---
slug: thinker-gilbert-simondon
title: Gilbert Simondon — Technical Objects and Individuation
canonical: https://miscsubjects.com/a/thinker-gilbert-simondon
---

<!-- hierarchy:nav -->
> **Path:** [OIP](https://miscsubjects.com/a/oip) › [Thinker Reference](https://miscsubjects.com/a/oip-thinker-reference) › [Thinkers](https://miscsubjects.com/a/oip-thinkers) › **Gilbert Simondon — Technical Objects and Individuation**
>
> **Shelf:** Thinkers · **Traversal:** self-explaining · hierarchical · voxel-ready
> **Machine root:** [OIP tree](https://miscsubjects.com/api/dispatch?map=1&format=markdown) · [Registry](https://miscsubjects.com/api/dispatch?registry=1)

# Gilbert Simondon — Technical Objects and Individuation

## §SELF — thinker-gilbert-simondon

**What this page is:** A profile of a French philosopher and his theory of how objects come into being.
**What it explains:** Gilbert Simondon's concept of individuation and how technical objects evolve.
**Why read it:** To understand why a machine should be viewed as a process, not a static thing.

### What Simondon's Philosophy Is

Gilbert Simondon (1924–1989) was a French philosopher. His major work, *On the Mode of Existence of Technical Objects* (1958), argues that a technical object — a machine, a tool, a device — carries its own genesis (its history of becoming) within it. The object is not a static thing with fixed properties. It is a process of becoming.

### Why It Matters

Simondon's view changes how we design and understand systems. If an object is a process, then its history is part of its identity. You cannot understand the object by looking at a snapshot. You must look at how it came to be and how it operates over time.

### The Key Idea: Individuation

Individuation is the process by which an individual — a thing with a distinct identity — emerges from a pre-individual field. Simondon asks not "what is it?" but "how did it become what it is?"

**Transduction** is the operation of individuation. Energy or information passes through a structure, and the structure changes as the energy or information passes through. The structure is not a passive container. It is an active medium that transforms what passes through it.

**Concretization** is how a technical object evolves. It begins in an "abstract" state: many separate elements with no coherent relation. It evolves into a "concretization" state: elements integrated into a coherent whole where each element serves multiple functions.

An abstract technical object is a collection of parts. A concrete technical object is a system where the parts define each other.

### What Simondon Got Right

- Technical objects have histories that are essential to understanding them.
- The process of becoming is more fundamental than the final state.
- Concretization — the integration of elements into a coherent whole — is a measure of good design.
- A structure that transforms what passes through it is a better model than a structure that merely contains.

### What Simondon Got Wrong or Left Unfinished

- Simondon wrote about physical machines (engines, tools) but did not apply his framework to information systems or software objects.
- He did not provide a formal method for measuring concretization. The concept is descriptive, not quantitative.
- His work was largely ignored in Anglophone philosophy until the 2000s, so his ideas were not tested against computer science problems.

### How It Connects to Other Ideas

- **Process philosophy (Alfred North Whitehead):** Whitehead also argued that reality consists of processes, not static things. Simondon applies this to engineering objects.
- **Object-Oriented Ontology (Graham Harman):** Harman's object-oriented philosophy treats objects as withdrawn and independent of their relations. Simondon treats objects as produced by their processes. The two approaches conflict: one sees objects as static essences, the other as dynamic becomings.

### Sources

- Simondon, Gilbert. *Du mode d'existence des objets techniques* (1958). Translated as *On the Mode of Existence of Technical Objects* (2017).

---

## Up the tree

- [OIP root](https://miscsubjects.com/a/oip) — protocol root, zero-context entry
- [Thinker Reference hub](https://miscsubjects.com/a/oip-thinker-reference) — full hierarchy map
- [Thinkers shelf](https://miscsubjects.com/a/oip-thinkers) — siblings on this shelf
- [Voxel graph article](https://miscsubjects.com/a/what-is-voxel-graph) — how pages link as voxels
- [Self-describing protocol](https://miscsubjects.com/a/what-is-self-describing-protocol)

## Related on this shelf

- [Alan Kay — The Big Idea Is Messaging](https://miscsubjects.com/a/thinker-alan-kay)
- [Alfred North Whitehead — Process and Reality](https://miscsubjects.com/a/thinker-alfred-north-whitehead)
- [J.L. Austin and John Searle — Speech Acts](https://miscsubjects.com/a/thinker-austin-searle)
- [Barbara Liskov — Abstract Data Types and Distributed Consensus](https://miscsubjects.com/a/thinker-barbara-liskov)
- [Bram Cohen — BitTorrent and Content-Addressed Protocol Design](https://miscsubjects.com/a/thinker-bram-cohen)
- [Butler Lampson — Protection and Access Control](https://miscsubjects.com/a/thinker-butler-lampson)
- [Carl Hewitt — The Actor Model](https://miscsubjects.com/a/thinker-carl-hewitt)
- [Charles Sanders Peirce — Signs, Abduction, and Pragmatism](https://miscsubjects.com/a/thinker-charles-peirce)

## Machine surfaces

- Public page: `https://miscsubjects.com/a/thinker-gilbert-simondon`
- JSON article: `https://miscsubjects.com/api/articles/thinker-gilbert-simondon`
- OIP ask: `https://miscsubjects.com/api/dispatch?ask=Gilbert%20Simondon%20%E2%80%94%20Technical%20Objects%20and%20Individuation`

