines the relationship between Simondon's theory of individuation and Deleuze's transcendental empiricism. Deleuze credits.Missing: misinterpretation | Show results with:misinterpretation
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Gilbert Simondon and Gilles Deleuze on Individuation | Request PDF
Aug 7, 2025 · Both Simondon and Deleuze have made crucial contributions towards a theory of differential individuation that significantly diverges from other ...
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How Do We Recognise Deleuze and Simondon Are Spinozists?
... Deleuze's interpretation of Spinoza. As a result ... poststructuralism' has come to designate how Simondon's relatedness is determined to Deleuze.Missing: misinterpretation | Show results with:misinterpretation
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(PDF) On the individuation of complex computational models: Gilbert ...
Dec 12, 2024 · Grounded on the work of the philosopher of technology Gilbert Simondon, this paper puts forward individuation theory as a valuable approach to ...
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Simondon, Control and the Digital Domain - Sage Journals
Nov 13, 2023 · In connection with individuation, Simondon describes transduction, which means a movement of information between different levels of reality.