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A critical commentary on Simondon's Psychic and collective individuation. This book clarifies Simondon's complex terminology and structure through chapter by chapter commentary. It also invites a dialogue with other thinkers/philosophers and places the work in its historical context. It includes a discussion about Simondon's relevance to current ideas about biopolitics and post-Nietzschean ethics.

Jacques Lafitte occupies an odd place in the philosophy of technology. He was a French engineer who made a significant and conceptually innovative contribution to this field, yet his influence has been elusive and largely ignored until relatively recently. Many of Lafitte’s ideas find echoes in the work of later philosophers (particularly Gilbert Simondon), yet, notably in the case of Simondon, apparently without any direct line of influence. Lafitte placed the machine at the centre of his thinking about technology and articulated various layers of analysis around it; for example, he considered machines in the broader context of an artificial world or “mechanosphere”, which encompassed certain aspects of philosophical anthropology (namely, how to think the human in the context of human–machine relations, in the context of socio-political organizations). In this work we seek to reconstruct Lafitte’s ideas and briefly trace some of their later impact. We identify three dimensions (or theses) in Lafitte’s analysis: epistemological, ontological and anthropological. We argue that the most remarkable fact about Lafitte’s thought is the way it inaugurates, and anticipates, the approach of later currents, not just in the “French tradition”, who also made an effort to integrate machine theory into broader philosophical, anthropological and political aspects, in terms that echo Lafitte’s. In particular, we will focus on Gilbert Simondon and cybernetics.

This article offers a theory and methodology for understanding and interpreting collaborations that involve visualization technologies. The collaboration discussed here is technically a geovisualization-an immersive, digital \"fulldome\" film of Hurricane Katrina developed by the Advanced Visualization Laboratory (AVL) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, produced in collaboration with atmospheric scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado. The project, which brought together AVL's programmers, visualization experts, and artists with NCAR's scientists, required the integration of diverse disciplinary perspectives. In the language of such collaborations, the term renaissance team was coined to capture the collective expertise necessary to produce modern, high-end visualizations of large data sets. In this article, we deploy Simondon's concepts of technical objects and collective individuation to analyze the development of AVL's Katrina simulation. One extended sequence of team member collaboration suggests that technical objects also be treated as \"collaborators,\" for they have the capacity to transform such collectives through the unique problems they present.

The article develops the different meanings of the Simondonian idea of the transindividual, reconstructs the different interpretations that have been made about it, and considers its potentiality to think contemporary phenomena. For this, first, it points out the uses of the term transindividual before Simondon’s conceptualization of it. Second, it analyzes the definitions of the concept that appear in his doctoral theses of 1958 and distinguishes his different senses (ontogenetic, metaphysical, ethical, technical, etc.). Third, it reconstructs the contemporary debate about the transindividual and defines three moments (1989-1998, 1999-2005, and 2005-2015). Finally, it concludes by reflecting on the philosophical and epistemological potentiality of the idea of the transindividual to think about complex processes marked by the association of technological, psychosocial, and ethical-political dimensions.

Within the workerist tradition the concept of general intellect theorised by Marx in the “Fragment on Machines” has framed a socio-political interpretation of Simondon capable of questioning the ongoing process of valorisation and subjectivation of living labour under capitalism. According to Virno (2003), Leonardi (2010) and Pasquinelli (2015), Simondon’s philosophy can provide the theoretical foundation for thinking new forms of political agency and cooperation. Their accounts rely on the concepts of transindividuality, individuation, and mecanology, in order to explore Post-Fordist concepts such as multitude, cognitive capitalism, and algorithmic governmentality. Through my reading of Simondon’s philosophy of technics, I will assess these interpretations and situate the issue of general intellect at the intersection of his notions of “technicity” and “information.” Hence, I aim to integrate workerist and post-workerist interpretations through the concepts of living information incorporated into machinery, and invention-power implied in the concept of technicity. This will eventually lead to the replacement of the Marxist opposition between living and dead labour by a conception of the machine as neither living nor dead.

Le concept de valeur est souvent disqualifié pour son ambivalence : la valeur croît et décroît ; elle est reconnue par les uns, mais pas par les autres. Les philosophies de la valeur seraient subjectivistes ou contaminées par une rationalité économique. Nous montrons, à partir de Gilbert Simondon, que la valeur peut être conçue comme une grandeur variable sans tomber dans le nivellement ou le relativisme axiologique. Ceci implique de congédier la séparation néokantienne de l'ontologie et de l'axiologie, de rejeter la conception de la culture comme ensemble de valeurs (et la bipolarité des oppositions de valeur), et enfin de mobiliser une analogie physico-mathématique plutôt qu’économique pour penser la valeur.

En la última década se observa una recurrente rehabilitación de la filosofía de Gilbert Simondon para pensar el sentido y los desafíos de las tecnologías digitales para las sociales contemporáneas. En este marco, teniendo como eje las efectuaciones de la noción simondoniana de lo transindividual y la caracterización de las tecnologías digitales (Web 2.0, Big data y machine learning), el artículo reconstruye el campo problemático que establecen un conjunto de lecturas entre 2012 y 2016, particulariza sus operaciones teóricas y pondera sus distintas estrategias. En este sentido, tras introducir el debate entre Bernard Stiegler y Muriel Combes en la década de 1990, se analizan las interpretaciones de Mark Hansen, Antoinette Rouvroy y Thomas Berns, Stiegler y Simon Mills.

Diante do crescimento nos últimos anos dos estudos sobre raça e racismo na área de Ciência, Tecnologia e Sociedade (CTS), além da relevância do tema para o ativismo antirracista, este trabalho visa intervir e contribuir com o campo reconstruindo suas filiações teóricas e metodológicas. Sem pretender exaurir as pesquisas disponíveis nesse recorte, enfatizamos as ramificações antropológicas e sociológicas nos estudos em CTS sobre raça. A partir disso, demonstramos suas matrizes na obra de Frantz Fanon. Por fim, sugerimos que a abordagem fanoniana da intersecção entre raça e tecnologia, fundada no contexto histórico das lutas anticoloniais, pode ser reelaborada diante das transformações apresentadas pelas relações técnicas do digital. Como síntese deste estudo, propomos que novos diálogos com a Filosofia da Técnica, em especial pelo renovado interesse na obra de Gilbert Simondon, oferecem oportunidades de trabalho e reflexão. In the face of the expansion of studies on race and racism in the area of Science, Technology, and Society (STS), in addition to the theme’s relevance for antiracist activism, this work proposes an intervention and a contribution to this field of study reconstructing its theoretical and methodological roots. Without intending to exhaust the available research on this subject, the article emphasizes the anthropological and sociological ramifications within STS studies on race. It then demonstrates its roots in Frantz Fanon’s work. Finally, it suggests that Fanon’s approach to the intersection of racism and technology, grounded in the context of the anti-colonial struggle, can be reworked vis-à-vis the transformations presented by the technical relations of the digital world. As a critical synthesis, the study proposes new dialogues with the Philosophy of Technology, especially in light of the renewed interest in Gilbert Simondon’s work, offering opportunities for exploration and reflection.  Dado el crecimiento en los últimos años de los estudios sobre raza y racismo en el área de Ciencia, Tecnología y Sociedad (CTS), además de la relevancia del tema para el activismo antirracista, este trabajo pretende intervenir y contribuir a la campo reconstruyendo sus filiaciones teóricas y metodológicas. Sin pretender agotar la investigación disponible en esta sección, enfatizamos las ramificaciones antropológicas y sociológicas en los estudios CTS sobre la raza. A partir de esto demostramos sus matrices en la obra de Frantz Fanon. Finalmente, sugerimos que el enfoque fanoniano de la intersección entre raza y tecnología, fundado en el contexto histórico de las luchas anticoloniales, puede reelaborarse a la luz de las transformaciones presentadas por las relaciones técnicas de lo digital. Como síntesis de este estudio, proponemos que nuevos diálogos con la Filosofía de la Técnica, especialmente debido al renovado interés por la obra de Gilbert Simondon, ofrecen oportunidades de trabajo y reflexión.