Invention and Imagination in the Work of Gilbert Simondon

Abstract

The aim of this essay is to introduce the dual themes of invention and imagination in the work of Gilbert Simondon. In the first part, I discuss Simondon’s account of techn(olog)ical invention, as it appears in his course «L’invention et le développement des techniques» and in On the Mode of Existence of Technical Objects. This latter book is the one that posthumously established him as the greatest philosopher of technology in the 20th century, and as the only thinker capable of truly «entering the engine», as an engineer might. He is also unique among major philosophers in having developed a thinking that is both deeply technophilic and compatible with ecological commitment. In the second part, I turn to his 1965–1966 course «Imagination et invention», the full version of which was first published in 2008. Here, the theme of imagination takes precedence over that of invention. Simondon rethinks imagination through the notion of the image, proposing a genetic theory of it : the theory of the «image cycle». As this theory and this course are far less well known than his major work on technology, I provide a more detailed account, including even more substantial quotations, in order to shed light on a particularly original dimension of Simondon’s thought.

Keywords: concretization, image, imagination, invention, Simondon

DOI: https://doi.org/10.21747/21836892/fil42a5