On Gilbert Simondon’s Inheritance from Merleau-Ponty

Abstract

The article explores the proximity between Simondon’s philosophical project and phenomenology through his relation to Merleau-Ponty. Three concepts that link the two philosophers are examined: genesis, relation, and Simondon’s preindividual, which are shown to constitute an attempt to answer questions Merleau-Ponty was addressing in his later work. The article shows how Simondon’s argument for ontogenesis rather than ontology is related to Merleau-Ponty’s ontological project, which in turn originates in the latter’s reading of Husserl, particularly the interest in genetic phenomenology expressed as early as the Phenomenology of Perception. It then shows that the radical notion of relation employed by Simondon responds to problems Merleau-Ponty had encountered in thinking the corps propre and the chiasm. The paper then discusses the link between Merleau-Ponty’s thinking of the flesh and Simondon’s concept of preindividual. By confronting these two bodies of work, the article suggests that phenomenology is an important starting point for Simondon.