Foreign thinker
Gilbert Simondon
Gilbert SimondonPhilosophy of technology, genetic ontology, philosophy of technicsFrench1924–1989
"Before being an entity, the individual is a process."
Life and Thought
Gilbert Simondon was a French philosopher known for his studies of technology, technics, and the processes through which beings come into formation. His concept of "individuation" had a significant influence on contemporary philosophy, technology studies, and thinkers such as Gilles Deleuze.
Gilbert Simondon was born in France in 1924. He studied at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris and was influenced by philosophers such as Maurice Merleau-Ponty. Alongside his philosophical work, he taught philosophy at several French universities and devoted much of his thought to examining the relationship between human beings, technology, and the material world.
His major work, "Individuation in the Light of the Notions of Form and Information," sought to explain the formation of individuals not as the result of already completed entities, but as a dynamic process of becoming. He developed the concept of individuation as a pre-individual process through which biological, psychological, and social beings emerge.
Another important work, "On the Mode of Existence of Technical Objects," criticized purely instrumental views of technology and considered technics as part of humanity's relationship with the world. Simondon argued that understanding technology requires attention to the history, internal logic, and mode of existence of technical objects. His ideas later influenced philosophy of technology, social theory, and thinkers such as Gilles Deleuze, Jean Baudrillard, and Bruno Latour.