Gilbert Simondon

Gilbert Simondon (born October 2, 1924 in Saint-Étienne , † February 7, 1989 in Palaiseau ) was a French philosopher .

biography

In 1944 Simondon began his studies at the École normal supérieure and the Sorbonne . Like his contemporary Michel Foucault , he was a student of Georges Canguilhem . He also heard Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Martial Gueroult . In 1963 he was appointed professor of psychology at the Sorbonne.

Simondon exerted a great influence on Gilles Deleuze , who considered him one of the most important philosophers of the 20th century. Despite his prominent advocate, Simondon was long denied international recognition.

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In his dissertation, L'individuation à la lumière des notions de forme et d'information (1964 and 1989), published in two parts, he attempted to combine all forms of biological, psychological and social individuation as forms of a single phenomenon by combining information theory and gestalt psychology to understand.

Simondon also recognized the importance of technology for philosophy early on . In Du Mode d'Existence des Objets Techniques (1958) he tries to bring technical development and biological evolution together in a new understanding. Its aim is to break through the epistemological boundaries of cybernetics and arrive at a general theory of the machine.

Simondon sees the fixation on the idea of the automaton and thus an overemphasis on the importance of equilibria as the central problems of cybernetics, such as those represented by Norbert Wiener . The perfect automaton, which registers environmental influences as disturbances of its systemic equilibrium, processes them and thereby returns to this equilibrium, is for Simondon only a borderline case which technical developments can approach. Cybernetics, which Simondon describes as "technicalistic" in this sense, does not do justice to the historical development and unfolding of concrete techniques.

Simondon tries to grasp the history of certain technologies, i.e. their invention, perfection and networking, with the central concepts of concretization and individualization. In his writings he aims to develop a "direct investigation of technicality according to a genetic method". In this way, Simondon's thinking of technology remains tied back to the genetic ontology he developed in his dissertation.

Simondon's theories are currently echoed in the works of the philosopher Bernard Stiegler and those of the sociologist Bruno Latour .

Publications

You mode d'existence des objets techniques. Aubier, Paris 1989, ISBN 2-7007-1851-8 .
L'individu et sa genèse physico-biologique. Jérôme Millon, Grenoble 1995, ISBN 2-84137-024-0 .
L'individuation psychique et collective. Aubier, Paris 2007, ISBN 978-2-7007-1890-4 .
L'individuation à la lumière des notions de forme et d'information. Millon, Grenoble 2005, ISBN 2-84137-181-6 .
Invention in the techniques. Seuil, Paris 2005, ISBN 2-02-056337-1 .
Cours sur la perception. Editions de la Transparence, Chatou 2006, ISBN 2-35051-012-3 .
Imagination et invention. Editions de la Transparence, Chatou 2008, ISBN 978-2-35051-037-8 .
Communication and information. Cours et Conférences. Editions de La Transparence, Chatou 2010.
Sur la technique. PUF, Paris 2014.

So far in German translation:

"The Individual and His Genesis. Introduction." From the Franz. By J. Kursell and A. Schäfer; in "Structure, Figure, Contour", C. Blümle and A. Schäfer (eds.), diaphanes, Zurich 2007, ISBN 978-3-03734-004-2 .
"Supplementary remark on the consequences of the concept of individuation." From the Franz. By Michael Cuntz, in: Vast - How is agency distributed. Ilka Becker, Michael Cuntz, Astrid Kusser (eds.), Munich 2008, pp. 45–74.
Animal and human. Two lectures. From the Franz. By Michael Cuntz, introduced by Jean-Yves Chateau, diaphanes, Zurich 2011, ISBN 978-3-03734-157-5 .
"The technical attitude." From the Franz. Michael Cuntz, in: The technological condition. Contributions to the description of the technical world. Erich Hörl (ed.), Suhrkamp, Berlin 2012, ISBN 978--3-518-29603-5.
The existence of technical objects. From the Franz. By Michael Cuntz, diaphanes, Zurich 2012, ISBN 978-3-03734-195-7 .

Secondary literature

Jean-Hugues Barthélémy: Life and Technology: An Inquiry into and beyond Simondon , tr.B. Norman, Meson Press, 2015.
Andrea Bardin: Epistemology and Political Philosophy in Gilbert Simondon. Individuation, Technics, Social Systems , Springer, 2015.
Jean-Hugues Barthélémy: Simondon , Paris, Les Belles Lettres, 2014.
Jean-Hugues Barthélémy (dir.): Cahiers Simondon - Numéro 6 , Paris, L'Harmattan, 2015.
Jean-Hugues Barthélémy (dir.): Cahiers Simondon - Numéro 5 , Paris, L'Harmattan, 2013.
Jean-Hugues Barthélémy (dir.): Cahiers Simondon - Numéro 4 , Paris, L'Harmattan, 2012.
Jean-Hugues Barthélémy: "Simondon - A thinking of technology in dialogue with cybernetics." From the Franz. Von Ksymena Wojtyczka, in: The technological condition. Contributions to the description of the technical world. Erich Hörl (ed.), Suhrkamp, Berlin 2012, ISBN 978--3-518-29603-5.
Jean-Hugues Barthélémy (dir.): Cahiers Simondon - Numéro 3 , Paris, L'Harmattan, 2011.
Jean-Hugues Barthélémy (dir.): Cahiers Simondon - Numéro 2 , Paris, L'Harmattan, 2010.
Jean-Hugues Barthélémy (dir.): Cahiers Simondon - Numéro 1 , Paris, L'Harmattan, 2009.
Jean-Hugues Barthélémy: Simondon ou l'Encyclopédisme génétique , Paris, PUF, 2008.
Jean-Hugues Barthélémy: Penser l'individuation. Simondon et la philosophie de la nature , Paris, L'Harmattan, 2005 (préface de Jean-Claude Beaune), 256 p.
Jean-Hugues Barthélémy: Penser la connaissance et la technique après Simondon , Paris, L'Harmattan, 2005, 304 p.
Muriel Combes: Simondon. Individu et collectivité , Paris (PUF), 1999. ( Gilbert Simondon and the Philosophy of the Transindividual , translated by Thomas Lamarre, MIT Press, 2012)
Arne De Boever, Alex Murray, Jon Roffe and Ashley Woodward (ed.): Gilbert Simondon: Being and Technology , Edinburgh University Press, 2012. ISBN 978-0-7486-4525-1 .
Heike Delitz, Bergson Effects. Aversions and attractions in French sociological thinking , Weilerswist: Velbrück 2015, 289–330.
Heike Delitz, Gilbert Simondons theory of the ›social form‹, in: S. Möbius / S. Prinz (ed.), The Design of Society. On the cultural sociology of design , Bielefeld 2012, 109–130.
Jacques Roux (ed.): Simondon. Une pensée opérative , Saint-Etienne (PUST), 2002.
Bibliothèque du Collège international de philosophie: Gilbert Simondon. Une pensée de l'individuation et de la technique , Paris, Albin Michel, 1994.
NN: Simondon . In: Annales de l'Institut de philosophie de l'Université libre de Bruxelles . Brussels, 2002.
Revue philosophique: Gilbert Simondon , n ° 3/2006 , Paris (PUF), 2006.

Martina Heßler : Gilbert Simondon and the existence of technical objects - a technical-historical reading . In: Technikgeschichte, 83rd Vol. (2016), H. 1, pp. 3–32.

Web links

Individual evidence

^ Jean-Hugues Barthélémy: "Simondon - A thinking of technology in dialogue with cybernetics." in: The technological condition. Contributions to the description of the technical world. Erich Hörl (ed.), Berlin 2012.
^ [1] Henning Schmidgen, review of The Existence of Technical Objects , FAZ, September 17, 2012.

personal data
SURNAME	Simondon, Gilbert
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	French philosopher
DATE OF BIRTH	October 2, 1924
PLACE OF BIRTH	Saint-Etienne
DATE OF DEATH	February 7, 1989
Place of death	Palaiseau

[1] Jean-Hugues Barthélémy: "Simondon - A thinking of technology in dialogue with cybernetics." in: The technological condition. Contributions to the description of the technical world. Erich Hörl (ed.), Berlin 2012.

[2] [1] Henning Schmidgen, review of The Existence of Technical Objects , FAZ, September 17, 2012.