Gilbert Simondon

French philosopher (1924–1989) best known for his theory of individuation and for his rehabilitation of the philosophical significance of technical objects. On this wiki he matters primarily as the background figure behind dividuation (Carbone's coinage) and behind the notion of techno-aesthetics that Carbone deploys in Philosophy-Screens ch. 5–6. For Merleau-Ponty scholarship more broadly, Simondon is a parallel twentieth-century French ontology — non-phenomenological but structurally resonant with MP's late work on the body and perception.

Key Points

  • Individuation as metastable becoming: Against the "traditional concept of individual understood as the stable final product of a preliminary metaphysical process" (Carbone ch. 6 p. 109), Simondon posits individuation as a process of metastable becoming that can halt at the physical stage, reach the biological, or proceed to the psychic and collective. The individual is a phase of individuation, not its substance.
  • Psychic and collective individuations as "reciprocal": the two are not independent stages but mutually constitute each other. Carbone uses this to frame the screen apparatus as a "scene of individuations" involving both us and the technical objects we are coupled with.
  • "Coupling" of human and technical object: Simondon's name for the constitutive correlation by which aesthetic objects gain "a margin of freedom" and a mode of existence of their own. Not anthropocentric supplementation but a co-constitutive relation.
  • Techno-aesthetics (1982 draft letter to Derrida): "techno-esthétique" — Simondon's name for the primitive, always-already technical character of our aesthetic-sensible relation to the world. Our perception and affectivity are not "naturally" pre-technical and then supplemented by technology; they are primitively technical. Carbone draws heavily on this (ch. 5 p. 85, ch. 6 p. 109).
  • "Scene of individuations" (théâtre d'individuations): Simondon's theatrical metaphor for the coupling; Carbone updates to "scene of dividuations" for the screen era (see dividuation).
  • Distance from Foucault/Agamben: Where Foucault/Agamben emphasize subjectification via apparatuses — a term still bound to the notion of "subject" — Simondon's individuation is less anthropocentric and more processual. Carbone prefers Simondon's term precisely because it "has the virtue of not implying once more the reference to the term subject, thus avoiding to characterize it univocally and overhistorically" (ch. 4 p. 86).
  • Critique of the concept: Simondon's wariness of the concept as a cognitive instrument "rejoins the attitude common to the philosophical reflection developed in France apropos of the cinema — of course, on the basis of different evaluations concerning it — from Bergson to Merleau-Ponty" (Carbone ch. 6 p. 111). The concept corresponds to the Albertian window; Simondon's individuation-thinking corresponds to the screen. This is a structural convergence Carbone exploits.

Principal Relevance to This Wiki

  1. Simondon provides the ontological vocabulary (individuation, coupling, techno-aesthetics) with which Carbone articulates the screen apparatus.
  2. Simondon's critique of the concept parallels MP's a-philosophy, making Simondon a natural ally in the philosophy-screens project even though Simondon himself did not write about cinema.
  3. Carbone's dividuation is a modification of Simondon's individuation — preserving its metastable-becoming structure but dropping the implicit reference to an indivisible final residual.

Principal Works (referenced by Carbone)

  • L'individu et sa genèse physico-biologique (1964) — first part of his thèse principale.
  • L'individuation psychique et collective (1989, posthumous) — second part.
  • Du mode d'existence des objets techniques (1958) — thèse complémentaire; on technical objects and their "mode of existence."
  • "Sur la techno-esthétique" (draft letter to Jacques Derrida, 1982; published posthumously) — the techno-aesthetics letter.

Connections

  • is the source of dividuation's individuation-framework — Carbone modifies Simondon's individuation into dividuation
  • converges with maurice-merleau-ponty on the critique of the concept and on the bodily-technical character of perception
  • converges with henri-bergson on the resistance to substance-based individuality
  • is invoked by carbone-2019-philosophy-screens as the ontological vocabulary for arche-screen and philosophy-screens
  • contrasts with Foucault's subjectification — Simondon's individuation is less anthropocentric

Open Questions

  • How deep does the parallel between Simondon's individuation and MP's ontology run? Carbone gestures at convergence but does not systematically develop it.
  • Does Carbone's dividuation actually require Simondon, or could it be derived from MP's reversibility alone?
  • How does Simondon's "coupling" of human and technical object relate to MP's flesh-as-element — are they compatible, or does Simondon's technical-first ontology threaten the primacy of embodied perception?

Sources

  • carbone-2019-philosophy-screens — ch. 5 pp. 85–86 on the Dufrenne-Simondon connection and the "quasi-subject" / "coupling"; ch. 6 pp. 108–111 on individuation / dividuation. Carbone cites the 1982 techno-aesthetics letter as Simondon's key statement.