The History of the Individual in the Context of Gilbert Simondon’s Theory of Technical Objects

In contemporary science and technologies classifying methods that arranging objects dominate over individualized approaches. Machine serves as a tool for more accurate calculation and organization of data in this context. The individual and the individual nature within such a scientific methodology are studied as static and grasp in simultaneous existence. His lability, ambivalence and uniqueness are seen as secondary and not defining for knowledge. This article attempts to reveal the main ideas of Gilbert Simondon’s theory of individuation of technical objects. A reconstruction of the ancient history of the individual is conducted (criticizing hylomorphism, substantialism and the reduction of the technical object to function etc.) to find a new methodology for understanding the individual in its genesis, uncertainty, ambivalence and lability. The integrity and “internal resonance” inherent in technical objects open up the possibility for extrapolating the ideas of the theory of technical objects to a widely understood theory of individuation. The “pure individual” which Simondon understands as the engineer and technician in technical object created by him unites knowledge of the changing nature with the stability of the machine in invention. Technical objects knowledge and studying the creative activity of engineers can form the foundation for a new project in the humanities. A genetic method for understanding the individual in its preindividual may replace the classifying methodology. Simondon’s philosophy opens up a new perspective for the common research space of the natural sciences, technoscience and cultural studies, as the machine is open to a changeable nature, but its invention is possible thanks to the “pure individual” who establishes symmetrical relationships between humans and the world: a new project of humanitarian emerges.