Abstract
This article contributes to contemporary philosophy of technology by carrying out a diffractive reading of Ernst Cassirer’s “Form und Technik” (1930) and Gilbert Simondon’s Du mode d’existence des objets techniques (1958). Both thinkers, who are here brought together for the first time, stood on the brink of the defining bifurcations of twentieth-century philosophy. However, in their endeavor to come to grips with the “being” of technology, Cassirer and Simondon, each in their own way, were prompted to develop an ontology of emergence that gives ontological priority to “technicity,” that is, to technology considered in its efficacy or operative functioning. By reading Cassirer’s and Simondon’s insights through one another, we aim to further develop this ontology of emergence, and, simultaneously, to demonstrate the relevance of these thinkers for present-day theorizing. As we hope to show, the insistence on the ontological force of technological apparatuses transverses received philosophical and ontological divides and revitalizes the notions of “nature” and “the human,” which are now understood as coevolving with technology.
Highlights
Ernst Cassirer’s (1874–1945) and Gilbert Simondon’s (1924–1989) essays on technology set out, each in their own way, to investigate the “being” of technology
What takes Cassirer’s and Simondon’s accounts beyond the terrain of relational and processual approaches, is their insistence on an irreducible third ingredient in the ontological entanglement: technicity. It is the introduction of this ingredient—and, the acknowledgement of what we will refer to as the “ontological force” of technological apparatuses—that marks the originality of both thinkers and, simultaneously, their acute relevance to contemporary philosophy of technology
Since the nature of nature is to form and be formed, the human no longer possesses the exclusive power to define, and technology can no longer be placed outside ontological movements as a mere mediator. As they are formed along emergent lines in both Cassirer’s “Form und Technik” ([1930] 2004) and Simondon’s Du mode d’existence des objets techniques (1958), nature, technology, and the human are seen as coevolutionary
Summary
Ernst Cassirer’s (1874–1945) and Gilbert Simondon’s (1924–1989) essays on technology set out, each in their own way, to investigate the “being” of technology. An English version of Cassirer’s essay has recently been published in the edited volume Ernst Cassirer on Form and Technology: Contemporary Readings, and an English translation of Simondon’s essay is currently being produced by Ninian Mellamphy et al.. An English version of Cassirer’s essay has recently been published in the edited volume Ernst Cassirer on Form and Technology: Contemporary Readings, and an English translation of Simondon’s essay is currently being produced by Ninian Mellamphy et al.3 Both essays, or so we argue, tap into the core philosophical concerns of presentday theorizing, which seems to be characterized by a push across disciplines towards dynamic ontologies. Taking inspiration from the way that both thinkers accord ontological priority to technicity and, to creative production and formative forces, we embrace a new methodology for working with philosophical texts, which is labeled “diffractive reading.”
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