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Gilbert Simondon Gilbert Simondon Causality, Ontogenesis & Technology Simon Mills A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the University of the West of England, Bristol for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Faculty of Arts, Creative Industries and Education, University of the West of England, Bristol Submitted - February 2014 Abstract This PhD thesis focuses on the elucidation, development and application of Gilbert Simondon's realist philosophy of individuation. In particular the thesis has three main goals: First, to provide a developed account of Simondon's ontology. Second, to develop a coherent account of causality in line with Simondon's theorization of individuation. Third, to give a full account of Simondon's philosophy of technology and evaluate its relevance for the contemporary technological state of affairs. To answer the third of these questions it is necessary to address the others. A realist, non-anthropological account of technology necessarily requires the development of a robust ontology and a suitable theorization of causality. In this thesis this is achieved by developing the key concepts involved in Simondon's theory of individuation such as transduction, metastability and pre-individuality. Before developing an account of transductive operation in the three regimes of individuation which Simondon stipulates (physical, vital and psycho-social) we argue for Simondon's account of allagmatics (theory of operations) as consistent with and in some ways superior to some contemporary powers based theories of causality. Having established the broad scope of Simondon's axiomatic use of individuation it is then utilized in order to fully examine his philosophy of technology. This is achieved by bringing together Simondon's theorization of individuation in multiple domains (e.g. the image-cycle, transindividual) in relation to that of technology. In doing this we also develop other important aspects of Simondon's philosophy such as aesthetics, epistemology and ethics. By necessity the thesis has a broad scope in order to reflect the encyclopedic ambition which Simondon had for his genetic philosophy and without which his work is prone to be misunderstood. As such it describes a novel encounter between cybernetics, phenomenology and energetics. Table of Contents Introduction 1 Chapter 1: Kant and the problem of Natural Purposes 16 1.1: The Problem of Natural Purposes 16 1.2: The Antinomy of Teleological Judgment 24 1.3: A Brief Survey of Alternative Theories 32 1.3.1: Aristotle 32 1.3.2: Locke & Powers 34 1.3.3: Reductionism / Essentialism 35 1.3.4: Somaticism 36 1.3.5: Nominalism 37 1.3.6: Powers 37 1.3.7: Conclusion 37 Chapter 2: Simondon & First-Order Cybernetics 40 2.1: Introduction to the Chapter 40 2.2: Cybernetics 41 2.3: Teleological Mechanisms 42 2.4: Physicalism & Complexity 45 2.5: Purpose, Randomness & Information Theory 47 2.6: Organism & Machine 51 2.7: Vitalism & Mechanism 53 2.8: Simondon & Cybernetics 55 2.9: The Critique of Hylemorphism & Atomism 56 2.10: Criticisms as Applied to Cybernetics 58 2.11: Analogy & Cybernetics 60 2.12: Memory and Meaning 66 2.13: Conclusion 69 Chapter 3: Transduction and Self-Organisation 71 3.1: The Pre-individual 71 3.2: Transduction 74 3.3: Information 81 Chapter 4: Simondon & Powers 94 4.1: Powers 94 4.2: The New Essentialism of Brian Ellis 96 4.2.1: Ellis and Intrinsicality 98 4.2.2: Ellis and fundamentality 99 4.3: Dispositional Monism 102 4.4: Emergence & Potential 107 4.5: The Problem of Ground 109 4.6: Relational Realism 114 4.7: Simondon & Powers 118 4.8: Pre-individuality as Ground and Motor of Causation 120 4.9: Between Necessity and Contingency 123 4.10: Equilibrium 124 4.11: Simultaneity 125 4.12: Emergence 126 4.13: Potential 127 4.14: Structure and Operation 129 4.15: Simondon & Structure 130 4.16: Real Idealism 132 4.17: Conclusion 136 Chapter 5: Vital Individuation 138 5.1: Level 139 5.2: Modality 140 5.3: Topology 142 5.4: Environment 147 5.5: Chronology 149 5.6: Stuart Kauffman 150 5.7: Information 158 5.8: Agency 160 Chapter 6: Psychic and Collective Individuation 162 6.1: Merleau-Ponty and von Uexküll 163 6.2: Simondon and Psychic Individuation 174 6.2.1: Affect 174 6.2.2: Perception 176 6.2.3: The Psychic 181 6.2.4: The Transindividual 182 6.3: Imagination and Invention 190 Chapter 7: Gilbert Simondon’s Philosophy of Technology 200 7.1: Philosophy of Technology 200 7.2: First Generation Philosophy of Technology 201 7.2.1: Heidegger & Technology 201 7.2.2: Jacques Ellul 207 7.3: Critical Theory of Technology 209 7.4: Second Generation Philosophy of Technology 210 7.4.1: Empirical Philosophy of Technology 210 7.5: Simondon's Philosophy of Technology 212 7.5.1: Concretization and the Associated Milieu 212 7.5.2: Natural and Artificial 219 7.5.3: Andrew Feenberg’s Humanist Account of Concretization 222 7.5.4: Simondon and Human Progress 224 7.5.5: The Aesthetic Dimension of Judgment 226 7.5.6: Technical Progress and Culture 232 7.5.7: Technology and Alienation 234 7.5.8: Resolutions 244 7.5.9: The Role of the Aesthetic 250 7.6: Conclusion 255 Chapter 8: A Politics of Sensibility: Latour, Stiegler and Simondon 262 8.1: Bruno Latour 262 8.1.1: Non-Modernism 266 8.1.2: Agency and Causality 269 8.1.3: Agency and the Human 273 8.2: Bernard Stiegler: Technics and Time 278 8.2.1: For a New Critique of Political Economy 285 8.3: Software 293 8.4: Conclusion 305 Bibliography 309 Acknowledgments There are two people without whom this thesis would never have been written and thus must receive my sincere gratitude. The first is my partner Sonal Patel whose love, support and encouragement, as well as considerable tolerance for my long working hours, was vital for this works completion. I cannot thank her enough for the sacrifices she made so that I could pursue my interests. One can only hope that she finds the result more impressive than the conventional model railway in a shed. The second person is my supervisor Iain Grant whose indefatigable enthusiasm, coupled with a seemingly inexhaustible philosophical knowledge, provided the overwhelming impetus for the development of this thesis. Along the way I've met and been in contact with many people whose collegiality and generosity have been both refreshing and inspiring. The chapter on Powers metaphysics owes much to the work of Svein Anders Nor Lie who kindly sent me his excellent PhD thesis. I must also thank Rani Lill Anjum for suggesting his work and introducing us. This thesis was also enriched by my good fortune to have met some notable fellow Simondon researchers. In particular I'd like to mention Anne Lefebvre and Cecile Malpasina for their good company and for sharing their fascinating ideas and knowledge. I'd must also acknowledge Dan and Nandita Mellamphy for sharing their translations of Simondon's texts and Mark Hansen for supplying me with a then unpublished article which was very useful towards the end of the project. I must also thank some other members of the excellent Philosophy department at The University of the West of England for their assistance and support in this project, in particular Alison Assiter, Mike Lewis and Darian Meacham. Their colleagues in the Media department, Seth Giddings and Patrick Crogan, must also receive mention for their support. I also would like to thank both Darian Meacham and Alberto Toscano for a challenging and insightful Viva. Finally, I must thank several of my friends and colleagues in the Media department at DMU for their support and good advice, in particular Alastair Gordon, Helen Wood, Diane Taylor, Stuart Hanson, Paul Smith and Tim O'Sullivan. I must also thank Dave Everitt for his friendship and sharing ideas. Introduction ‘To become moral and human once again, it seems we must always tear ourselves away from instrumentality, reaffirm the sovereignty of ends, rediscover Being; in short, we must bind back the hound of technology to its cage.’ (Latour, 2002: 247) ‘Gilbert Simondon is the only philosopher I would trust to mend my television set.’ - David Roden (@turingcop) We have some sympathy with Latour's statement, in the quotation above, that in its dealings with technology philosophy often ends up defanging it in order to re-focus on the human. Or if the hound cannot be caged, such as with Ellul at his most pessimistic, then it seems that technology's role is to use its fangs to de-humanize the scene. Whether considered as a means or considered as an end what we often find in so much philosophy of technology is the human at centre stage. However, in the final analysis, even with his ‘Copernican counter- revolution’ (Latour, 1993: 79) which aims to track the adventures of non- human quasi-objects, Latour also only offers an anthropological account of the technological despite his best intention to restore it to its ‘ontological dignity’ (Latour, 2002: 252). The goal of this thesis is to take seriously the idea of the ‘ontological dignity’ of technology by beginning our investigation not with technology but with ontology. To this end it explicates the ontology of Gilbert Simondon. Although currently best known in anglophone philosophical circles for his philosophy of technology, as laid out in The Mode of Existence of Technical Objects, the full import of this work cannot be understood unless it is situated within his broader philosophical project. 1 The simplest description of his project is that it is a philosophy of individuation which describes a genetic method for the becoming of being.
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