Simondon au pied du mur

Article paru dans Critique, n°706, mars 2006.

A propos de :
Gilbert Simondon, L’Invention dans les techniques. Cours et conférences, édition de Jean-Yves Chateau, Paris, Seuil, 2005, 348 p.

Deleuze l’avait bien vu : avec sa philosophie des techniques, « ce que Gilbert Simondon élabore, c’est toute une ontologie » (1). Mais pourquoi faut-il en passer par la machine de Gramme ? Pourquoi la turbine Guimbal, avec ses ailettes de refroidissement ? Pourquoi les techniques d’aérage et de transport dans les mines, la construction des voûtes, le transformateur électrique, la roue à eau ou le moteur à gaz ? La réponse est simple : qu’on prenne goût à ces « travaux pratiques », à ces descriptions d’ustensiles, d’appareils et de machines accompagnées de leurs planches de dessins, ou qu’on leur préfère les développements plus abstraits confiés aux parties récapitulatives, il n’y a pas d’autre moyen d’éprouver la consistance d’une intuition ou d’un concept que de travailler sur pièces, en suivant le fil des exemples. Il n’y a d’ailleurs pas de sens à parler des techniques en général, ou alors il s’agit d’autre chose - de l’homo faber, du « phénomène technique », ou encore de la fameuse « essence de la technique » à laquelle continuent de se référer bon nombre de discours de déploration. Pour que la pensée ne tourne pas à vide, il faut que quelque chose résiste. Il faut des objets qui vous arrêtent et vous forcent à les suivre. Et Simondon demande justement : qu’est-ce qu’un mur ?

La route et le mur : questions de méthode

Peut-on considérer un mur, un poteau, un chemin, comme des machines ? Seuls les paresseux verront là une question de mots. Il faut se mettre au travail pour voir ce qu’on y gagne, remarquer d’abord qu’« un poteau fléchit et revient élastiquement à sa position première » (p. 159), comme la plupart des constructions fonctionnant par flexions et tractions. Un poteau « travaille » donc, au sens mécanique, tout comme les murs, les immeubles ou les ponts. Un poteau est une « machine passive ». Simondon ajoute laconiquement : « un chemin aussi ». Libre à chacun d’imaginer le discours de la méthode qui choisirait de se régler sur une pareille idée. Un texte plus tardif fournit pourtant quelques éclaircissements au sujet de ce curieux chemin-machine. « Une voie de passage, pour exister selon la compatibilité interne, doit être douée de cohérence et de stabilité en tant qu’objet physique (imperméabilité, répartition égale des charges sur le terrain…) et la recherche de cette compatibilité interne est ce qui apparaît en premier lieu comme le but de l’invention consciente et volontaire… » (p. 298). Descartes savait bien qu’il n’est pas nécessaire de savoir où l’on va pour tracer un chemin (il voyait même là le principe d’une morale « par provision » : si vous êtes perdu en forêt, le mieux est encore d’avancer tout droit) ; mais encore faut-il s’assurer que le chemin soit viable en lui-même. L’invention concerne le tracé (en fonction des contraintes externes imposées par le mode de parcours, le relief et la composition des terrains), mais tout autant la consistance interne de la route. Et si la voie romaine est conçue comme un édifice réalisé bloc par bloc, misant sur la résistance des assises, nos routes modernes constituent des ensembles élastiques et continus, à la fois souples et imperméables. Chacune a sa manière de durer : « En vieillissant, la route romaine se dénivelle dalle par dalle tandis que la route contemporaine se déséquilibre en longues ondulations ou en plis. » La cohérence interne qui fait de la route une construction consistante et durable implique ensuite un « système de transfert » entre l’être vivant et son milieu : « la route, en tant que chaussée, développe autour d’elle, pour se raccorder au milieu sauvage, des médiations supplémentaires telles que ponts, viaducs, tunnels, haies d’arbres, dispositifs contre les avalanches, plantations préventives, parfois à de grandes distances, comme des postes avancés ». À mesure qu’il s’étend, le réseau des ouvrages d’art contribue ainsi à sa propre conservation et amélioration. Le développement de la cohérence interne de l’objet étend la portée du couplage entre le milieu et l’activité humaine, lequel soutient en retour, à travers différents relais, la consistance de l’objet. Les techniques de la route et du chemin tiennent lieu, plus généralement, de métaphore ou de paradigme pour les voies imprévisibles de l’invention et du progrès techniques. Inventer consiste à suivre le développement « naturel » d’une situation problématique où les éléments, en s’appuyant les uns sur les autres, entrent pour ainsi dire en résonance et se renforcent mutuellement (2). Première règle d’une méthode qui n’a déjà plus grand chose à voir avec celle des dénombrements et des chaînes de raisons : « Ce n’est pas chaque objet créé qu’il faut considérer à part des autres, mais l’univers de médiation qu’ils forment et en lequel chacun sert partiellement de moyen aux autres. » (p. 299-300). Quelques réflexions suscitées par un pan de mur valent mieux ici que les radotages scolaires sur la rationalité technicienne et le projet cartésien de se rendre « comme maître et possesseur de la nature » : « Descartes pense la construction d’un immeuble comme celle d’une machine simple, c’est-à-dire comme l’organisation d’un système linéaire de transfert par étapes ; le roc supportant les fondations, le certum quid et inconcussum, est transféré par assise jusqu’aux combles ; la construction vaut la plus faible de ses assises, comme une chaîne vaut ce que vaut le plus faible de ses maillons ; ce mode segmentaire et additif de construction s’oppose au système des parements enserrant un blocage, qui peut donner naissance à des composantes horizontales provoquant un détriplement de la muraille (mur "soufflé") ; autrement dit, un mur ne peut être défini comme un couple de forme et de matière mise en forme : il se produit un travail des éléments les uns par rapport aux autres. » (p. 160).

Du mode d’existence des objets techniques (3) montrait déjà que les objets et les réseaux techniques sont le siège de processus d’individuation aussi réels, c’est-à-dire aussi concrets, que ceux qu’on observe dans les organismes vivants. Mais l’individuation, comme le rappelle Deleuze, n’est pas « coextensive à l’être » (4) : elle doit être « situable, déterminable par rapport à l’être ». Et si l’enquête ouverte par la thèse de doctorat prend toute son ampleur dans les livres suivants, jusqu’à L’Individuation psychique et collective (5) qui ambitionne d’embrasser les grandes formes du rapport de l’homme au monde et à la culture, envisagés du point de vue physique, vital, et psycho-social, il reste que toute reprise générale des thèmes simondoniens qui ne repart pas des configurations singulières où naissent les problèmes risque de donner lieu à une pataphysique indigeste où les mots magiques de « transduction », de « métastabilité » ou d’« allagmatique » viennent habiller de robustes évidences touchant aux rapports de l’individuel et du collectif dans la nature, l’art et la politique. Le meilleur remède à cette tentation est sans doute de lire Simondon. Durant les quelques années où il fut professeur de philosophie au lycée de Tours, il eut aussi pour charge d’enseigner la physique. On rapporte qu’il fit alors construire par une de ses classes un prototype de téléviseur. Plus tard, dans ses livres comme dans ses cours, il n’hésitait pas à entrer dans l’épaisseur des réseaux techniques, dans la durée propre des objets et de leurs lignées évolutives. Il faut le suivre dans les méandres de ses études de cas, il faut rejoindre la classe, ou rester à la porte. Le recueil édité part Jean-Yves Chateau complète utilement le corpus déjà publié en réunissant un cours d’agrégation donné en 1968-1969 sur « l’invention et le développement des techniques » (le thème du concours, cette année-là, était « la science et la technique », et Simondon revient à cette occasion, dans quelques pages denses et claires, sur la grande question de l’insertion des techniques dans la nature), une conférence donnée en 1971 sur « l’invention dans les techniques », mais aussi des extraits de textes plus spécialement consacrés aux aspects psychologiques de l’invention : « Imagination et invention » (1965-1966), « La résolution des problèmes » (1974), « Invention et créativité » (1976). On se doute qu’un des enjeux importants de ces textes est de voir comment s’y concilient, précisément, l’ontologie des objets techniques et cette psychologie de l’invention. On se souviendra, à cette occasion, qu’à l’Université de Paris V à laquelle il fut rattaché de 1963 à 1983, Simondon avait fondé et dirigé un centre de recherches au titre pour le moins intriguant : le « laboratoire de psychologie générale et technologie ». De quoi s’agissait-il ?

Qu’est-ce qu’un objet technique ?

Jean-Yves Chateau a raison de le rappeler dans la longue introduction qui ouvre ce recueil : le souci de l’invention, chez Simondon, n’est pas une manière de dramatiser l’histoire des techniques, c’est une véritable méthode de recherche et d’analyse - mieux, un critère de ce qui est proprement technique, de ce qui fait de la technique « un ordre original de réalité » (p. 14). Aussi l’invention dans le domaine des techniques ne relève-t-elle pas à proprement parler d’une investigation psychologique « au sens habituel du terme », comme le précise Simondon (p. 332). Elle ne se confond pas avec la « créativité » de l’inventeur au travail ; elle ne peut apparaître que rétrospectivement, dans les gestes matérialisés, stabilisés en procédés, dans les objets inventés et les indices matériels de leur élaboration (schémas, prototypes, etc.). On ne lit pas à livre ouvert dans l’esprit des inventeurs : l’esprit est une boîte noire. Qu’il s’agisse du fil à couper le beurre ou de la turbine Guimbal, l’invention doit se lire dans les « traces ». La psychologie de l’invention technique suppose donc une forme d’archéologie, et le sujet de l’invention, qu’il soit individuel ou collectif, laborieux ou génial, est toujours un sujet reconstruit à travers ses objets - un sujet technologique plutôt que psychologique. Ainsi la psychologie se confond finalement avec une phénoménologie des objets techniques dont les chemins ne cessent de recroiser ceux de la technologie et de l’histoire des techniques. Mais elle n’est pas séparable non plus d’une ontologie qui interroge le « mode d’existence » de l’objet technique à partir de ce qui fait proprement sa technicité (6). On objectera peut-être ici qu’à moins d’être technicien ou technologue, nous n’avons quasiment jamais affaire à des « objets techniques », mais d’emblée à des ustensiles ou à des machines dont le mode d’être n’est pas séparable de modes d’emploi ou d’usages particuliers. Il y a trois manières de répondre à cela. D’abord, l’objection concède à Simondon le point essentiel, à savoir que les objets techniques n’ont pas l’évidence qu’on leur prête habituellement. À strictement parler, nous ne savons pas ce qu’est un objet technique ; nous ignorons ce qu’il y a de spécifiquement technique dans les objets artificiels dont nous usons le plus souvent sans y penser. L’objet technique est-il d’ailleurs un objet ? Les catégories ordinaires qui nous servent à déployer les modes de l’objectivité ne nous masquent-elles pas l’essentiel ? Ensuite, au niveau fondamental où Simondon prend les choses, le point de vue de la fonctionnalité ou de l’utilité nous détourne de ce qui est proprement technique. L’objet technique n’est d’ailleurs pas nécessairement un outil ou un instrument : il peut être un ustensile, ou une machine présentant des degrés de complexité variables. Or un balai, un aspirateur, peuvent bien servir tous deux à ramasser de la poussière, cet usage commun ne les rapproche pas davantage que le fait de voisiner dans un placard. Enfin, si l’outil et l’instrument remplissent en effet une fonction médiatrice, une fonction de couplage entre un organisme et son milieu, l’essentiel pourtant n’est pas dans ce couplage et les diverses fonctions qu’il remplit : fonction de prolongement (cas de la pince à long bec), fonction de transformation (bras de levier de la pince), fonction d’isolement (pince gainée). Leroi-Gourhan, parmi d’autres, a produit des descriptions et des classifications précises des formes fondamentales de la médiation opérée par l’outil. Cependant, tout reste à faire pour ce qui est d’isoler les critères de la « technicité » et de cerner la nature de l’objet technique. Car « la fonction relationnelle n’est pas la seule : même au niveau le moins élevé, les objets techniques ont une logique interne, une auto-corrélation sans laquelle ils ne pourraient exister » (p. 91).

L’idée est simple. Une pièce du meilleur métal, capable de concentrer avec le minimum de perte l’action du bras et de la main sur la surface d’une tête de clou, jointe à un manche excellent, offrant une prise idéale, ne seraient d’aucune utilité et ne feraient qu’un médiocre outil s’ils ne s’emmanchaient pas bien. Ce qui compte dans le marteau, du point de vue de son être technique, n’est pas tant le service qu’il rend, la « prise » qu’il offre à un organisme sur son environnement, ni la série de couplages qu’il implique entre le bois, le clou et le corps du travailleur ou du bricoleur : « le problème crucial est celui de l’emmanchement » (p. 91). En effet : « la nature fournit une grande abondance de manches solides, en bois ou en os ; la métallurgie est capable de produire, depuis des millénaires, des fers robustes, des tranchants tenant l’affûtage. Pourtant, même de nos jours, le point faible de beaucoup d’outils (faux, marteaux, pioches) est le raccord entre le manche et le fer ; les trois modes principaux d’emmanchement, soie, collet, douille, avec leurs variantes et certaines adjonctions comme les ligatures, les frettes ou coins, montrent qu’il y a un problème général de l’auto-corrélation dans le fonctionnement interne des outils, qui existe même s’il est invisible et ne consiste qu’en contraintes, flexions, ou torsions invisibles ; l’outil "travaille" à l’intérieur de lui-même, entre ses différentes parties qui agissent les unes sur les autres… » (p. 91)

Qui pense « concret » ?

Si l’objet technique n’est pas un objet quelconque, s’il n’est pas nécessairement outil ou instrument, où faut-il donc le chercher ? On devine déjà la réponse de Simondon : elle consiste à remarquer, pour commencer, que l’« auto-corrélation » si clairement illustrée par l’emmanchement ne désigne pas seulement une propriété que présentent certains objets, mais plus profondément, un processus dans lequel ces objets se laissent discerner. L’objet technique, à son tour, ne se définit pas par une structure donnée, ni par les usages auxquels on le destine ; il est d’abord « ce dont il y a genèse » (7). « La genèse de l’objet technique fait partie de son être. » Il n’y a donc pas d’autre solution, pour celui qui veut suivre les chemins de l’invention technique, que de ressaisir un objet présent à chaque étape de son devenir, comme une « unité de devenir » manifestée le long des lignes de « concrétisation » qui l’adaptent de mieux en mieux à lui-même, selon un principe de « résonance interne ». Inventer, c’est résoudre des problèmes ; et ces problèmes se ramènent, de manière générale, à un seul : éliminer le « résidu d’abstraction » qui maintient l’objet en lutte avec lui-même, qui perpétue les artefacts et les bruits de fond locaux, qui l’empêche enfin d’être aussi cohérent et unifié - aussi nécessaire - qu’il pourrait. L’objet technique sera d’autant plus individualisé qu’il sera mieux unifié, c’est-à-dire rendu intrinsèquement homogène par la convergence de plus en plus grande des directions fonctionnelles hétérogènes qui le traversent. C’est pourquoi il n’y a en réalité rien de plus abstrait qu’un objet artisanal fait « sur mesure » : « l’objet technique sur mesures est en fait un objet sans mesure intrinsèque ; ses normes lui viennent de l’extérieur : il n’a pas encore réalisé sa cohérence interne » (8). L’objet artisanal est d’autant moins individué, et d’autant moins nécessaire comme objet technique, qu’il paraît plus spécialement ajusté aux contraintes circonstancielles imposées par tel ou tel usage. Certains verront dans cette critique du « sur mesure » une forme d’anti-bergsonisme. Bergson ne définissait-il pas justement l’intuition comme une pensée « sur mesure », qui épouserait les sinuosités de son objet en s’efforçant de ne pas « tailler trop large » et de l’habiller pour ainsi dire de l’intérieur ? Il faut pourtant reconnaître qu’on aurait alors affaire à un anti-bergsonisme plutôt paradoxal, puisqu’il partagerait avec le bergsonisme l’essentiel de ses motifs : notions de problème, d’invention et d’intuition, d’individuation par différenciation, concrétisation, importance d’une saisie immanente de la genèse, insuffisance des pures analyses de structures, etc. Sans doute Simondon reproche-t-il à Bergson de proposer avec l’« élan vital » un remède trop violent aux facilités du finalisme. Le mouvement de différenciation par dissociations de tendances antagonistes que désigne l’élan vital doit être subordonné à un processus plus englobant, celui de la structuration individuante. Simondon parle d’un « schème génétique plus primitif que les aspects opposés de l’adaptation et de l’élan vital, et les renfermant tous deux comme cas-limites abstraits » (9). Ainsi l’aspect intensif, explosif et « cascadant » (10) des processus d’individuation, qui avait si vivement retenu l’attention de Deleuze, tend à passer au second plan. Si l’objet technique émerge d’un champ pré-individuel fait de polarités et de tensions entre des ordres hétérogènes, il n’atteint son unité individuelle qu’en refoulant ce que les singularités de son devenir comportent encore de disparate. Il ne s’individualise qu’en s’homogénéisant (11). Cependant, ce genre de processus se distingue encore par une manière singulière de durer. C’est pourquoi l’invention dans le domaine des techniques oblige à un exercice d’intuition contrariée. Retracer les lignes de concrétisation de l’objet technique, c’est, pour retourner contre elle-même une formule bergsonienne, ressaisir du « tout fait » se faisant. Pour peu qu’on soit sensible à ce que la vie des techniques renferme d’invention et de créativité, ces objets ne se réduisent justement pas à des assemblages de matière inerte ; ils n’existent comme objets techniques qu’à travers leur propre genèse (12). Simondon nous invite donc à penser les techniques « en durée », sub specie durationis. Et l’on ne s’étonnera pas que la pensée de l’invention suppose, selon lui, quelque chose comme une « intuition réflexive » qui suit son objet et s’individualise avec lui : « seule l’individuation de la pensée peut, en s’accomplissant, accompagner l’individuation des êtres autres que la pensée ; […] nous ne pouvons, au sens habituel du terme, connaître l’individuation ; nous pouvons seulement individuer, nous individuer, et individuer en nous… » (13). Comment mieux définir une pensée « sur mesure » ? Et cependant, s’il s’agit bien d’une intuition réflexive, la pensée ne se contentera pas « des intuitions et des schémas opératoires purement concrets » (14) incorporés dès l’enfance par l’artisan ou le technicien. Un rapport enfin « majeur » aux techniques passe par une réflexion sur la culture matérielle et ses trames symboliques (signes, schémas, diagrammes, etc.). Les cours et les conférences témoignent de cette volonté de dégager sur pièces les principes d’un « schématisme de la connaissance technologique » (15). Ils permettent aussi de mieux saisir, dans une sorte de vue synoptique, certaines limites du projet.

L’usage : un angle mort

Voici le problème. La réflexion sur les objets et les réseaux techniques oscille sans cesse entre deux pôles : celui de l’« auto-corrélation », qui concrétise un objet et le rend viable (problème de l’emmanchement), et celui de la « médiation » (« adaptation » ou « couplage ») par lequel cet objet vient s’apparier à un « milieu associé » pour être dirigé par un opérateur ou un flux d’information (16). Y a-t-il encore une place pour penser l’invention des usages eux-mêmes - des usages inventifs qui échapperaient aux canons du « user profiling » ? On peut en douter. Simondon se méfie trop de la lecture anthropologique des techniques en termes de fonctionnalité globale et de moyens ajustés à des fins. Ni l’utilité, ni a fortiori l’usage en général, ne sont en mesure, selon lui, de fournir un critère de technicité. L’usage est une catégorie instable, et peut-être inconsistante (17) : tantôt il connote l’indétermination (en témoigne la diversité des formes qui peuvent convenir à un même usage), tantôt au contraire il est du côté de l’hyperspécialisation ou de la standardisation (limite de l’adaptation). Maintenues à égale distance des figures de l’inventeur, du fabricant et de l’usager, les techniques finissent par revêtir une apparence quelque peu spectrale où les processus d’individuation sans sujet sont bien souvent aussi des fonctionnements sans usage. Plus exactement, l’usage n’est jamais un problème : c’est au mieux une affaire d’adaptation. Simondon le dit très tôt, et sa position ne variera pas beaucoup par la suite. Par un renversement de perspective typique de la lecture « interne » qu’il privilégie, la nécessité conquise par l’objet technique au terme de son processus de concrétisation a pour corollaire une sorte de domestication de l’usage. Avec le développement du machinisme, tout se passe comme si l’usage était obligé de se faire aux objets, de se mouler sur eux : « les besoins se moulent sur l’objet technique industriel, qui acquiert ainsi le pouvoir de modeler une civilisation . C’est l’utilisation qui devient un ensemble taillé sur les mesures de l’objet technique ». En somme, toute l’invention est du côté de l’objet et de ses métamorphoses ; c’est aux usages de s’adapter.

Couplage ou agencement ?

Ce n’est pas sans lui faire un peu violence que Deleuze a pu mobiliser les analyses de Simondon pour mettre au point, avec Guattari, un concept d’agencement machinique, qui a justement pour effet de déplacer la question de l’invention (19) des techniques elles-mêmes aux ensembles à la fois matériels et idéels, psychiques et sociaux, dans lesquels elles sont prises avec leurs usages. Ce concept d’agencement répond à un problème précis : comment rendre compte des différences qui marquent la spécificité de l’arme par rapport à l’outil, sans faire dépendre ces différences de facteurs externes, d’ordre sociologique ou idéologique ? Si l’arme et l’outil n’ont pas de caractères distinctifs intrinsèques, il n’y a pas d’autre manière de les différencier que de rapporter l’objet générique (bâton, hache, ou autre) à un « modèle » - une « forme de vie », aurait dit Spengler avant Wittgenstein -, qui vient le qualifier en l’associant à des gestes, mais aussi à des valeurs intensives, un régime particulier d’affects, des vecteurs de vitesse, etc. Ce que Deleuze et Guattari appellent « machine de guerre » n’a pas d’autre fonction. L’outil suppose le travail ; les armes supposent la chasse, ou la guerre. Et les traits formels de l’agencement machinique agissent comme des contraintes internes sans être pour autant intrinsèques (20). En résumé : « le principe de toute technologie est de montrer qu’un élément technique reste abstrait, tout à fait indéterminé, tant qu’on ne le rapporte pas à un agencement qu’il suppose. Ce qui est premier par rapport à l’élément technique, c’est la machine : non pas la machine technique, qui est elle-même un ensemble d’éléments, mais la machine sociale ou collective, l’agencement machinique qui va déterminer ce qui est élément technique à tel moment, quels en sont l’usage, l’extension, la compréhension…, etc. » (21) Or Simondon pourrait à la rigueur s’accommoder de l’idée que l’élément technique n’est reconnu comme tel qu’à travers un usage, qui renvoie lui-même à une machine sociale plus vaste. Mais il n’irait certainement pas jusqu’à dire que l’objet technique reste « abstrait » et même « tout à fait indéterminé » en dehors de son insertion dans de tels usages. Les objets selon lui n’attendent pas d’être utilisés pour fonctionner ; ils se différencient eux-mêmes, en fonction de normes intrinsèques. Sans doute la hache n’existerait pas si nul n’en avait usage, mais avant d’être un outil ou une arme, il faut bien que la hache puisse hacher. Cependant, Deleuze et Guattari formulent un nouveau problème ; il est naturel qu’ils découpent les choses autrement. Pour embrasser pleinement la logique de l’agencement, pour passer du couplage aux branchements hétérogènes, du milieu associé au jeu des alliances, de la mécanologie à la stratégie, il faut commencer par faire passer au premier plan, non pas l’intégration fonctionnelle qui concrétise un objet ou stabilise un procédé, mais les équilibres « métastables » et les ruptures de symétrie impliquées dans les processus de transformation par « transduction » ou modulation de proche en proche. C’est ainsi que Deleuze retient surtout de Simondon une logique du « problématique » qu’il interprète comme une logique du disparate, du déphasage ou du « polyphasage ». Aux analyses des processus de convergence et d’unification, il joint cet avertissement : la « matière-flux » expressive, le « phylum machinique » qui traverse les mondes techniques, ne se réalise pas sans se diviser et se différencier, il n’y a pas d’individuation sans hétérogénèse. En somme, la différence entre l’objet et ses usages multiples ne lui est pas extérieure ; elle passe déjà au sein même de l’objet pour l’emporter ailleurs.

L’invention des usages

Simondon n’aurait probablement pas souscrit à cette métaphysique de la matière-flux : non pas qu’il se défiât de toute métaphysique, mais parce que son propre projet le conduisait du côté d’une ontologie différente, une ontologie des processus d’individuation dont Deleuze avait perçu très tôt la force et les limites. Du pré-individuel au trans-individuel, c’est l’individuation qui demeure en effet l’enjeu central de cette ontologie. Et cela ne va pas sans une « vision morale du monde » (22) : dans tous les cas, « le pré-individuel reste et doit rester associé à l’individu ». Tout se passe alors comme si cette exigence conduisait Simondon à n’accorder aux usages qu’une fonction résiduelle et marginale dans la transformation des objets ou des dispositifs techniques sur lesquels ils se greffent. S’agit-il de préserver l’individu technique d’une impureté essentielle de l’usage, d’un principe d’illimitation qui intensifierait les zones d’instabilité au point de menacer le processus d’individuation ? S’agit-il en somme de défendre l’intégrité de l’objet technique contre des usages polymorphes et potentiellement pervers ? Cette interprétation n’est pas tenable : les analyses de Simondon suggèrent au contraire une subordination structurelle des usages aux normes techniques immanentes aux objets et à leurs médiations. Si ce constat recouvre une injonction morale, ce ne peut être qu’à travers l’idée même d’individuation qui oriente toute la description. Rien d’étonnant à ce que Deleuze, de son côté, cherche à revaloriser l’usage : il y voit la possibilité de reconduire les formes individuées au champ de singularités pré-individuelles qui les borde, comme la guerre « hoplitique » décrite par Marcel Détienne associe le bouclier à deux poignées aux intensités affectives et aux lignes de vitesse qui parcourent ce nouvel agencement d’infanterie qu’est la phalange. Derrière la claire découpe des fonctions se trament des devenirs plus ou moins louches ; ainsi « l’Éros homosexuel de groupe » tend à remplacer « l’Éros zoosexué du cavalier » (23). Les techniques et les usages qu’elles libèrent en sont parties prenantes. Le déni de l’usage dans les analyses de Simondon doit se comprendre autrement, à partir du caractère d’indétermination foncière associé à l’usage, indétermination dont on a vu qu’elle était parfaitement compatible avec le phénomène d’hyper-adaptation ou de standardisation. Comment concevoir en effet, sur de telles bases, que l’usage puisse enclencher un processus de différenciation autrement que de manière accidentelle et marginale ? Mais alors la question se déplace : il ne s’agit plus de se prononcer sur une « vision morale du monde » qui valoriserait l’individuation aux dépens des pointes intensives de l’agencement (« lignes de fuite », « déterritorialisation ») ; il s’agit tout simplement de savoir si la théorie est en mesure de rendre compte de certains aspects saillants de l’évolution des techniques, et de la place qu’y tiennent encore l’artisan et le bricoleur, figures techniciennes que Simondon a tendance à délaisser pour celle de l’ingénieur (24).Or au-delà de la prise - cette prise qu’offre l’outil à l’organisme qui s’oriente dans son milieu -, il y a bien quelque chose comme la reprise. L’art du siècle passé n’a cessé d’en jouer en même temps qu’il s’intéressait aux machines. Le détournement a encore ses adeptes. Mais la reprise doit d’abord s’entendre au sens où l’on reprise des chaussettes, et par extension au sens où l’on « customise » un vélo, une automobile ou une configuration audio-visuelle : elle suppose une intervention directe sur un dispositif matériel, des gestes susceptibles de libérer des effets et de précipiter des devenirs d’un genre nouveau. Le marteau peut enfoncer des clous ; il peut aussi frapper des cloches et fracasser des crânes. C’est une banalité de le rappeler. D’autres faits, en revanche, semblent opposer plus de résistance. Ainsi la voiture peut servir à se déplacer rapidement, mais elle peut tout aussi bien se transformer en discothèque ambulante en se trouvant équipée d’un « sound system » suffisamment puissant (pratiques du « tuning » (25)). S’agit-il de la même voiture ? Le plateau d’une platine de disques peut tourner à vitesse uniforme ; il peut aussi être retenu par la main du DJ qui en inverse le mouvement pour replier la musique sur elle-même et la mettre en boucle. Que se passe-t-il au juste lorsque la machine individuée (qui peut être aussi un synthétiseur, une table de mixage ou une boîte à rythme) s’anime au point de devenir le sujet de la musique, et de modifier en retour ses propres normes techniques (26) ? Lorsque les ressources inventives du bricolage finissent par infléchir la logique de la production industrielle ? Quelles sont, plus généralement, les conditions qui définissent une pratique d’expérimentation créative sur des objets ou des dispositifs techniques ? La métaphysique de la matière-flux qui redouble chez Deleuze la phénoménologie des agencements machiniques est-elle le prix à payer pour rendre visible et pensable la part d’invention qui entrent aussi dans l’appropriation ou le détournement des techniques ? On peut en discuter. Mais c’est justement là que Simondon nous laisse seuls face au mur.

Elie DURING

---

Notes

(1) Gilles Deleuze, « Gilbert Simondon, L’individu et sa genèse physico-biologique », in L’Île déserte et autres textes, Éditions de Minuit, 2002, p.124.

(2) Deleuze note que « dans la dialectique de Simondon, le problématique remplace le négatif » (art. cit., p. 122). Voir également Différence et Répétition, Paris, P.U.F., 1968, p. 316 s.

(3) Gilbert Simondon, Du mode d’existence des objets techniques, Paris, Aubier, 1958 (rééd. 1989), désormais abrégé par MEOT.

(4) Gilles Deleuze, art.cit., p.121.

(5) Paris, Aubier, 1989.

(6) Sur la manière dont s’articulent ces différents registres (technologie, histoire des technique, ontologie de l’objet technique), on se reportera à l’étude de Xavier Guchet, Les Sens de l’évolution technique, Paris, Éditions Léo Scheer, 2005 (voir la recension qu’en donne B. Bensaude-Vincent dans ce même numéro).

(7) MEOT, p. 20.

(8) MEOT, p.24.

(9) MEOT, p.156.

(10) Gilles Deleuze, Différence et Répétition, op. cit., p. 317.

(11) Au lieu de dissociations de tendances, l’évolution des techniques offre l’exemple de toutes sortes de dédoublements assurant une meilleure adaptation à la chose ou à l’opérateur (le manche et le fer, en général, mais aussi le maillet et le ciseau à bois, le marteau et le tranchet, etc.). Ces dédoublements appellent un progrès dans le sens de l’auto-corrélation ou de la convergence des fonctions. La différenciation interne a donc toujours pour contrepartie une réduction de l’hétérogénéité à un niveau supérieur. Cela est fort clairement expliqué dans le texte sur « l’invention et les techniques », p. 233 s.

(12) À un autre niveau, celui de l’histoire des techniques, se conjuguent deux régimes de durée. Le temps de l’adaptation est organique, il conserve « l’allure temporelle de la relation entre organisme et milieu » (p. 102) ; mais le temps de l’invention est problématique : « le progrès technique interne ne peut guère être continu ; il se fait par sauts, par étapes discontinues » (p. 103).

(13) Gilbert Simondon, L’Individu et sa genèse physico-biologique, Grenoble, Jérôme Millon, 1995, p. 34.

(14) MEOT, p. 90.

(15) Sur le sens de cette « intuition réflexive », son rapport au schématisme kantien et à l’intuition bergsonienne, voir la section intitulée « Invention technique et pensée réflexive » au chapitre V du livre de Xavier Guchet, op. cit., p. 242 s. Ces questions sont aussi au cœur du livre de Jean-Hugues Barthélémy, Penser l’individuation : Simondon et la philosophie de la nature, Paris, L’Harmattan, 2005.

(16) L’homo faber doué d’« intention fabricatrice » était encore un acteur. Simondon, qui abandonne le modèle intentionnel au profit d’une logique matérielle de l’invention, ne voit plus que des opérateurs. Sur ce point, voir Bernard Stiegler, La Technique et le temps I. La faute d’Épiméthée, Paris, Galilée, 1994, p. 82 s.

(17) MEOT, p.19.

(18) MEOT, p. 24.

(19) Car « un agencement est une véritable invention » (Gilles Deleuze et Félix Guattari, Mille plateaux, Paris, Éditions de Minuit, 1980, p. 506).

(20) Ibid., p. 495.

(21) Ibid.

(22) Gilles Deleuze, art. cit., p. 124.

(23) Mille plateaux, op. cit., p. 496-497.

(24) Au contraire, Deleuze et Guattari se réfèrent constamment à la figure de l’artisan pour annoncer le règne d’une pensée itinérante et ambulante, capable de suivre les matières et les flux (ibid., p.509).

(25) Sur ce point et plus généralement sur les dispositifs d’amplification, voir Christophe Kihm, « La musique et l’espace », Art Press, n°308, janvier 2005, p. 46-52.

(26) Voir Bastien Gallet, « Le jour d’aujourd’hui… », in Fresh Théorie, Paris, Éditions Léo Scheer, 2005, p. 216 s., sur l’insertion des gestes créatifs dans les dispositifs « insaturés ».

Les automates intelligents robotique, vie artificielle, réalité virtuelle information, réflexion, discussion
	Jean-Paul Baquiast Jean-Paul.Baquiast@wanadoo.fr Christophe Jacquemin christophe.jacquemin@admiroutes.asso.fr

N°2 Novembre 2000
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Publiscopie

Notes de lecture
par Philippe Sarro sarro.philippe@voila.fr

Retours en arrière.
Gilbert Simondon. Du mode d'existence des objets techniques Méot 1958

Comme promis voici un texte sur Gilbert Simondon et son livre "Du mode d'existence des objets technique" Il va peut être vous paraître provocateur vis à vis des thèses sur le néo-darwinisme que vous développer sur les automates intelligents. Ce sera à vous de juger.

Merci au contraire de nous faire connaître des auteurs peut-être un peu oubliés aujourd'hui, dont la contribution à l'évolution de la pensée contemporaine sur les systèmes a été et demeure importante. JPB-CJ

Gilbert SIMONDON (1924-1989) Eléments de biographie Né à Saint-Etienne le 2 octobre 1924, Gilbert Simondon fit ses études secondaires au lycée de sa ville natale, et eut tôt l’occasion de fréquenter le milieu industriel, de discuter avec des ingénieurs, de s’intéresser à l’invention scientifique et technologique et à la manière dont les innovations sont reçues au sein de la société. Elève de khâgne au lycée du Parc à Lyon, élève de l’ENS de 1944 à 1948, agrégé de philosophie, il fut professeur de classe terminale au lycée Descartes de Tours (1948-1955), où il lui arrivait de faire le cours de physique aussi bien que celui de philosophie, et où il avait installé dans les sous-sols une présentation de machines au fonctionnement desquelles il initiait ses élèves. En 1955 il devint assistant à l’Université de Poitiers. Sa double thèse de doctorat d’Etat (sur l’individuation, sur les objets techniques), soutenue en 1958, lui permit de devenir professeur des universités: à la Faculté des lettres de Poitiers (1960-1963), à la Faculté des lettres et sciences humaines de Paris (1963-1969), à l’UER de psychologie de l’Université de Paris-V (1969-1984). A Paris, il avait son "laboratoire de psychologie générale" (en fait, un laboratoire de technologie) à l’Institut de psychologie Henri Piéron, 28 rue Serpente. La dernière partie de sa vie fut assombrie par une souffrance psychique, qui le contraignit à prendre une retraite anticipée. Il mourut à Palaiseau le 7 février 1989. Ces principaux ouvrages ont pour nom « L’individu et sa genèse physico-biologique » (1964), « L’individuation psychique et collective » (1989) constituant les 2 parties de sa thèse principale de doctorat (1958) et surtout « Du mode d’existence des objets techniques » (1958) la thèse secondaire.

Dans le postmodernisme le philosophe Simondon apparaît plus optimiste qu’un Martin Heidegger (La question de la technique) avec son concept d’Arraisonnement (le Gestell) et pour qui la technique ne sert que la volonté de puissance et n’est qu’un moyen d’augmenter le faire en faisant oublier l’Être. Il est aussi opposé à la technophobie d’un Jacques Ellul (La technique où l’enjeu du siècle) pour qui la culture technique n’existe pas, mais constitue un abus de sens et un non-sens. Pour Ellul la techno-science et le système technique est autonome et anti-humaniste (Gilbert Hottois dans sa conférence de L’Université de tous les savoirs.)

L’œuvre de Simondon aura influencée et inspiré des auteurs tels que Jean Baudrillard (Le Système des objets, 1968), Georges Friedmann (La Puissance et la sagesse, 1970), Abraham Moles (Théories des objets, 1972) ainsi que Gilles Deleuze (L’image et le mouvement) et Bernard Stiegler (La technique et le temps). Son œuvre n’est pas sans résonance avec celle de Leroi-Gourhan (Milieu et technique). Elle n’est pas non plus sans parenté avec le mouvement auquel appartient « le groupe Ethnotechnologie » qui donnera naissance à la revue « Culture techniques » et plus tard les revues « Terminal » et « Les cahiers de Médiologie » de l’emblématique Régis Debray. Ceci peut être vu comme une évolution transductive qui est un concept simondonien qui sera développé plus loin.

Pourtant son oeuvre reste méconnue et sous estimée selon Hubert Curien lors d’un colloque qui lui a été consacré en 1992.

Ses idées et concepts se retrouvent aussi implicitement en sociologie de l’innovation au travers de la théorie de l’acteur réseau connue sous l’approche de la traduction. (Madeleine Akrich, Michel Callon, Bruno Latour) Cette dernière essaie de montrer les conflits sociaux, les interactions, les rapports de forces, les conflits qui se manifestent lors des processus d’innovations. Pour Simondon la technique doit être plus vue comme une médiatrice d’homme à homme ou d’homme à nature plutôt qu’un outil ou qu’un instrument qui plus est, au service d’une idéologie politique, sociale ou économique.

Du mode d’existence des objets techniques (MEOT, 1958)

Simondon a divisé « Du mode d'existence des objets techniques » (MEOT) en trois parties: (1) Genèse et évolution des objets techniques; (2) L'homme et l'objet technique; et (3) Essence de la technicité. Cette dernière partie se subdivise en trois chapitres: (I) Genèse de la technicité; (II) Rapport entre la pensée technique et les autres espèces de pensée; (III) Pensée technique et pensée philosophique.

La première partie est consacrée au problème de civilisation qui découle du malaise de ses contemporains envers la technique, allant jusqu’à la technophobie ou la technofolie. Il l’explique par la méconnaissance de l’objet technique. Il écrit « Cette étude est animée par l'intention de susciter une prise de conscience du sens des objets techniques. La culture s'est constituée en système de défense contre les techniques; or, cette défense se présente comme une défense del'homme, supposant que les objets techniques ne contiennent pas de réalité humaine. » Et ceci amène à « l’idolâtrie de la machine », qui fait un mythe du robot et de l’automatisme. Il rajoute « En fait, l’automatisme est un assez bas degré de perfection […] Le véritable perfectionnement des machines, celui dont on peut dire qu’il élève le degré de technicité, correspond non pas à un accroissement de l’automatisme, mais au contraire, au fait que le fonctionnement d’une machine recèle une certaine marge d’indétermination. C’est celle-ci qui permet à la machine d’être sensible à une information extérieure. » Ce sont les " vraies machines ", saisies dans leur statut ontologique même. On dirait aujourd’hui automate intelligent. La machine est alors vu comme ce qui augmente la néguentropie et ce qui, comme la vie et avec la vie, s’oppose au désordre et à la dégradation de l’énergie. Elle devient stabilisatrice du monde.

Simondon va alors analyser la genèse ( l'ontogenèse ) de l’objet technique en définissant le processus de concrétisation par lequel il acquiert une sorte d’autonomie et une forme d’individualité. Il s’invente indépendamment des déterminations économiques historiques, sociales de tout genre. L’objet technique a quand même une présence et une réalité humaine qui survit en lui « C’est de l’humain cristallisé ». Ce qui permet une coprésence et une coévolution, sans relation de domination de l’un sur l’autre, de l’homme et de la machine dans une sorte de société, de milieu associé qui évolue aussi corrélativement. Simondon est confiant dans le progrès technique qu’il voit comme libérateur et émancipateur par rapport à la nature, à la matière mais aussi par rapport aux asservissements politiques et idéologiques.

Puis pour aplanir le problème du malaise dans la civilisation provoquant la technophobie, il envisage dans les parties suivantes, avec une vision anthropologique  génétique, une culture technique qui exige le développement d’une Technologie du mode d’existence des objets techniques, c’est à dire une science inductive des schèmes techniques, de leurs genèse, de leurs relations, de leurs rapports aux hommes. Mais pour Simondon cette Technologie ne prend pas assez en compte les modes de pensées et d’êtres-au-monde non techniques (la magie, la religion, l’esthétique). D’où les résistances, les blocages. Ici par parenthèse, je rappellerais la tentative d’un Bruno Latour ( Nous n’avons jamais été modernes, 1991) de créer ces dernières années une Anthropologie symétrique. Mais pour Simondon, la seule analyse de la genèse des objets techniques et de la connaissance de leurs modes d’existence ne suffisent pas à solutionner le malaise culturel qu’ils suscitent.

Ce qui l’amène dans la dernière partie, à considérer une philosophie du devenir et de l’individuation comme seule capable de réconcilier et d’intégrer la réalité technique à la culture universelle, afin de vivre en amitié avec les machines et les techniques, d’autant si elles doivent être appliquées à l’humain.

Individuation

Le concept d’individuation; technique mais aussi en parallèle, physique, biologique humaine et psychique, est développé plus amplement dans le livre «L’individuation psychique et collective ». Le trait commun entre ces individuations est qu’une forme émerge d’un fond. La forme prend en un point puis elle se propage, c’est l’opération de transduction qui est « individuation en progrès ». Ou selon la définition de G Simondon, « une opération physique biologique, mentale, sociale, par laquelle une activité se propage de proche en proche (à partir d’une préindividualisation) à l’intérieur d’un domaine, en fondant cette propagation sur une structuration du domaine opérée de place en place: chaque région de structure constituée sert à la région suivante de principe de constitution, si bien qu’une modification s’étend ainsi progressivement en même temps que cette opération structurante. » Chaque place ou phase ou palier est alors en équilibre métastable et possède un potentiel d’énergie de création de nouvelles formes ou un potentiel d’invention de nouvelles solutions, sans pour autant éliminer les anciennes. « L’individu est ce qui a été individué et continue à s’individuer. » Pour un René Thom (colloque, 1994) la transduction sera la transformation génératrice de cet « étalement de l’être. »

Mais d’après Anne Fagot-Largeault (Colloque, 1994) le schéma évolutif de Simondon ne comporte ni pression de mutation, ni pression de sélection, les solutions inadéquates ne sont pas éliminées. Le néo-darwinisme lui reste étranger, mais il voulait donner du sens au devenir sans retomber dans l’hypothèse créationniste. Il serait plutôt néo-Lamarckien considérant que l’individu ou l’organisme en formation participe activement à son remaniement, à sa réorganisation. Toujours selon Fagot-Largeault, ce paradigme l’emporterait en matière d’évolution technique (génomique ou autre) sur le néodarwinisme qui reste bien entendu valable pour  l’évolution naturelle. Car en matière de technique c’est une évolution dirigée par l’homme, même si cette individuation dirigée l’est de façon spontanée et non volontairement. Je suppose que ces remarques ne resteront pas sans discutions sur ce site consacré aux automates intelligents.

Gilbert Hottois quant à lui (conférences UTLS), voit Simondon comme un homme de son temps qui s’arrête devant la possibilité d’une postmodernité techno-symbolique dont un représentant est le philosophe H T Engelhardt qui illustre une position qualifié de technophile évolutioniste. L’on pourrait toutefois appliquer ses concepts d’individuation et de transduction au processus d’hominisation qui se déroule depuis des lustres, en interprétant le moment présent, qui voit s’inventer une vie artificielle prenant toute sa place dans une lignée technique, comme une phase métastable pleine d’aventures pour un futur ouvert. Quel bifurcation s’annonce ? dirait René Thom. Que va inventer l’homme, grâce à la libération due aux nouvelles technologies de l’intelligence et de la mémoire, comme en son temps la station debout avait libéré la main en même temps que le langage, qui allait amener à l'invention de l'écriture ? S’interroge Michel Serres.

Finalement ce qui apparaît dans la pensée de cet auteur, c’est moins une résolution des tensions entre les pessimismes et les optimismes envers la technique, qu’une problématisation de celle-ci. Pour finir je citerais 2 phrases, la première est tiré de la dernière page du livre d’André Leroi-Gourhan « Le geste et la parole tome I :Technique et langage », et la deuxième d’une page de MEOT. Les voici :

« L’outil quitte précocement la main humaine pour donner naissance à la machine » et

« L’opération technique est une opération pure qui met en jeu les lois véritables de la réalité naturelle, l’artificiel est du naturel suscité. »

Bibliographie

LATOUR, Bruno. 1991. Nous n’avons jamais été modernes. Essais d’anthropologie symétrique, Paris, Editions La découverte.
LEROI-GOURHAN, André. 1964. Le geste et la parole, tome I Technique et langage, Paris, Editions Albin Michel.
SIMONDON, Gilbert. 1964. L'individu et sa genèse physico-biologique (l'individuation à la lumière des notions de forme et d'information), Paris : PUF, Rééd. J.Millon, coll. Krisis, 1995
SIMONDON, Gilbert. 1989. L'individuation psychique et collective, Paris, Aubier.
SIMONDON, Gilbert. 1989. Du mode d'existence des objets techniques, Paris, Aubier

ouvrages sur Simondon
Gilbert Simondon, une pensée de l'individuation et de la technique, Actes du Colloque organisé par le Collège International de Philosophie, 31 mars - 2 avril 1992, Paris: Editions Albin Michel, Bibliothèque du CIP, 1994
HOTTOIS, Gilbert. Simondon et la philosophie de la culture technique, Bruxelles: De Boeck, 1992, diffusion Belin
Université de tous les savoirs (UTLS). 2000. Qu’est-ce que la vie ? - volume I – Conférence du 19 janvier 2000 de Gilbert Hottois (La technosciences : entre technophobie et technophilie). Sous la direction d’Yves Michaud. Editions Odile Jacob.

Techné: Research in Philosophy and Technology

Gilbert Simondon and the Dual Nature of Technical Artifacts

Marc J. de Vries
Delft University of Technology/Eindhoven University of Technology

1. Philosophical reflection on technical artifacts: why read Simondon?

Philosophical interest in technical artifacts is a fairly recent matter. For a long time, philosophy of technology was more concerned with broad issues such as the influence of technology on society and culture. At such a high level of analysis, the influence of individual artifacts was out of sight, or at best an example for illustration. In the past decade or so, a more analytical approach emerged in the philosophy of technology, accompanied by an ‘empirical turn’ that stimulated an interest in reflection on more specific and concrete technological developments. In that context the analytical reflection on technical artifacts emerged. Well-known is Randall Diperts’ book ‘Artifacts, Art Works and Agency’ for the way he distinguished natural objects, tools, instruments and artifacts¹. Other contributions were made by Van Inwagen, Wiggins, and Lynne Rudder Baker². Probably the most extensive effort in this realm was the “Dual Nature of Technical Artifacts” research program that was carried out at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands. This program aimed at developing an account for technical artifacts by describing them in two interconnected ways: on the one hand the artifact can be described in terms of its physical properties (its size, shape, weight, color, etc.) and on the other hand it can be described in terms of what it is meant for (its functional properties). The functional properties are relational (intentional) in nature, while the physical are not³. Both designers and users reason about artifacts by making connections between these two descriptions. One of the insights that this program produced was that designers not only create a new artifact, but also a use plan for it⁴. Elements of the concept of a use plan were present in earlier literature (such as the idea of a script in artifacts, as developed by Akrich and also Latour), but the use plan in the Dual Nature account is elaborated in terms of action theory. Users may follow the designer’s use plan, or come up with their own use plan.

It may seem that the recent interest in analyzing the nature of technical artifacts was not preceded by any earlier efforts, but this is not the case. At least two philosophers can be mentioned as early philosophers of technology who wrote on technical artifacts: Gilbert Simondon (1924-1989) and Hendrik van Riessen (1911-2000)⁵. Simondon was a French philosopher, whose philosophy of technology is sometimes indicated as neo-aristotelian⁶. He studied at the Ecole Normale Supérieur and the Sorbonne University in Paris. As his main publication on technical artifacts, the book Du Mode d’existence des objets techniques (from now on to be abbreviated as Du Mode⁷) was never translated into English, it remained fairly unknown and is quoted only rarely. If ever it is quoted or discussed it is in the context of Continentally-oriented philosophy of technology. For instance, Andrew Feenberg referred to Simondon’s work while discussing possible confusions between what he called primary and secondary instrumentalization⁸. There are a few publications that have Simondon’s work as their primary focus. Paul Dumouchel presented a summary of Simondon’s main ideas, as explicated in Du Mode⁹. Dumouchel, as Feenberg, seems to be more interested in the implication of Simondon’s writings for our view on the impact of technology on society and culture than on his ideas about the development of technical artifacts. Simondon’s work was also discussed in a paper by Henning Schmidgen¹⁰. Schmidgen’s motive for reading Simondon was primarily an interest in the history of science and technology more than an analytical-philosophical interest in technical artifacts. Finally I want to mention a paper by Adrian Mackenzie in which he discusses Du Mode in the context of a review of the social-constructivist approach to technology¹¹.

Simondon also features in the survey of important philosophers of technology that was published by the German Verein Deutsche Ingenieure (VDI) in 2000¹². As could be expected, in French literature he is mentioned more frequently than in English literature, but here, too, there seems to be no publication that discussed his work in the context of a reflection on technical artifacts in the analytical manner, as we find it in the Dual Nature program that was mentioned earlier. If at all Simondon as an early philosopher of technology is revived in more recent publications in the philosophy of technology it is always in a Continentally-oriented article on the role of technology in society and culture. That is understandable, because Simondon himself wrote that his main purpose for writing Du Mode was to show that there is no conflict between technical artifacts and human culture¹³. Humans and technical artifacts belonged together and, as he phrased it, humans are the conductors in the world-orchestra of technical artifacts¹⁴. According to him a better understanding of the nature of technical artifacts could prevent people from being torn apart by fear and love for technology. In this respect he disagreed with other voices in that time, such as those of Jacques Ellul, who wrote his La Technique ou l’enjou du siècle in 1954, and Martin Heidegger, who published his Frage nach der Technik in the same year. Both philosophers emphasized the negative impacts of technology on society and culture, and although Simondon did not mention them, the Introduction of Du Mode can be seen as a response to their ideas, and thus it is understandable that we find references to Du Mode primarily in Continentally-oriented literature. In a way, the recent efforts to get a better understanding of technical artifacts thereby reflecting on concrete examples of technical artifacts (as promoted in the empirical turn in the philosophy of technology) can be seen as a similar attempt to move away from too general statements about technology that are not tested against real practice, and create a more balanced picture by carefully examining technology ‘from inside’¹⁵. A confrontation of Simondon’s ideas with the more recent insights as gained in analytically-oriented philosophical studies on technical artifacts, such as in the Dual Nature program, has not been published yet. That is the aim of this article. What I will do here is first present a summary of Simondon’s main ideas about the nature of technical artifacts, thereby using the French text of Du Mode, and also the publications on Simondon I quoted earlier, but primarily by going back to the text of Du Mode itself, and then compare these ideas with the more recent insights as they have been developed in research like the Dual Nature program.

2. Concepts in Simondon’s philosophy of technical artifacts

In the first place it is important to note that Simondon used the word ‘objet’ for indicating a process rather than a device or machine. He wrote: “the technical object is not this or that thing, given here and now, but that of which there is a genesis”¹⁶. So for him, the steam engine as a technical object is not what we usually call a technical artifact but a sequence of engine designs that displays a certain development¹⁷. Ontologically speaking, for him a technical object is not a material entity, but an event, or rather a sequence of events. At first sight this would mean that we have to be very careful in comparing his ideas with the Dual Nature approach, because in that approach the technical artifact is not a process, but a material entity. Simondon did discuss numerous examples of technical artifacts. As long as we are aware of the fact that he sees those artifacts primary as the outcomes of a process we can draw the comparison between his view on these artifacts and the Dual Nature view. In Du Mode the term concretization features quite prominently. Here too, we have to be aware of the specific way in which Simondon used the term. Concretization is taking a step from abstract to concrete. That holds both for Simondon’s way of using the term and for the common use. In common use this refers to the process of developing an artifact as one that starts with only abstract entities (theoretical concepts, a list of requirements and perhaps sketches) and ends with a concrete object (a prototype or a finished product). But for Simondon abstract and concrete have a different meaning. As his term ‘objet’ refers to a sequence of artifacts, also his term ‘concretization’ refers to this sequence, and not to the genesis of one artifact in this sequence, as in common use. He distinguished between craftsmanship (l’artisanat’) as a primitive ‘abstract’ stage, and industry (l’industrie’) as a ‘concrete’ stage¹⁸. In the stage of craftsmanship technical artifacts are still in an early process of their genesis (that is, earlier in the existence of the technical object-as-process), which can be seen from the fact that there is not yet a convergence or ‘condensation’¹⁹ of functions in the parts of the artifact. Each function is realized in a separate part. It is only later in the genesis that parts become multifunctional. Convergence is another important term in Du Mode and Simondon wrote that the real challenge in technology is to bring together functions in a structural unit (that is what he called ‘convergence’) rather than to find a compromise between conflicting requirements²⁰ We have to note that Simondon used the term ‘structural unit’ rather than ‘part of a device’. This raises the question if his concept of convergence also applied to a bringing together of functions in the whole artifact (as we see it happen frequently today in our alarm clocks that are at the same time radio’s; for this there is even a special term: hybrid products). That would explain why it is particularly in industry that we find more concretization, because then less products would be needed for more functions, and thus mass production becomes more worthwhile. In principle it is well possible that Simondon had this in mind, because already in the Introduction of Du Mode, he described three levels of entities: elements (parts of artifacts), individuals (artifacts) and ensembles (combinations of artifacts working together)²¹. The examples he used to illustrate the concept of concretization, though, all are at the level of elements (i.e., parts of artifacts).

Simondon’s use of the terms ‘abstract’ and concrete’ is by no means obvious and at certain points even clashes with the normal use of terms. Intuitively we would associate the term ‘concrete’ with the stage of craftsmanship because the use of abstract concepts seems to be more characteristic for the stage of industrialization. Here, again, we have to keep in mind that Simondon’s focus is not on the artifact, but on the sequence of artifacts that constitute what he calls an ‘objet’. The difference between concrete and abstract does not refer to a concrete artifact versus an abstract concept of the artifact-in-design, but to two stages in the sequence of artifacts. The stage of craftsmanship is a way of developing artifacts that is ‘primitive’²² in that there is a low level of sophistication in the way the functions of the artifact are realized in its parts. In the stage of industry functions are combined in parts in a more sophisticated way, and probably Simondon saw this as a crucial prerequisite for mass production as practiced in the industrial stage. Simondon does not elaborate on this assumption. This makes his terminology confusing, as now we tend to associate ‘abstract’ and ‘concrete’ with artifacts and not with the sequence of artifacts. This also obscures the meaning of the terms craftsmanship and industry, because for Simondon they do not sites or phases in the overall history of technology, but to approaches to artifact development. This confusion is enhanced by the fact that Simondon does not explicitly claim that concretization did not take place yet in the historical era of craftsmanship, but only emerged after the Industrial Revolution. Perhaps he would not even want to make that claim, because in principle the approach that he labels as ‘industrial’ could also have been practiced in the historical period before the Industrial Revolution. This would also explain why he does not need the ‘individual’ and ‘ensemble’ levels to illustrate his concept of ‘concretization’.

In Du Mode, Simondon elaborates in detail a couple of examples in order to illustrate his claim that convergence was the key issue in the genesis of these artifacts. I will describe one of them here: the penthode. This amplifying electronic tube was invented in 1926 by Bernard D.H. Tellegen. Tellegen at that time was a scientist in the Philips Natuurkundig Laboratorium (Philips Physics Laboratory²³). Simondon described this invention as a step in the genesis of amplifier tubes that started with the triode²⁴. In the triode there are still separate parts for different functions: the cathode is for producing electrons, the anode is for capturing them, and there is a grid for regulating the electron flow from cathode to anode. The triode’s functioning was hampered by the capacity between anode and grid, which could easily result in an undesired auto oscillation of the current in the tube. To fix this problem, another grid was added to the design, between anode and grid, and this functioned as an electrostatic insulation. But because of the potential between the anode and this extra grid, and between the extra grid and the original control grid, the extra grid also functioned both as an extra control grid for the anode and as an anode for the original control grid, thus strongly enhancing the amplifying function of the tube (up to 200 times amplification in stead of 30-50 times). So the extra grid functioned both as a solution for the original problem and as an enhancement of the overall function of the tube. This is typical for what Simondon called concretization. This new tube, called the tetrode, had a new problem: now electrons hitting the anode caused secondary emission of new electrons at the anode, which electrons caused other electrons coming from the control grid to be turned back. Tellegen solved this new problem by putting an additional grid between the insulating grid and the anode. By giving it a negative potential (approximately the same as the cathode) the electrons approaching the anode were no longer hampered by secondary emission at the anode. But this additional grid also could be used as an additional control grid. So again functions were combined in an element of the device. By positioning the bars in the additional grid in the electrical ‘shadow’ of the bars in the original control grid, the secondary emission is reduced (so not only the effect of secondary emission is dealt with, but also the emission itself). Furthermore, the variation in capacity between the cathode and the control grid becomes very small, which suppresses practically every frequency shift when the tube is used in a wave generator circuit. The additional grid is what Simondon called ‘over-determined’. Over-determination is the natural effect of concretization. When an element serves more than one function, both functions determine that element. Simondon used the example of the penthode to illustrate how in each step of concretization new conflicts may emerge, but in a next step those will be solved and further convergence of functions in elements will take place. The penthode is a product that was developed in what we normally call an industrial context (the Philips company). The fact that Simondon uses this example to illustrate his concept of concretization clearly indicates that in his terminology the early stage of concretization (craftsmanship) can take place in the context of what in normal use of the term is called ‘industry’, while in Simondon’s use of the term ‘industry’ it means the later stage of concretization.

In a previous publication, I derived a simple taxonomy of technological knowledge, based on the Dual Nature approach. I distinguished three different types of technological (artifact-related) knowledge, namely knowledge of the physical nature, knowledge of the functional nature, and knowledge of the relationships between the physical and the functional nature²⁵. Simondon in Du Mode also pays substantial attention to technological knowledge in relationship to technical artifacts. It is the main focus of one of the three parts of this book (Part II on ‘Humans and the Technical Object’). In that Part he discusses the genesis of technical artifacts as the object of human knowledge. As for the stages in the genesis of technical artifacts, here too, he differentiates between two types: the knowledge stage of childhood and the stage of adulthood²⁶. Knowledge of artifacts in the stage of childhood is intuitive, without an insight into the explanation of the functioning, and focused on working with the artifacts in practice. In the stage of adulthood such knowledge is rational, based on theoretical insight into the functioning of the artifact, and focused on reflections that are more universal than just related to this single artifact. A person with childhood knowledge of artifacts – an artisan – does not really master the artifact but is bound to the rules for usage as learnt in his/her education. A person with adulthood knowledge, though, - an engineer - has freedom to adapt the artifact or its use according to his/her own needs²⁷. According to Simondon, there is place for both. The difference between the two types of people has consequences for their education. Childhood knowledge will be transferred in different ways than adulthood knowledge²⁸.

In the third Part of Du Mode, Simondon used the term ‘magic’ for the phase in which humans only had childhood knowledge of artifacts. In that phase they saw the artifact as a whole and they did not yet differentiate between the purpose of the artifact and the way this purpose is realized in matter. This is what the coming of ‘technicity’ caused to start. Technicity means that humans realized that there are different ways of reaching purposes through artifacts. From then on reflections on purposes and reflections on the way these can be reached through artifacts also became the domain for different human endeavors. In religion, humans reflect particularly on purposes, while in technology the material realization forms the focus of reflection²⁹. Simondon claimed that this also has consequences for the nature of reasoning in religion and in technology. Religious thinking according to him is more deductive. It starts with certain convictions about purposes in life and from those deduces what is needed to realize those. In technology thinking is more inductive, Simondon claimed. It starts with reflecting on concrete artifact and by induction tries to gain more general insights about how purposes can be reached through artifacts³⁰.

It is interesting to note that Simondon considered natural objects to be the best examples of concretization. According to him the convergence of functions as a fit between physical realization and functional requirements in structural units is optimal in natural objects. Although Simondon nowhere specifies this, we must assume that ‘natural object’ in his terminology is restricted to those objects in nature to which we apply the concept of ‘function’. In the more contemporary debate on the concept of function this happens only in living objects³¹. We speak, for instance, of the ‘function’ of the heart. Also the implicit evolutionary notion behind Simondon’s claim that natural objects are a sort of final outcome of a concretization process suggests that ‘natural object’ for him means ‘biological object’, and not minerals or atoms. On the other opposite of the spectrum, where there is not yet any fit between physical aspects and functions in structural units, is the scientific representation of the artifact-in-design³². According to Simondon the result of this is that the behavior of natural objects can be predicted more reliably than the behavior of technical objects³³. The more concretization progresses, the more the technical object becomes like a natural object. To illustrate this Simondon discussed artificially grown plants. Compared to natural plants they have a less effective integration of functions in structures. Artificially cultivated plants have lost the natural ability to survive in cold circumstances (they have become dependent on the greenhouse), and in some cases they have also lost the ability to bear fruit and create a next generation. Concretization would then be the manipulation of such plants in order to make them resemble more and more the natural plant with its abilities to survive and multiply on its own³⁴. This is a fairly speculative example, in particular when we realize that nowadays there is much effort to manipulate flowers in such a way that they seem to have an even better integration of functions than natural plants. This is one of the places in Du Mode where one gets the impression that Simondon’s ideas have been derived from a priori views on reality rather than from reflections on empirical data.

This aspect of context dependence brings us to another concept in Simondon’s philosophy of artifacts, namely that of hypertely³⁵. In a situation of hypertely the artifact is fully dependent on its environment. It can only function at the interface of two worlds: the world of its own internal (technical) requirements and the external, social (or ‘geographic’, in Simondon’s terms) world in which it is used. To illustrate this, Simondon used the example of the engine in an electric locomotive. On the one hand, it needs to be adapted to the external world in order to obtain its energy, and on the other hand it needs to be adapted to the train that needs its output energy. This is typically the case for what Simondon called ‘elements’. These can only function in a larger whole (an artifact, or an ‘individual’ in Simondon’s terminology). This notion strongly reminds of what H.A. Simon wrote in 1969: according to him an artifact functions as a kind of ‘interface’ between an ‘inner’ environment, the substance and internal organization of the artifact, and an ‘outer’ environment, the surrounding in which it operates³⁶. The study of this is what Simon calls the ‘sciences of the artificial’ and here, too, we see an analogy with Simondon’s writings, in which we also find the claim that there is such a science³⁷. Simondon claims also that in the case of an individual the artifact can function by itself, but there is still a certain dependency from its environment. A windmill is a fully functional device, but it needs the wind to function. The highest degree of context-independence is found in ‘ensembles’, which are able to create their own necessary circumstances³⁸. In any case, the artifact functions on the interface of its internal milieu (with its own conditions) and the external milieu (with its conditions). Simondon uses the term ‘evolution’ in his discussion of the concept of hypertely. Thereby he does not refer to the Darwinian concept of evolution, but there seem to be implicit references to the Darwinian idea of adaptation to the environment in the way he explains hypertely in technical objects.

Simondon saw a certain pattern in the way elements, individuals and ensembles develop. According to him, first an element develops into an individual and then the individual develops into an ensemble. At a certain moment, in the ensemble a new element may emerge. This element then also can be the beginning of a whole new ensemble. This can be illustrated by the steam engine (the element) that grew out to a steam locomotive and then into a whole transportation system based on steam technology. At a certain moment in this ensemble, the steam engine was first replaced by an electric engine, which became the beginning of a whole new transportation system, based on electric energy. This is what Simondon called the ‘saw-tooth’ pattern in technological developments.

3. Comparison with the Dual Nature insights

In the first place, it should be remarked that it is too much to call Simondon an analytically oriented philosopher of technology. There is too much speculation and too little argumentation in his works to justify that. Simondon mostly uses examples to support his claims and there are only few instances where we find solid argumentation to show that the claims have a broader status than just for those examples. Yet, his ideas are sufficiently original to make them worthwhile for further consideration by confronting them with what has been found in the Dual Nature approach of technical artifacts. Maybe the Dual Nature findings can be used as the missing argumentative support for Simondon’s ideas, or his ideas can lead to an extension of the Dual Nature findings.

In the first place we can note that Simondon already realized that for a full account of technical artifacts it is not enough to discuss either the physical or the functional nature. Simondon phrased this as follows. In the Introduction of Du Mode, he criticizes earlier visions on artifacts that regard them either as material constructions (‘assemblages de matière’) or as filled with intentions (‘animés d’intentions’) ³⁹. Simondon claimed that by combining both aspects in one account, a view on technical artifacts results that helps people understand the artifacts around them and accept them as useful parts of their environment. Simondon did not provide any arguments for this, and in that respect the Dual Nature program was necessary to come up with such arguments and thus give a more solid foundation to what Simondon brought forward as an intuitive claim. Kroes and Meijers have argued that a description of any artifact is incomplete and ambiguous if it has only one of the two natures⁴⁰. A screwdriver, for instance, can not be adequately described only as ‘a device with which one can turn screws’, because there are many other devices imaginable to do that, so that someone could develop a wrong image of a screwdriver if that image is based only on the description of the functional nature. The same ambiguity arises when only a physical nature description is provided to define a screwdriver. The same long stick can be used to open a tin can, and therefore a wrong image of the artifact could result from such a limited description. The technical artifact can only be defined unambiguously when both the physical and the functional nature are described. In a good design there is a fit between these two natures. According to Simondon this fit is not optimal, but improves when the process of concretization progresses. He claims that the artifact is always between a natural object (where the fit is optimal) and a scientific representation of the artifact where there is no fit yet. We have already remarked that this claim is a questionable one.

In the second place, Simondon’s ontology of artifacts meets the same criteria that have been developed in the Dual Nature program for any ontology of artifacts. Houkes and Meijers have described two main criteria for this: underdetermination (the ontology should accommodate the fact that an artifact can be used for different functions and a function can be realized through different artifacts) and realizability (the ontology should accommodate the fact that a function can be realized through any artifact, and an artifact can not be ascribed any function)⁴¹. They have shown that some existing ontologies, such as the one developed by Lynne Rudder Baker, do not (yet) meet these criteria. Let us now examine if Simondon’s ontology of artifacts passes this test. I would like to propose that this is the case indeed. Simondon has explicitly claimed that each technical artifact is not fully determined. Only natural objects have a perfect fit between parts and functions. Technical artifacts are always somewhere in between a scientific representation in which the link between function and material realization is totally undetermined yet, and a natural object for which the determination is complete. This fits with Houkes’ and Meijers’ underdetermination criterion. At the same time, Simondon described the process of concretization as one that has a certain necessity, because in the variation of possible next step in the evolution of an object, there are always ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ next steps, of which only the right ones will lead to continuation of the development process (just like in biological evolution only the strongest beings will survive, and not just any possible variation). This makes Simondon’s ontology fit the realizability constraints criterion.

In the third place, we can observe that both Simondon and the Dual Nature program seek analogies between biology and technology. The way this analogy is analyzed shows an important difference between Simondon’s analogy and the one developed in the Dual Nature program. Simondon compares the process of the becoming of an object (object meaning not an individual artifact, but the whole line of development as a sequence of artifacts in which the level of concretization constantly increases) with the evolutionary process through which living creatures have emerged. The analogy led him to his claim that not all variation in an artifact will survive but only the one for which the level of concretization is higher than its predecessor’s. In Simondon’s ontology, the object is not an artifact, but an event, or a series of events. His ontology is a dynamic one. In the Dual Nature ontology, it is the duality of natures that defines the being of an artifact. This is a static ontology. Here the analogy with biology is in the concept of functions and the way they are ascribed to physical entities. Vermaas and Houkes have shown that this analogy breaks down in the case of novel artifacts that do not have clear predecessors. In such cases evolutionary (etiological) accounts of artifact functions do not meet reasonable criteria for technical artifact function accounts⁴². The question is, though, if such artifacts exist at all. Simondon’s ontology suggests, but without sound argumentation, that this is not the case. There may be elements coming into being in ensembles that form the start of a new development, but even in that case the new element always has some resemblance with the artifact that was used for the same function previously. The diode, for instance, according to Simondon, was a relatively new element because of its asymmetry, and thus the beginning of a new evolutionary line of artifacts, but it can also be seen as a next step in the search for amplifying devices⁴³. Neither Simondon nor the Dual Nature program seem to have sound arguments for determining whether or not artifacts necessarily have a predecessor or can be so new that all comparison with previous artifacts does not give any reasonable explanation for its design. A better source of arguments to determine that are such concepts as ‘technological trajectories’, ‘normal technology’ and ‘revolutionary technology’⁴⁴. These seek to analyze the development artifacts as part of a broader social development. In Simondon’s approach and in the Dual Nature approach all arguments for determining whether or not there is a predecessor must be derived from the artifact itself, while in the technological trajectory or normal versus revolutionary approaches such arguments can also be derived from the social context.

The fourth point of comparison I want to discuss is the relation between the physical and the functional nature (in the terminology of the Dual Nature account). The Dual Nature program has shown that both the designer and the user take into account that relation. In that program this has been conceptualized in what is called the use plan. This use plan is an action theoretical account for the way users reason about how to use the artifact, and how the designer, when designing the artifact, puts himself or herself in the role of a prospective user. Here it is the Dual Nature program that is dynamic, whereas Simondon’s account is more static. Simondon discussed the relation between physical and functional nature in terms of a fit between a set of functions and a set of parts, whereby the level of sophistication of the artifact (or as Simondon called it, the level of concretization) is defined by the extent to which a minimum of parts can realize all the desired functions. The latter account provides a specific criterion for assessing the quality of the design: the fewer parts needed for all functions, the better. One can pose the question what advantage that gives. But for those who are acquainted with current ideas about quality in design, as elaborated in Total Quality Management tools, there is an immediate resemblance with the desire to reduce the number of parts in a device that forms the basis of several of such tools (for instance, this is clearly the case for Value Analysis and Design for Assembly⁴⁵). Obviously, contemporary design practice seems to justify Simondon’s appreciation of a reduction of the number of parts. But the TQM literature seems to fail in producing sound arguments for using part reduction as a general guideline no less than Simondon’s book Du Mode. Although current practice offers an empirical support for Simondon’s claim, giving such an important role to part reduction as the basis for the appreciation of the fit between physical and function al nature remains fairly speculative. The Dual Nature account does not seem to provide such a specific criterion and this is more on the safer side. The disadvantage of that is that the outcomes of such an account may be less inspiring for designers than Simondon’s account.

In the fifth place, I want to compare the ways Simondon and the Dual Nature program discuss knowledge. Thereby I will use my own taxonomy of three knowledge types, as derived from the Dual Nature account (knowledge of the physical nature of a technical artifact, knowledge of its functional nature, and knowledge of the relationship between the physical and the functional natures) for comparison with Simondon’s taxonomy of two knowledge types (childhood and adulthood knowledge). Simondon’s description of childhood knowledge (the knowledge of the artisan) suggests that it mainly contains what I have called knowledge of the functional nature of a technical artifact. Someone having only childhood knowledge knows what an artifact is for, but does not have an understanding of its composition (or broader: its physical nature) neither of why that composition (physical nature) makes it work. Adulthood knowledge (the knowledge of an engineer) then means also having an understanding of the latter two aspects of the artifact. This, however, is too simple to do justice to what Simondon means to say. Simondon would probably not deny that one need not be an engineer to know that a long object can be used to enlarge force (use as a lever). This would be knowledge of the relationship between the physical and the functional nature of that object (which, in my first, naïve analysis would be only in adulthood knowledge and not in the artisan’s childhood knowledge). Yet, there one can still differentiate between childhood knowledge and adulthood knowledge here. The adulthood knowledge only recognizes the potential of the long object of serving as a force enhancer, but cannot explain why the object can do that. The engineer, though, with adulthood knowledge can explain that and is even able to calculate how much output force will be generated by a certain input force given the geometry of the situation. The difference between childhood knowledge and adulthood knowledge, therefore, is not the absence of relationship knowledge in the childhood knowledge and its presence in adulthood knowledge, but a difference within that category of knowledge. Apparently there is a childhood version of relationship knowledge and an adulthood version. That obviously raises the question if the other two knowledge types in the taxonomy that was derived from the ‘Dual Nature’ account also have childhood and adulthood versions. Indeed, it seems possible to make that distinction for the remaining two types, physical nature knowledge and functional nature knowledge. An artisan’s knowledge of the physical nature will be limited to the observable and practical aspects of the physical nature, such as size, weight and type of material. The engineer’s knowledge will go beyond that and also comprise theoretical aspects of the physical nature, such as the energy band structure in the semi-conducting material. That can make quite a difference. An artisan seeing a transistor for the first time can develop knowledge of certain aspects of its physical nature (it is very tiny and mainly made of silicon), but it will not help the artisan much in using it. The engineer, also seeing it for the first time, will be able to predict that the material in the transistor can be used to amplify an electric current. In a similar way one can distinguish a childhood and an adulthood version of functional nature knowledge. An artisan studying an oscilloscope for the first time could recognize that its steering plates can be used to direct the electron beam to any desired point at the screen, but (s)he will be left wondering what this function might be any good for. The engineer, though, with a deeper understanding of the functioning of horizontal and vertical steering of the beam could predict that the oscilloscope can serve as a means to display an electrical signal. So Simondon’s differentiation between childhood and adulthood knowledge can be translated into certain differences within each of the three knowledge types that have been derived from the Dual Nature account of technical artifacts.

Finally, we can observe that the concept of hypertely and the series of element, individual and ensemble is absent in the Dual Nature approach. This approach analyzed artifacts only at the level of individuals, that is, artifacts that can function independently. There is now, however, a new research program that succeeded the Dual Nature program that focuses on sociotechnical systems. In this program it is exactly those two issues that are dealt with: the fact that artifacts are parts of systems and that these systems operate on the cutting edge of technology and society (the concept of hypertely). It will be interesting to see how this new program will compare with Simondon’s approach, once its first results will be published.

4. Conclusions

This article has suggested that it is interesting to go back to earlier philosophers of technology, such as Simondon, who published ideas that were not yet followed up because they were too analytically-oriented to be recognized as interesting in an era in which the overall approach in the philosophy of technology was still Continentally-dominated. Those ideas got lost in the history of philosophy of technology, but now can be re-valued in the context of a more analytically-oriented philosophy of technology. There exists some ‘analytic philosophy of technology’ avant-la-lettre, be it with a less developed argumentation, but still it is worthwhile to trace it back and see how it might contribute to our current interests. My analysis shows that as far as analytical rigor is concerned, the Dual Nature account technical artifacts should be preferred over Simondon’s more speculative account. Simondon has some very specific claims that in Du Mode are supported by various examples, but there are few places only where sound argumentation is presented to elevate the level of generalization. On the other hand, the specificity of Simondon’s somewhat more daring claims make it interesting as a source of inspiration, and maybe a more in-depth analysis of Simondon’s claims will allow for the development of the argumentation that is missing in Du Mode. The fact that Simondon’s account does bear resemblance to the Dual Nature account and seems to fulfill the criteria for an ontology of technical artifacts may make that a worthwhile effort.

References

Ariew, A., R. Commins, and M. Perlman (eds.). 2002. Functions. New essays in the philosophy of psychology and biology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Blanken, I. 2003. '”Bernard Tellegen and the Pentode Valve,” Proceedings of the IEEE 91(1): 238-239.

Boothroyd, G., P. Dewhurst, and W. Knight. 1994. Product design for manufacture and assembly. New York: Marcel Dekker.

Constant II, E.W. 1980. The Origins of the Turbojet Revolution. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Dipert, R.R. 1993. Artifacts, Art Works and Agency. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

Dumouchel, P. 1995. “Gilbert Simondon’s Plea for a Philosophy of Technology,” In A. Feenberg and A. Hannay (eds.), Technology and the politics of knowledge. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Feenberg, A. 2000. “From Essentialism to Constructivism: Philosophy of Technology at the Crossroads.” Online: www-rohan.sdsu.edu/faculty/feenberg/talk4.html

Fox, J. 1993. Quality Through Design. The key to successful product delivery. New York: McGraw-Hill.

Houkes, W., and A. Meijers. 2006. “The ontology of artifacts: the hard problem,” Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 37: 118-131.

Hubig, C., A. Huning, and G. Ropohl. 2000. Nachdenken über Technik. Die Klassiker der Technikphilosophie. Berlin: Edition Sigma.

Kroes, P., and A. Meijers. 2006. “The Dual Nature of technical artifacts,” Studies in History of Philosophy of Science 37: 1-4.

Kroes, P., and A. Meijers. 2000. “Introduction: a discipline in search of its identity,” In P. Kroes and A. Meijers (eds.), The Empirical Turn in the Philosophy of Technology. Oxford: Elsevier Science. xvii-xxxv.

Mackenzie, A. 2005. “The problematising the Technological: the object as event?,” Social Epistemology 19(4): 381-399.

Schmidgen, H. 2004. “Thinking technological and biological beings: Gilbert Simondon’s philosophy of machines,” Paper presented at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin. August 27, 2004. Online: www.csi.ensmp.fr/WebCSI/4S/download_paper/download_paper.php?paper=schmidgen.pdf

Simon, H.A. 1969. The Sciences of the Artificial. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. 6.

Simondon, G. 1989. (1958.) Du Mode d’existence des objets techniques. Paris: Aubier.

Vermaas, P.E., and W. Houkes. 2003. “Ascribing functions to technical artifacts: a challenge to etiological accounts of functions,” British Journal. for the Philosophy and History of Science 54: 261-289.

Vries, M.J. de. 2005. “Analyzing the complexity of nanotechnology,” In J. Schummer and D. Baird (eds.), Nanotechnology Challenges. Implications for Philosophy, Ethics and Society. Singapore: World Scientific Publishing, 165-178. [Originally published as: Vries, M.J. de: 2005. “Analyzing the complexity of nanotechnology,” Techné 8 (3): 62- 75.]

Vries, M.J. de. 2005. 80 Years of Research at Philips. The History of the Philips Natuurkundig Laboratorium, 1914-1994. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.

Vries, M.J. de. 2003. “The Nature of Technological Knowledge: Extending Empirically Informed Studies into What Engineers Know,” Techné 6(3): 1-21.

Endnotes

¹ Dipert 1993

² References can be found in Houkes and Meijers 2006.

³ Techne 6:2 (Winter 2002) was a special issue dedicated to this program. It was supervised by Peter A. Kroes and Anthonie W.M. Meijers at the Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands. It was carried out by two post doc researchers (Wybo N. Houkes and Pieter E. Vermaas) and two Ph.D. students (Marcel Scheele and Jeroen de Ridder).

⁴ Kroes and Meijers 2006

⁵ The latter was a follower of the Dutch philosopher Herman Dooyeweerd, who developed a philosophy that is generally indicated as ‘reformational philosophy’ because of its religious background. Van Riessen was an electrical engineer by training. In 1949 he received his Ph.D. in a thesis in which he first described the views of various philosophical schools on technology. The second part of his thesis analyses technical artifacts and engineering design in terms of Dooyeweerd’s conceptual framework. This framework is based on the notions that reality is complex because it can be described in terms of different aspects (e.g., the physical, the economical, the juridical and the aspect of belief or trust) that can not be reduced to one another, and the regularities or ‘laws’ that we see in the various aspects. See also de Vries 2005. Van Riessen’s work was also discussed extensive by Carl Mitcham in the First Van Riessen Memorial Lecture; see www.aspecten.org/HvRML/LezingHvRML_1.html.

⁶ For instance, in the Wikipedia encyclopedia on the Internet; see: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilbert_Simondon. Simondon studied at the Ecole Normale Supérieure en Sorbonne from 1944 onward. The reason for this is probably the way Simondon wrote about forms and content. He saw an analogy between humans and artifact in that both are a combination of form (associated by Simondon with such terms as function, thinking, actuality) and content (associated with realization, potentiality, and life). For Simondon this analogy explains why humans are capable of inventing artifacts (Du Mode, p. 60). It can be questioned, though, if the fact that Simondon used these terms justifies calling him a neo-aristotelian philosopher, because this use of the terms ‘form’ and ‘content’ is different from Aristotle’s.

⁷ In this article I will quote from the 1989 edition: Gilbert Simondon, Du Mode d’existence des objets techniques. Paris: Aubier. The original edition was published in 1958. Du Mode was originally the ‘thèse complémentaire’ for his doctoral thesis titled L’individu à la lumière des notions de forme et d’information, of which the first volume came out in 1964 and the second in 1989.

⁸ Feenberg 2000

⁹ Paul Dumouchel 1995

¹⁰ Henning Schmidgen 2004

¹¹ Mackenzie 2005; There is also a dissertation on Simondon by Vincent Bontems, published in 2004, but it remained unpublished; I was not able to consult it for this publication.

¹² Hubig, Huning and Ropohl 2000

¹³ Du Mode, p. 10.

¹⁴ Du Mode, p. 11.

¹⁵ Kroes and Meijers 2000

¹⁶ Du Mode, p. 20 (my translation).

¹⁷ In this article I will use the term ‘technical object’ to indicate Simondon’s ‘objet techniques’ and the term ‘technical artifact’ for the material entity, in the same way the Dual Nature program uses that term.

¹⁸ Du Mode, p. 24. It is interesting to note that the difference between craftsmanship and industry also plays an important role in the writings of the other early analytical philosopher of technology I mentioned, namely Hendrik van Riessen. For Van Riessen, though, the difference lies primarily in the fact that the influence of science on technology transferred the characteristic of universality to technology, which resulted in uniformity of products in the industrial approach rather than unique products in the craftsmanship approach. This is clearly different from the way Simondon differentiates between the two approaches or stages. Van Riessen explains the difference from the perspective of production and quantity, while Simondon uses the perspective of design and quality.

¹⁹ The latter term is used on p. 34 in Du Mode.

²⁰ Du Mode, p. 22. This is an interesting view, because in most literature reconciling conflicting demands is seen as the core of design problem. Apparently, for Simondon there is a more important challenge.

²¹ Du Mode, p. 15. Probably the term ‘ensemble’ can be seen as an equivalent of the term ‘system’.

²² Du Mode, p. 24.

²³A full history of this industrial laboratory, including more details about Tellegen and his penthode, can be found in Vries 2005. See p. 39 and 40 for the penthode, which in the pre-WWII period was one of the most important patents for the Philips company as this device became a standard for amplification of signals for communication worldwide. Tellegen and his penthode are also described in Blanken 2003. Blanken is the director of the Philips Company Archives.

²⁴ His account can be found in Du Mode, pp 27-34.

²⁵ Vries 2003

²⁶ Simondon uses the terms ‘minorité’ and ‘majorité’ in French for this (Du Mode, p. 85). These are not to be confused with ‘minority’ and ‘majority’ in English.

²⁷ Later in Du Mode, on p. 251, Simondon admits that users, too, can have such knowledge, which enables them to use the artifact in ways that differ from what the designer had in mind.

²⁸ Although Simondon did not use these terms, probably what he refers to is the difference between vocational and general education. Still today the difference between the two is the content of much debate.

²⁹ Du Mode, p. 157.

³⁰ Du Mode, p. 233/4.

³¹ See, for instance, the collection of essays in Ariew, Commins, and Perlman (eds.) 2002.

³² In Simondon’s terminology, this representation is abstract in a double sense: it is not yet materialized, but also is does not show the convergence of functions that defines concreteness in Simondon’s use of that term.

³³ Du Mode, p. 35.

³⁴ Du Mode, p. 47.

³⁵ Du Mode, p. 56.

³⁶ Simon 1969

³⁷ Simondon uses the name ‘mécanologie’ for that science.

³⁸ This distinction strongly reminds of one made by Simondon’s contemporary philosopher of technology, Van Riessen. He defined two situations: one in which the device loses its meaning outside the environment in which it normally functions (e.g., the sledge of a lathe, which can only be used in such a lathe) , and one in which the device can be taken out of that environment and be put in a different environment where it can also function, though maybe in a slightly different way (e.g. a gear which can be used in a clock but also in other devices). The first situation is called a ‘part-whole relationship’, and the second situation is called an ‘enkapsis’. Van Riessen took both terms from Dooyeweerd and applied them to technical artifacts.

³⁹ Du Monde, p. 10 and 11.

⁴⁰ Kroes and Meijers 2006

⁴¹ Houkes and Meijers 2006

⁴² Vermaas and Houkes 2003

⁴³ Du Mode, p. 40.

⁴⁴ Constant 1980

⁴⁵ See, for instance, Fox 1993 and Boothroyd, Dewhurst and Knight 1994.

‘개체’ 또는 ‘개체화’ 문제를 19세기 이래 생물학과 분리하여 논할 수는 없을 것이다. 현재에는 분자생물학의 성과나 오토포이에시스 논의 등과 분리하여 ‘개체’를 논하는 것은 아무래도 불가능하다. 하지만 철학에서 오랜 역사를 지닌 이 문제에 관해 철학은 더 이상 아무것도 말할 수 없다고 할 정도로 사정은 단순하지 않다. 이 글에서는 새로운 개체관, 개체화론을 수립하고자 했던 20세기 중반의 철학자 질베르 시몽동의 논의를 검토하고, 그의 논의로부터 영감을 얻은 철학자들이 어떻게 그의 논의를 전개시켰는가를 살펴봄으로써, 현재에 있어서의 개체화론의 두 가지 동향을 다뤄보고자 한다.

논의는 다음의 순서로 진행된다. 우선, 1절에서는 시몽동의 개체화론은 개괄한다. 개체화론의 틀을 간략하게 소개한 후에 이것의 범례로서 기술적 대상의 개체화를 거론하면서 그의 개체화론을 명확하게 한다. 이어서 2절에서는 시몽동의 논의에 포함되어 있는 불철저함을 지적하고, 이러한 불철저함의 이유를 분명히 제시한다. 그리고 3절과 4절에서는 시몽동의 불철저함을 극복하고자 했던 두 명의 철학자의 논의로부터 시몽동을 기점으로 한 개체화론에 두 가지 동향이 있다는 것을 보여준다. 3절에서는 베르나르 스티글레르의 논의를, 4절에서는 질 들뢰즈의 논의를 각각 다룬다.

1. 시몽동의 개체화론 개괄

시몽동의 개체화론의 기본적 발상은 “개체로부터 출발하여 개체화를 사고하는 것이 아니라 오히려 개체화를 통해 개체를 사고한다”(IGPB, p. 22)라는 한 마디로 요약할 수 있다. 이 말의 내실을 끄집어내는 형태로, 그의 개체화론의 틀을 주로 ≪개체와 그 물리적․생물학적 발생≫(1964)을 사용해 정리하고자 한다.

“개체로부터 출발하여 개체화를 사고한다”는 종래의 “개체화론의 원리”의 발상, 바로 이것이 시몽동의 최대 비판 대상이다. 특히 그가 비판하는 것은 ‘질료형상론’과 ‘원자론’이라는 두 가지 사고방식이다. 한편으로 아리스토텔레스를 발단으로 한 ‘질료형상론’에서는 그 자체로 개체화된 ‘형상’ 및 ‘질료’라는 영역으로부터 개체의 생성이 논해지며, 다른 한편으로 데모크리토스 이래의 ‘원자론’에서는 이미 구성된 개체로부터 개체의 생성이 사고된다. 하지만 이것들은 모두 개체의 생성을 설명하는 데 있어서 개체를 전제로 한다는 “승인하기 힘든 논점 선취”(Garelli, p. 57)를 포함하고 있다. 이 근본적인 결점을 극복하기 위해서는 ‘질료형상론’과 ‘원자론’이 암묵적으로 인정해 온 전제를 다른 것으로 치환할 필요가 있다.

그러한 암묵적 전제는 바로 ‘안정적인’stable 평형상태라는 생각이다. 시몽동에 따르면, “안정된 평형상태밖에는 알고 있지 못했기 때문에 개체화는 지금까지 적절한 방식으로 사고되지도 기술되지도 못했다”(IGBP, p. 24)는 것이다. 그리고 그는 ‘안정적인 평형상태’를 ‘준안정적인’metastable 평형상태라는 생각으로 대체할 수밖에 없다고 주장한다.²⁾ 이런 평형상태에서는 개체와 다른 현실이 항상 몇 가지 ‘긴장상태tension’(IGBP, p. 29 이후)를 갖고 있는 시스템을 만들며, 더욱이 그것은 ‘실재réel’(IGBP, p. 230)의 수준에 있는 포텐셜을 항상 몰래 갖고 있다.³⁾ 그리고 이러한 ‘긴장상태’에 결정적인 ‘불균형disparation’(IGBP, p. 206~222 이하)이 생겨나면, 그 불균형을 해결하기 위해 잠재적이었던 포텐셜이 ‘현재화(顯在化, 現在化, s'actualise)’하며, 새로운 개체가 생성된다. 포텐셜은 이러한 현재화에서만 국소적으로 보여지게 된다.⁴⁾ 물론 이 새롭게 생성된 개체도 다른 현실과 마찬가지로 포텐셜을 몰래 지닌 시스템을 만들며, 계속적으로 ‘개체화의 과정process’이 진전된다.⁵⁾ 긴장상태를 지닌 시스템 내부에서 개체를 파악함으로써, 개체를 항상 새로운 개체로 생성해 나가는 상태에 놓여진 것으로서 파악하는 것이 시몽동의 “개체화를 통해 개체를 사고한다”는 표현의 내실이다.

시몽동은 이러한 틀을 물리학, 생물학, 심리학, 사회학의 각 영역에서, 조금씩 차이를 집어넣으면서 적용하여 개체화론을 전개해 가는데, 여기에서는 범례로서 그가 ‘구체화concrétisation’라는 특별한 명칭으로 부르는 바의 ‘기술적 대상’의 개체화를 다루고, 그의 개체화론을 보다 명확하게 하고자 한다.⁶⁾

‘구체화의 과정’은 시몽동의 기술론을 다룬 책 ≪기술적 대상의 존재양식에 관하여≫(1958)에서 검토된다. 이것은 각 구조가 특정한 하나의 기능밖에는 맡고 있지 않은 기술적 대상(추상적 대상)이, 복수의 기능이 하나의 구조로 응축된 기술적 대상(구체적 대상)으로 발전하는 개체화의 과정으로,⁷⁾ 전자에 있어서 각 구조들 사이에서 생겨나는 “전체의 기능을 훼손하는” “이차적 효과”(MEOT, p. 34)를 상쇄하는 형태로 후자의 구조가 수립되게 된다. 이러한 구체적 대상의 일례로서 시몽동은 Guimbal 터빈이라고 불리는 것을 거론한다. 이 터빈은 금속 커버로 뒤덮인 발전기와 연결된 후에 수압관 속에 들어가 있다. 또한 금속 커버와 발전기 사이에는 오일이 투입되어 있다. 여기에서 물과 오일은 다음과 같은 방식으로 복수의 기능을 응축하고 있다. 즉, 한편에서는 물이 터빈과 발전기를 움직이는 에너지를 만들어내는 동시에 고온이 된 발전기의 열을 놓아주며, 다른 한편으로는 오일이 베어링(축받이)의 압력에 의해 발전기에 주유를 하는 동시에 자신의 고압력에 의해 물의 침투를 방지한다.⁸⁾ 물과 오일은 서로 간에 악영향을 지워버린다.

그리고 이 기능의 응축에 있어서 중요한 것은 이 터빈이 이미 존재하는 물과 오일이라는 환경 속에 단순히 놓여진 것이 아니라는 점이다. 오히려 자발적 요소(물, 오일)와 기술적 요소(터빈, 발전기)가 시스템의 ‘자기-조건화auto-conditionnement’(MEOT, p. 50, 55)에 의해 ‘연합’되며, 하나의 환경(연합환경)이 산출된다. 시몽동은 구체화에 관해 다음과 같이 결론짓는다. “…구체화란 이미 주어져 있는 환경에 의해 조건지어지는 것이 아니라, 환경의 탄생을 조건짓는 프로세스인 것이다. … 발명이 존재한다는 것, 그 발명이 그 창출된 환경 내부에서 설립하는 관계에 의해서 실현되며, 또한 정당화되는, 그러한 비약이 있기 때문이다.”(MEOT, p. 55) 기술적 대상은 그 자신을 가능하게 하는 환경을 불연속적으로 창출함으로써 발전해 간다.⁹⁾

이러한 구체화 과정을 개체화론의 논의를 따라서 재구성해 보자. 추상적인 기술적 대상에서는 각 구조가 악영향을 미치고 있는 데 반해, 즉 불균형이 생겨나고 있는 데 반해, 여기에서 “발명 이전에는 잠재적으로만 존재하는 환경”(MEOT, p. 55)를 현재화시켜서 그 불균형을 해결함으로써 구체적인 기술적 대상이 발명된다. 그리고 이 구체적이 된 기술적 대상은 더 이상 연합환경과의 사이에서 불균형을 유지하며, 잠재적인 포텐셜을 숨기고 있으며, 더욱 보다 구체적인 된 기술적 대상이 발명되게 된다.

이상의 논의를 토대로 하여, 구체화 과정을 간략하게 제시해 보자. 3절, 4절에서 시몽동의 개체화론을 전재시키는 두 가지 방향을 보여줄 때, 또한 그 두 가지 방향을 비교할 때, 이 간략화는 도움이 될 것이다. “이미 주어져 있는 환경에 대응하는 대상이 창출되는 것이 아니라, 새로운 환경과 합체된 대상이 창출된다.”(구체화의 정식.)

이상에서 시몽동의 개체화론은 개괄했다. 다음으로는 이 개체화론을 게슈탈트 심리학의 용어로 다시 말해 보고, 그것을 통해 그의 개체화론의 불철저한 부분을 지적하기로 한다.

2. 시몽동의 개체화론의 불철저함

시몽동은 게슈탈트 심리학을 곳곳에서 참조한다. ≪기술적 대상의 존재양태에 관하여≫에서는 특히 게슈탈트 심리학의 ‘그림 ― 땅’ 관계에 관한 사고가 크게 참조되며, 기술적 대상에 ‘그림’의 역할이, 연합환경에 ‘땅’의 역할이 각각 주어져 있다.(MEOT, p. 59.) 또한 앞절에서 보았듯이, ‘연합환경’은 이미 현재화하고 있기 때문에, 이 연합환경 자체가 더욱 더 잠재적 환경, 즉 ‘포텐샬’을 감추지 않으면 안 된다. 이것을 토대로 하면, 기술적 대상에 관하여 게슈탈트 심리학의 용어를 사용해서 다음과 같이 쓸 수 있다. “기술적 대상에 있어서의 개체=‘그림’과 연합된 환경=‘땅’은 새로운 ‘그림 ― 땅’ 관계를 산출할 수 있는 포텐샬 = ‘땅 자체’를 잠재적으로 가지고 있다.”¹⁰⁾

이러한 “땅 자체”, 즉 포텐셜한 수준을 유지하는 것은 시몽동의 개체화론의 근간에 관한 문제이다. 왜냐하면 종래의 개체화 원리에서 암묵적으로 전제되고 있던 ‘안정적인 평형상태’를 ‘준안정적인 평형상태’로 치환하는 중요성을 지적하고, 후자를 ‘포텐셜’을 숨긴 개체화 시스템으로서 그가 생각하고 있기 때문이다. 그렇지만 여기에서 하나의 의문이 생긴다. 과연 시몽동은 그의 철학의 관건이라고도 말할 수 있는 ‘땅 자체’를 수미일관되게 다루고 있는 것일까? 이것은 미묘한 문제이지만, 일단 부정적으로 답할 수 있다. 그것을 보여주는 대목으로 여기에서는 그의 ‘땅’ 개념의 사용 사례를 보기로 하자.

시몽동이 ‘땅’ 개념을 사용할 때, 그것은 기본적으로 ‘그림 - 땅’ 관계를 산출하는 ‘땅 자체’라는 의미에서 사용되고 있다. “땅은 다이나미즘을 몰래 갖고 있다. … 땅이란 서서히 진전되어 가는 잠재성․포텐셜․힘의 시스템이다.”(MEOT, p. 58) 이것은 땅보다도 그림의 안정성을 지각에 있어서 중시하는 게슈탈트 심리학을 비판하는 맥락에서 나오는 한 구절이다. 하지만 그는 여러 곳에서 ‘땅’을 ‘그림 - 땅’ 관계에 있어서의 ‘땅’이라는 의미에서, 즉 게슈탈트 심리학의 의미에서 사용하기도 한다. 그것이 가장 확실하게 나타난 것이 ≪기술적 대상의 존재양태에 관하여≫의 3부이다. 시몽동은 여기에서 인간과 세계의 관계가 서서리 이분화되어 가는 과정을 기술한다. 그에 따르면 원초적 마술로부터 종교와 기술이 이분화하며, 더욱이 그 종교와 기술의 이론적 양태로부터 과학적 앎이, 양자의 실천적 기능으로부터 윤리적 사고가, 각각 분화하여 나타난다고 말한다. 지금은 이러한 이분화의 과정 자체의 정당성을 묻지 않는다. 문제는 그 자신이 말한 이분화에 있어서의 생성이 개체화론에 있어서의 ‘개체화 과정’과 동의어라고 명언하고 있음에도 불구하고(MEOT, p. 154 f), 다음과 가은 기술을 하고 있다는데 있다. “이러한 이분화[원초적 마술에서 기술과 종교로의 이분화]는 [마술에 있어서의] 땅과 그림을 분리하여, 그림은 기술의 내용을 부여하고, 땅은 종교의 내용을 부여한다.”(MOET, p. 169) “땅과 그림은 분리”한다, 땅과 그림이 분화한다 등의 표현이 반복하여 등장한다. 하지만 “땅과 그림”을 분리 가능한 것으로 파악하는 것은 포텐셜, 즉 ‘땅 자체’가 ‘그림 - 땅’ 관계를 산출한다는 개체화론에서의 논의와 어울리지 않는 것이 아닐까? 개체화론의 논의에 따라 이분화 과정을 말한다고 주장함에도 불구하고, 시몽동은 자신의 개체화론에서 가장 중요한 역할을 맡는다고 말해도 좋은 ‘땅 자체’를 여기에서는 끄집어내지 않는다.

시몽동은 ‘땅’ 개념을 ‘땅 자체’라는 의미로도, ‘그림 - 땅’ 관계에서의 ‘땅’이라는 의미로도 사용한다. 그 때문에 ‘땅’과 ‘땅 자체’는 개념적으로 구별하지 않았던 것에, 시몽동이 ‘땅 자체’를 수미일관되게 끄집어낼 수 없었던 원인이 있는 것은 아닌가, 이러한 것으로부터 그렇게 생각하는 것은 부자연한 것이 아닐 터이다. 시몽동의 개체화론을 전개시키는 관건은, 확실히 이러한 ‘땅 자체’를 어떻게 생각하고, 어떻게 개념화하는가라는 것에 있다. 여기에서는 이 수준을 독자적 방식으로 가다듬어내고, 시몽동의 개체화론을 계승한 두 명의 철학자의 논의를 검토한다. 우선 한 사람은 베르나르 스티글레르이다. 그는 기술적 대상 자체에 잠복해 있는 것으로서 ‘땅 자체’의 수준을 파악하고, 더욱이 데리다의 논의를 받아들임으로써 시몽동의 개체화론을 쇄신하고자 한다. 그리고 두 번째 사람은 질 들뢰즈이다. 그는 ‘땅 자체’, ‘포텐셜’을 시몽동 이상으로 적절하게 개념화함으로써 그의 개체화론을 받아들이고자 한다. 여기에서는 두 사람의 논의를 ‘땅 자체’의 수준에 관한 착상, 그리고 개체화 과정에 관한 논의라는 두 가지 점에서 주로 살펴보고자 한다.

3. 전개의 방향 (1) ― 베르나르 스티글레르의 경우

이 절에서는 스티글레르의 논의를 다룬다. ‘개체화’에 관한 그의 독자적 논의를 따라가고, 그런 후에 그가 어떻게 ‘땅 자체’의 수준을 생각했는가를 보고자 한다. 하지만 스티글레르의 ‘개체화’에 관한 논의를 따라가기 위해서는 우선 그가 끊임없이 참조하는 자크 데리다의 ‘차연’이나 ‘대리-보충’에 관한 논의를 살펴보아야만 한다.

데리다의 ‘차연’différence의 운동이란 그 자신의 ≪입장≫에서 서술되듯이, 동일한 운동이면서도 맥락에 따라서만 그 의미나 효과를 확정할 수 있다고 간주된다.¹¹⁾ 하지만 그 기본적 구조는 그 자신의 ‘대리-보충의 구조’라고 불리는 것과 동등하다. 그 대리-보충의 구조는 1967년의 ≪목소리와 현상≫에서는 “어떤 가능성이 거기에 추가될 수 있다고 말해지는 바로 그것을 그 가능성이 뒤늦게 산출한다”(Derrida, 1967 a, p. 99)라고 정식화된다. 여기에서는 잘 알려져 있는 에크리튀르론에서 이 ‘대리-보충의 구조’를 확인해 두자. 데리다에 따르면, 파롤(말해진 말)을 에크리튀르(쓰여진 말)가 나중에 대리-보충한다는 유형의 논의가, 플라톤 이래, 철학의 역사 속에서 일관되게 보일 수 있다고 한다. 하지만 이러한 논의는 사실이 전도되어 있다. 빠롤 속에도 에크리튀르의 성질(예를 들어 반복가능성)은 깃들어 있으며, 에크리튀르로부터 역행적으로 생각된 효과/결과(effet)로서 파롤의 우위는 주어져 있다는 것에 불과하다. 파롤과 에크리튀르는 분리될 수 없으며, 대립적으로 산출되는 것이다. 이 대립하는 개념쌍을 산출하는 운동이 여기에서는 ‘차연’이라고 불린다. ‘차연’은 또한 파롤의 선행성과 우위성, 그리고 이것들을 폄하하는 것으로서의 에크리튀르의 이차성을 말하는, 이른바 음성 로고스 중심주의를 폭로하기 위해서도 여기에서는 기능한다. 이상에서 보았듯이, 여기에서의 ‘차연’의 운동은 다음과 같은 ‘대리-보충의 구조’를 갖게 된다. “에크리튀르가, 거기에 추가된다고 말해지는 파롤을, 뒤늦게 산출한다.”

그런데, 스티글레르는 이러한 ‘차연’의 운동, 또는 ‘대리-보충의 구조’가 시몽동의 ‘구체화 정식’과 동일한 구조를 하고 있다는 것에 주목한다. 즉, 시몽동에게 있어서는 기술적 대상과 환경이 대칭을 이루며, 데리다에게 있어서는 에크리튀르와 파롤이 대칭을 이루어 산출된다는 유비에 스티글레르는 주목했던 것이다. 또한 스티글레르는 ‘구체화의 정식’에 포함된 관계성을 일반화한 시몽동의 ‘전도적transductive’ 관계¹²⁾를 “하나의 항이 다른 항이 없으면 존재할 수 없는, 또한 두 항이 함께 구성하고자 하는 관계”(Stiegler, 1996, p. 10)라고 재정식화하며, 이 관계를 산출하는 원동력으로서 데리다의 차연을 파악하고 있기도 하다.

전도적 관계를 산출하는 ‘개체화’ 과정은 스티글레르에게 있어서 데리다의 ‘차연’ 운동과 대등하다. 하지만 왜 시몽동의 논의에 데리다의 그것을 겹쳐놓지 않으면 안 되는가? 스티글레르에 따르면 그것은, 시몽동에 따르면 “인간의 지성에 의해서만 가능하다.”(MEOT, p. 56.) 포텐셜을 현재화시키기 위해서는 인간의 지성이나 “선취라는 발명적 기능”(Ibid)이 불가결하다. 하지만 여기에서는 연합환경에 선행하여 개체화된 인간이 존재하는 것이 된다. 하지만 시몽동의 사고를 철저하게 하면, 인간과 기술적 대상은 개체화 과정에 의해 동시에 발명되는 것이어야만 한다. 스티글레르는 기술적 대상의 발명을, 새로운 연합 환경의 창출을 수반하는 것으로 생각하는 것이 아니라, 또한 기술적 대상과 인간의 새로운 관계를 발명하는 것으로서도 파악한다. “기술이 인간을 발명하고, 인간이 기술을 발명한다.”(Stiegler, 1994, p. 148) 스티글레르는 이 기술과 인간의 상호 구성성을 나타내기 위해서, 전자에 대해서는 ‘quoi’(프랑스어로 ‘무엇?’을 의미하는 의문사)라는 말을, 후자에 대해서는 ‘qui’(마찬가지로 ‘누구?’를 나타내는 의문사)라는 말을 각각 배정한다. 그리고 그는 시몽동의 인간주의를 제거하는 이러한 착상을, 데리다가 ≪그라마톨로지≫에서 “살아 있는 것(le vivant)을 살아 있지 않은 것(le non-vivant) 일반 위에서 분절한다”(Derrida, 1967, p. 95)고 말한 ‘차연’의 특징으로부터 이끌어낸다. ‘색명의 역사’의 1단계인, quoi의 발전과 뒤얽혀 진전하는 qui의 역사,¹³⁾ 그리고 이 양자의 구성이 즈음에 작동하는 ‘차연’의 운동, 바로 이것이 그가 생각하는 개체화 과정에 다름 아니다.

그렇다면 다음으로 시몽동의 ‘땅 자체’의 수준에 관해 그는 어떻게 생각하는가? 그는 이 수준을 “이미 거기에 있는 것, le déja-là)”라는 말을 사용하여 표현하고 있다.¹⁴⁾ “이미 거기에 있는 것”이란, “내가 체험하지 않았음에도 불구하고 나의 과거이며, 또한 그것이 없으면 어떠한 나 자신의 과조도 내가 가질 수 없는 그러한 과거”(Stiegler, 1994, p. 150)로 간주한다. 우선 “나의 과거”란 무엇일까? 그에 따르면 그것은 후설의 내적 시간 의식의 논의에 있어서의 ‘제1차 기억’(과거 파악), ‘제2차 기억’(상기)이다.¹⁵⁾ 그리고 이 “나의 과거”를 떠받치고 있는 과거야말로 “이미 거기에 있는 것”이라는 수준에 있는 과거이며, 기술적 대상, 즉 quoi가 그 전달을, 또는 그러한 것으로의 접근access을 가능하게 하는 과거로 간주된다. quoi는 시몽동이 주장하는 구체화의 과정에 의해 독자적인 역사를 가지며, 또한 과거를 담지하고 있다. 그리고 이 quoi가 지닌 ‘과거’가 없으면 나의 ‘과거’ 역시 구성되지 않을 것이다. (이 과거는 ‘제1차 기억’과 ‘제2차 기억’을 대비시켜 ‘제3차 기억’이라고도 불린다.) quoi가 축적하고 있는 독자적인 과거를 전제로 하여 qui와 quoi의 새로운 짝짓기를 산출하는 차연의 운동이 생겨나며, 그리고 그 quoi에 축적된 과거로 이루어진 차연의 운동이 생겨난다. … 스티글레르의 개체화론의 틀을 대략적으로 정리하면 이렇게 될 것이다. 그의 개체화론은 시몽동의 개체화론 속에서 특히 기술적 대상의 개체화(구체화)에 주목하고, 거기에 존재하는 인간주의를 제거하기 위해 데리다의 논의를 중첩시킴으로써,¹⁶⁾ 생명의 역사와 불가피하게 결합되어 있는 것으로서 기술적 대상의 발전을 생각하는 것이다.

4. 전개의 방향(2) ― 질 들뢰즈의 경우

다음으로 들뢰즈의 논의가 있다. 그는 만년까지 지속적으로 개체화론을 전개해 왔는데, 여기에서는 시몽동을 토대로 개체화론을 논하는 들뢰즈의 ≪차이와 반복≫에 대해 교대로 논하기로 한다. 그리고 앞 절과는 반대로, 그가 “땅 자체”, ‘포텐셜’을 시몽동 이상으로 적절히 개념화한 점을 우선 다루며, 그런 후에 그에 의한 개체화 과정에 관한 기본적 논의를 살펴보려고 한다.

들뢰즈가 베르그송과 함께 도입한 ‘가능적인 것le possible ― 실재적인 것le réel’, ‘잠재적인 것le virtuel ― 현재적인 것l'actuel’이라는 두 가지 대립쌍의 구별, 특히 ‘가능적인 것’과 ‘잠재적인 것’의 구별은 유명한데, 이러한 구별은 또한 ‘포텐셜’ 개념을 일관되게 다루는 것과 연결되어 있다. 한편으로, 가능적인 것이 ‘실재적인 것에 대립하고’, ‘사후적인 산물, 그 가능적인 것과 유사한 것에 닮아 역행적인 것으로 조작된 것’인 반면, 잠재적인 것은 ‘실재적인 것에 대립하지 않고, 그 자체로 완전한 실재성을 소유하고 있다’고 간주된다. 그리고 그 잠재적인 것의 ‘과정이 현재화’이지만 ‘현재적인 항들은 잠재성과 유사하지 않다.’(Deleuze, 1968, p. 272 f)

‘잠재적인 것’은 ‘가능적인 것’처럼 사후적으로 만들어지는 것이 아니다. 즉 발명의 순간에만 현재화하는 것인데, 그럼에도 불구하고 ‘실재적인 것’이다. 이것이 시몽동의 ‘포텐셜’에 대응한다는 것은 명확할 것이다. 또한 ‘잠재적인 것’이라는 용어를 사용하고 있기 때문에, 시몽동처럼 현재화한 연합환경 = ‘지도 - 땅’ 관계에 있어서의 ‘땅’과 혼동될 수도 없다. 들뢰즈의 ‘잠재적인 것’은 시몽동이 불철저한 방식으로만 다룰 수밖에 없었던 ‘포텐셜’을 보다 적절하게 개념화한 것이라고 평가할 수 있다.

그런데 이런 ‘잠재적인 것’은 예를 들어 지도와 땅과 같은 “적어도 두 가지 큰 수준, 이질적 현실의 2단계” 사이에 배분되어 있다. 이러한 이질적 현실의 2단계는 항상 ‘disparate’ 또는 ‘불균형, disparation’(Ibid., p. 287)의 상태에 있는데, 들뢰즈는 이러한 불균형 상태를 ‘강렬도, intensité’라고 부른다. 불균형 상태를 ‘강렬도’라고 부르는 것의 중요한 함의는, 불균형이야말로 땅과 지도처럼 현실의 두 가지 수준을 산출하는 것이며, 땅과 지도, 높음과 낮음, 좌와 우 등을 산출하는 ‘깊이 자체la profondeur elle-même’이다.(Ibid., p. 295)라는 견해를 제출할 수 있다는 점에 있다. 그리고 가로, 세로, 깊이 등의 연장을 확장하는 불균형, 즉 근원적인 ‘깊이’, 바로 이것들이 개체화가 행해지는 ‘장’이 된다. 개체화란 ‘disparate를 소통시키는 것’이며, 강렬도의 양들/내포량(quantités intensive)¹⁷⁾의 본질적 과정이다. 즉 들뢰즈가 생각하는 개체화 과정이란 배분된 포텐셜, 즉 잠재적인 것을 강렬도의 작동이 현실화시키는 것으로, 불균형을 해결하고 새로운 현실의 수준들을 만드는 것이며,¹⁸⁾ 물론 그 기본적인 논의의 틀을 제공하는 것은 시몽동이다. 앞의 1절에서 보았듯이, 시몽동에게 있어서 ‘불균형’이란 개체를 포함한 내부의 불균형, 기술적 대상으로 말하자면 각 구조 사이에, 또는 개체와 연합환경 사이에 이는 불균형이며,¹⁹⁾ 그 불균형의 해결 과정이 개체화 과정으로 파악되고 있다. 들뢰즈는 시몽동의 논의를 기본적으로 답습하면서 ‘포텐셜’, ‘땅 자체’를 ‘잠재적인 것’이라고 보다 적절하게 개념화하며, 더욱이 ‘불균형’을 ‘강렬도’라고 부르는 것에 의해, 시몽동 이상으로 그 ‘불균형’을 긍정적으로 파악하는 관점을 수립한 것이다.

이상에서 스티글레르와 들뢰즈에 의한 시몽동의 개체화론의 계승을 살펴보았다. 정리해 보자. 한편으로 스티글레르는 시몽동의 특히 기술적 대상의 개체화(구체화)의 논의를 계승했다. 그때, 시몽동의 논의에 포함된 인간주의를 제거하기 위해, 데리다의 ‘차연’의 발상을 사용하여, qui(인간)와 quoi(기술적 대상)는 서로 구성한다고 주장했다. 또한 quoi가 지닌 “이미 거기에 있는 것”이라는 특수한 수준의 과거야말로, 시몽동의 “땅 자체”, “포텐셜”에 해당한 것이었다.²⁰⁾ 다른 한편으로, 들뢰즈는 시몽동의 개체화론 일반의 틀을 답습한다. 그런 위에서 시몽동의 불철저한 개념 설정을 제거하고, ‘잠재적인 것’이라는 개념을 사용하여 “땅 자체”, “포텐셜” 수준을 표현하고, 더욱이 개체화 과정을 불균형의 ‘강렬도’가 일어나는 것으로 파악하고, 시몽동 이상으로 불균형에 큰 힘을 부여했다.

그렇다면 스티글레르와 들뢰즈, 어떤 사람의 논의가 보다 시몽동의 개체화론을 충실하게 계승하고 있는 것일까? 또한 개체 및 개체화의 논의로서 어떤 것이 보다 생물학적, 넓게는 과학적인 정당성을 가진 것일까? 전자의 물음에 대해서는, 아직 양자의 논의의 접합 가능성을 검토하고 있지 않는 이 글에서는, 유감스럽게도 답할 수 없다. 하지만 후자의 물음에 대해서는 다음과 같이 답할 수 있다. 어느 쪽도 과학적 정당성에 관해서는 유보를 하지 않으면 안 됨에도 불구하고, 이로부터 양자의 논의를 부정해 버리는 것은 나무 빠를 것이다. 조르쥬 캉길렘이 1945년에 했던 말을 마지막으로 인용해 두자. “개체란 하나의 현실인가, 그것도 환상인가, 또는 이상인가? 이러한 물음에 답할 수 있는 것은 설령 생물학이든, 어떤 하나의 과학은 아니다. 그리고 설령 모든 과학이 그러한 해명에 각각 기여할 수 있는, 기여해야만 한다고 하더라도, 그 문제가 말의 통상적인 의미에서 본래적으로 과학적인 것인지 여부는 의심스럽다.”(Canguilhem, p. 78.)

참고문헌

* 시몽동의 저작에만 다음의 약호를 붙여 놓았다. [ ] 안은 초판년도를 나타낸다.

   MEOT : Du modo d’existence des objets technique, Aubier, 1958.

   IGPB  : L’Individu et sa genèse physico-biologique, PUF, 1995 [1964].

   IPC   : L’Individuation psychique et collective, Aubier, 1989.

Bachelard, Gaston, Le nouvel esprit scientifique, PUF (14ed.) 1978 [1934].

Beardsworth, Richard, “Thinking Technicity,” in C. Norris & Roden (eds.) Jacques Derrida (Sage Masters of Modern Social Thought) Vol. 3, London, 2003, pp. 39-54.

Canguilhem, Georges, La connaissance de la vie, Vrin, 1992 [1965].

Deleuze, Gilles, Difference et répétition, PUF, 1968.

_____________, L'île déserte et autres textes : textes et entretiens 1953-1974, Minuit, 2002.

Derrida, Jacques, La voix et le phénomène, PUF, 1967a.

_______________, De la grammatologie, Minuit, 1967b.

_______________, Positions, Minuit, 1972a.

_______________, La dissémination, Seuil, 1972b.

Garelli, Jacques, “Transduction et information,” in Gilbert Simondon: Une pensée de l'individuation et de la technique, Albin Michel, 1994, pp. 55-68.

Stiegler, Bernard, La technique et le temps 1. La Faute d'Epiméthée, Galilée/Cité des Sciences et de l'Industrie, 1994.

______________, La technique et le temps 2. La désorientation, Galilée, 2001.

______________, La technique et le temps 3. Le temps du cinéma et la question du mal-être, Galilée, 2001.

アリストテレス, ≪形而上學(下)≫(出隆 옮김), 岩波文庫, 1961년.

米虫正巳, ｢リクール、メルロ＝ポンティとデカルト ― Ego と主體性 (1)｣, ≪關西學院哲學硏究年報≫, 제33호, 1999년, 1-42쪽.

広松浩司, ｢技術的對象の現象學 ― ジルベルト・シモンドン思想の射程 (2)｣, ≪東京大學敎養學部外國語學科硏究紀要≫, 제43권2호, 1996년, 25-45쪽.