Le schématisme de l’invention et la pensée morphogénétique: Paul Valéry, Gilbert Simondon, D’Arcy Thompson

Abstract

Gilbert Simondon has shown that schemata are not a pure product of the imagination, but that they stem from a dialogue with the «images-objects» origi-nated in the realm of technique or even in nature, which offers an endless source of dynamic schemata that allow visualizing morphogenetic processes very effi-ciently. This expansion of Kant's schematism has allowed the French philosopher to propose a new concept of invention that brings to light the schemata present in technical or natural objects and enables us to transfer them from one field of hu-man experience to another. This article proposes an application of his model to a parallel reading of two texts: Paul Valéry's L’homme et la coquille (1937) and the essay On Growth and Form (1917), penned by the English zoologist Sir D'Arcy Thompson. Making use of totally different methods -literature in the first case; geometry and physics in the second-, these two works try to clear the morphoge-netic schema of the shells. It will be shown that Valéry, transferring this schema from the realm of nature to poetry, turns the shells into the pillar of a kind of in-vention both poetic and intellectual.