Philos. Technol.

DOI 10.1007/s13347-015-0205-z
BOOK SYMPOSIUM

Book Symposium on Le concept dinformation dans la

science contemporaine
Cahiers de Royaumont, Les ditions de Minuit/Gauthier-Villars
1965

Andrew Iliadis 1 & Nandita Biswas Mellamphy 2 &

Jean-Hugues Barthlmy 3 & Marc J. de Vries 4,5 &
Nathalie Simondon 6

Received: 7 June 2015 / Accepted: 19 June 2015

# Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2015

The Concept of Information in Contemporary Science (Royaumont, 1962)

Andrew Iliadis, Purdue University

In 1962, at the illustrious grounds of Royaumont Abbey, situated about an hour north of
Paris, a colloquium was held whose attendees included some of Frances foremost
philosophers and experts on cybernetics and information theory. Presenters included
Giorgio de Santillana, Lucien Goldmann, Benoit Mandelbrot, Norbert Wiener, Ren de
Possel, Andr Lwoff, Abraham Moles, Henryk Greniewski, Helmar Frank, Ji Zeman,

* Andrew Iliadis
ailiadis@purdue.edu
Nandita Biswas Mellamphy
nbiswasm@uwo.ca
Jean-Hugues Barthlmy
jh.barthelemy@gmail.com
Marc J. de Vries
m.j.devries@tudelft.nl
Nathalie Simondon
nathalie.simondon@ac-paris.fr
1
Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA
2
Western University, London, ON, Canada
3
Centre international des tudes simondoniennes (Maison des Sciences de lHomme Paris-Nord)/
Laboratory HAR/EA4414, Universit Paris OuestNanterre La Dfense, Paris, France
4
Eindhoven University of Technology, Eindhoven, The Netherlands
5
Delft University of Technology, Delft, The Netherlands
6
Classes prparatoires lcole Normale Suprieure, Paris, France
 A. Iliadis et al.

Franois Bonsack, Louis Couffignal, Albert Prez, Ladislav Tondl, Gilles-Gaston

Granger, and Stanisaw Bellert. The colloquium proceedings were published by Les
ditions de Minuit and Gauthier-Villars in 1965 under the title Le concept
dinformation dans la science contemporaine. They include transcripts of the presen-
tations and question and answer periods, opening remarks by Martial Gueroult, an
abstract of a last minute presentation by Gilbert Simondon (Simondon was one of the
organizers of the conference and proceedings), and notes on a closing speech given by
Jean Hyppolite. The proceedings were favorably reviewed by Ren Boirel in a 1967
issue of Les tudes Philosophiques and somewhat less favorably by the Nobel Prize
winning physicist Dennis Gabor in a 1966 issue of The British Journal for the
Philosophy of Science (Gabor did not care much for the interdisciplinary nature of
the conference).
The concept of information at the Royaumont colloquium was certainly interdisci-
plinary and Gueroult addressed as much in his opening text. The first two presentations,
given by de Santillana and Goldmann, approached information from philosophical,
non-empirical perspectives. While de Santillana addressed the future work of historians
in light of the new field of information theory (p. 18), Goldmanns paper focused on
consciousness and the act of communication (p. 47). Gabor, in his review, noted that
Goldmanns concept of information in particular veered far from the definition of
information given in engineering. Indeed, the proceedings show that the concept of
information itself was up for philosophical debate throughout the colloquium. Clear,
brief papers by Mandelbrot, Wiener, and Lwoff remained faithful to the mathematical
theory of communication, yet they too opted for philosophical reflection over technical
exposition. Mandelbrots presentation (p. 78) focused on the future of information
theory and its importance to science, Wiener (introduced by Simondon) (p. 99) touched
on themes similar to those found in his by then famous book, Cybernetics: Or Control
and Communication in the Animal and the Machine (1948), and Lwoff focused on the
theoretical significance of the concept of information in molecular biology (p. 173).
Some of the presentations remained highly technical. De Possel presented on informa-
tion processing in printed text and information encoded on magnetic tape (p. 133) while
Moles spoke about information and perception (p. 203), touching on the work of Claude
Shannon and Raymond Ruyer (among others). Greniewski addressed the concept of
organization in information planning and systems (p. 231), and Frank spoke about peda-
gogy and information (p. 252) in one of the most surprisingly technical papers. Zemans
paper, following the style of de Santillana and Goldmann, remained theoretical and focused
on the philosophical meaning of the concept of information (p. 281). In contrast, Bonsack
addressed the question of whether or not information could be purely objective and
mathematical (p. 309). Couffignal presented some of his technical ideas on information
theory and, like Lwoff, focused in part on biology (p. 335). Prez and Tondl co-presented
on the relationship between modem information theory and the methodology of the
sciences (p. 371) in a paper that has since been reproduced numerous times. Granger
discussed information and individual knowledge (p. 385), and Bellert spoke about cyber-
netic systems (p. 402). Simondon presented a paper on amplification in information
processing; however, only the abstract remains in the proceedings (p. 417). Ferdinand
Alqui attended and participated in the discussions, as did Maurice de Gandillac, Etienne
Vermeersch, Jacques Riguet, Paule Salomon, Gaston Fessard, and Franois Le Lionnais,
among many others.
Book Symposium on Le concept dinformation dans la science...

In retrospect, the events that transpired at the Royaumont colloquium are important
for a number of reasons, some of which this book symposium will clarify. Judging by
the transcripts, there seems to have been a general willingness to accept the concept of
information as a point of scientific and philosophical convergence. As Nandita Biswas
Mellamphy notes in the present symposium, Royaumont served as a sort of European
equivalent to the Macy Conferences that were held in New York almost two decades
earlier. Another aim, discussed in Jean-Hugues Barthlmys contribution, was to
introduce Norbert Wiener to a group of French philosophers who would themselves
go on to influence a generation of French thinkers (Barthlmy parallels the work of
Simondon with Henri Atlan and Edgar Morin). Marc J. de Vries writes that yet another
aim was to move away from a reductionist view of the concept of information towards
a more open and plural understanding, and to this end, he reads information through the
work of Herman Dooyeweerd. Typically, Philosophy & Technology book symposiums
conclude with an author response. In lieu of an author response, Nathalie Simondon
offers us a glimpse into the motives behind her fathers involvement with the collo-
quium and the importance of information and cybernetics to his work. She notes that
the colloquium held a deeper justification related to the problems that cybernetics poses
to philosophy. Indeed, each of the contributions to this symposium shows that the
Royaumont colloquium remains an instructive moment in the history and philosophy of
information.

References

Boire, R. (1967). Le concept dinformation dans la science contemporaine. tudes

philosophiques. 22(3), p. 332333.
Cahiers de Royaumont. (1965). Le concept dinformation dans les sciences
contemporaine. Philosophie nV. Paris: Les ditions de Minuit/Gauthier-Villars.
Gabor, D. (1966). Le concept dinformation dans la science contemporaine. The British
Journal for the Philosophy of Science. 16(64), p. 351352.

Linforme Cyberntique: Concepts of Information and the Contemporary

Sciences

Nandita Biswas Mellamphy, Western University

In 1962, following the famous Macy Conferences on Cybernetics held in New York
from 19431956, philosophers and scientists gathered in France to revisit and debate
questions and problems of communication and information, both within and beyond the
scope of the cybernetic and mathematical theories of those such as Norbert Wiener and
Claude Shannon. Published in 1965 as Le concept dinformation et la science
contemporaine, the Royaumont event, which transpired over several days, was largely
organized by the philosopher Gilbert Simondon and featured 15 presentations from 16
highly regarded scholars from a wide range of disciplines including biology, mathe-
matics, sociology, psychology, linguistics, and computer science, who were motivated
to think in multidisciplinary and even transdisciplinary ways about the elusive concept
of information and its related network of concepts (e.g., communication, control, and
feedback). Almost a mini version of the Macy conferences held almost 20 years earlier
 A. Iliadis et al.

(and featuring a talk in French by Norbert Wiener himself), the central aim of the
colloquium, as Simondon had explained during the conference, was to scrutinize and
push the hypotheses of Wienerian cyberneticsto confirm whether cybernetics could
in fact be considered the inauguration of a new stage of development of the sciences (p.
100). In his introduction to Wieners presentation Lhomme et la machine (man and
machine), Simondon acknowledges the crucial impact of Wieners cybernetic theory in
France, especially its will to bring together and forge connections in the fertile no
mans lands or interstices between the various sciences (p. 100). One could say that
cybernetics, a word Wiener had taken from the ancient Greek word kubernts 1
(governor or steersman), was not merely about communication in animal and machines
but itself a conduit for communicationa kind of semantic attractorbetween
various ostensibly isolated sciences in which the guiding concept was not reason
but information (Johnson 2014: p. 61).
Wieners Cybernetics: or Control and Communication in the Animal and the
Machine had first been published in 1948 by French publisher Hermann et Cie,
although most surprisingly, the first French translation of the book only ap-
peared in 2014 (as La Cyberntique: information et regulation dans le vivant et
la machine). Through the universalization of the concept of information, cy-
bernetics was conceived, especially by Wiener, as a kind of new Enlightenment
(Johnson 2014, p. 17) which would liberate humans from servitude and renew
the scientific and moral spirit of humanity (largely caused by the deleterious
consequences of the scientific development of the atomic bomb). 2 France had
played a decisive role in the development of cybernetics3 (in fact, even Wiener
was unaware that the term had been used in the 19th century by the French
physicist Andr-Marie Ampre4), not only in the publication of Wieners book
but also in using cybernetics as a platform for discussing well-established
themes in French intellectual history such as automation, subjectivity, cognition
and volition, the differences and similarities between human and artificial
intelligence, as well as the emancipatory or enslaving potentials of the new
techno-sciences. 5 The Royaumont conference too concerned itself with the
mathematical and theoretical characteristics of information and the optimistic

1
In his autobiography I Am a Mathematician (1956, p. 32122), Wiener mentions that before settling on the
term cybernetics which he found originally in Platos Gorgias, he had also considered the word angelos or
messenger but found its religious connotations to be unappealing. See Johnson 2014, p. 61.
2
The cybernetic research of Wiener and his colleagues were in keeping with military research (Wiener had
participated in the war effort by developing a servomechanical weapon known as the AA predictor); military
applications were also the context for the development of Claude Shannons theory of telegraphic information
transmission (as set out in The Mathematical Theory of Communication in 1949) (Lafontaine 2007, p. 289).
3
See for example, Cline Lafontaine, Lempire cyberntique (Paris, Seuil, 2004); Christopher Johnson,
French Cybernetics, French Studies (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 2014, p. 119; Bernard
Geoghegan, From Information Theory to French Theory: Jakobson, Lvi-Strauss, and the Cybernetic
Apparatus, Critical Inquiry 38 (Autumn 2011), p. 96126.
4
Ampre (1834); see Johnson 2014, p. 61.
5
Some treatments include Louis de Broglie, Sens philosophique et porte pratique de la cyberntique
(1953); Albert Ducrocq, Dcouverte de la cyberntique (1955); Pierre de Latil, La pense artificielle:
introduction la cyberntique (1953); G. T. Guilbaud, La Cyberntique (1954); Andr Lentin, La
Cyberntique: problems reels et mystification (1953); Raymond Ruyer, La Cyberntique: mythes et ralits
(1952). For more detail see Johnson (2014). Also see Jrme Segal, Le Zro et le un: histoire de la notion
scientifique dinformation (2003).
Book Symposium on Le concept dinformation dans la science...

future it promised, as well as the social-cultural effects of rising automation and

its negative effect on human consciousness and cultural practices. In his
introductory remarks, the president of the organizing committee for the collo-
quium, Martial Gueroult, challenged the previous decades optimism regarding
the future of cybernetics and posed questions about whether cybernetics, in
creating its own machinic double that can calculate, reason, speak, translate,
remember, choose, and learn, had not also unwittingly created a demiurge
more amazing than the God who created it (p. 7). Referring to the ancient
Titans who would succeed in dethroning Zeus, Gueroult asks whether cyber-
netic progress would not ultimately lead to the domination, enslavement, and
eventual dethroning of the human (p. 8). While Wienerian cybernetics had
always defined itself in relation to humanist ideals, in France, cybernetics came
to be associated strongly with anti-humanism, even post-humanism (Lafontaine
2007: p. 32). In privileging the concept of information and in blurring the
theoretical boundaries between the living and non-living, Wienerian cybernetics
(which had already started to decline by the 1960s giving way to a second
wave of cybernetics) had hoped to offer a new vision of humanism but instead
surreptitiously had revealed a form of post-humanism which would have a
decisive impact on the development of French structuralism (Lafontaine 2007:
p. 32)6 and post-structuralism.7
Although the proceedings of the colloque Royaumont were eventually
brought together under the title of The Concept of Information in Contempo-
rary Science, what is most striking about the intense debates between discus-
sants regarding the elusive concept of information is the absence, perhaps
even lack of a common transdisciplinary definition of the term. By and large,
presenters, when offering a definition of information, explicitly limited their
conceptions to the boundaries of their respective disciplines (e.g., discussants
distinguished between biological, mathematical, and socio-cultural conceptuali-
zations of information). Individuals offered multidisciplinary points of view in
the context of a variety of natural, biological, and social sciences, but the
Royaumont conference failed to achieve its titular objective to find a single,
definitive concept of information upon which agreement could be made. The
controversy regarding the definition and uses of the concept information
continued throughout the entire Royaumont event. Andr Michel Lwoff, a
French microbiologist who would go on to receive the Nobel prize in 1965,
criticized philosopher Lucien Goldmann for his sociological use of the term

6
Not only did Lvi-Strauss draw from the cybernetics universe his spirit without subjectivity model, but the
entire project of structural anthropology consisted in interpreting society as a whole according to a general
theory of communication (Lafontaine 2007, p. 32); also see Dupuis (1994). Lafontaine, among others, also
notes Roman Jacobsons role in bringing together the Wiener/Shannon model of information and linguistics
(in which language becomes a coding system that structures the exchange of information (p. 33). Geoghegan
(2011) examines how what he calls the cybernetic apparatus yoked together the development of French
theory, media studies, informatics, and global science (p. 98).
7
The entirety of Lacans 19545 seminar was devoted to cybernetics (Lafontaine 2007, p. 35) and Derridean
deconstruction is closely related to the cybernetic notion of information (Lafontaine 2007, p. 38). The
influence of second order cybernetics is seen in the work of Deleuze and Guattari (Lafontaine 2007, p. 39) as
well, although I would say, in contrast with Lafontaines argument, that the stronger influence on Deleuze is
that of Gilbert Simondons post-cybernetic theory of transduction.
 A. Iliadis et al.

information: I admit that I dont understand very well: we are here to talk
about the concept of information n contemporary science [] The word
information is used by physicists and mathematicians in a very specific way,
it is used by biologists in another way: and I have the impression that
metaphysicians and sociologists use it in an altogether different way; I do not
see how we will understand [each other] if we continue to operate in this
fashion (p. 58). We must resign ourselves, said one participant, to the fact
that words like informationcannot be reduced easily to a common measure
(p. 73). Defending Goldmanns employment of the term, mathematician and
cybernetic pioneer Louis Couffignal added that the notion of information
predates Claude Shannons definition of information (as quantity of informa-
tion): the word information had a sense before Shannon []. He severely
reduces the word information to transmission of signals [], but it is certain
that semantics cannot be neglected. [Semantics] are expressed only by models
that go beyond the model of information in the mathematical sense (p. 75,
76). Simondon reminded the group that the notion of information, as it has
developed in the hard sciences and in technologies, has led to the development
of fringe applications of the term outside its original domains, especially in the
human sciences (an idea he borrows from Maurice Merleau-Ponty). This may
on the one hand, be an abuse of the original sense of the word, but as
Simondon says, it also manifests a tendency of information itself, one that
opens new paths of research (p. 1578).
In the final analysis, the concept of information remained rather plastic and
shifting, or informe to use Georges Batailles word (and for which he had
provided a definition in the French journal Documents in 1929): A dictionary
begins when it no longer gives the meaning of words but their tasks. Thus
informe is not only an adjective having a given meaning, but a term that serves
to bring things down in the world, generally requiring that each thing have its
form. 8 I would like to suggest that the Royaumont conference ultimately
shows that the concept of information is itself informe, that is, in-formation,
both formless (which is how the French word was translated into English), as
well as form-taking. From this kind of point of view, the Royaumont confer-
ence was not a failed attempt but an exemplary event which furthered the
development and intellectual influence of cybernetics in France and in French
theory. 9 In many ways, it is by extending, distending, and protending the
senses of information that we come to see how new structuresand new
senses of a conceptemerge and take form, as Hyppolite himself states in his
closing remarks (p. 419). In this regard, the title of the proceedings is rather

8
Formless by Georges Bataille, in Documents 1, Paris, 1929, 382 (translated by Allan Stoekl with Carl R.
Lovitt and Donald M. Leslie Jr., Georges Bataille. Vision of Excess. Selected Writings, 19271939, Minne-
apolis: University of Minnesota Press Formless, 31). Accessed online at http://aphelis.net/georges-bataille-
linforme-formless-1929/
9
Cline Lafontaine (2007) argues that cybernetics influenced the development of French thoughtespecially
of structuralism, post-structuralism, and postmodernismafter the second world war by integrating and
interrogating cybernetic concepts to rethink subjectivity; for instance, the link that exists between the
deconstruction of the subject in French theory and the identity and mutations associated with the develop-
ment of new information technologies and biotechnologies (p. 28).
Book Symposium on Le concept dinformation dans la science...

misleading and does not reflect the central tensions (of diverse concepts and
perspectives) which held the entire Royaumont event together: indeed, it was
not the concept of information in contemporary science which was the main
theme but rather many concepts of information as they emerge and forge new
paths in the diverse realms of contemporary sciences.

References

Ampre, A. (1834). Essai sur la philosophie des sciences, ou, exposition analytique
dune classification de toutes connaissances humaines. Paris: Bachelier.
Bataille, G. (2011). Formless. Documents 1. Paris. 382. Accessed online at http://
aphelis.net/georges-bataille-linforme-formless-1929/
Broglie, L. (1953). Sens philosophique et porte pratique de la cyberntique. Nouvelle
revue franaise. 7. 6085.
Cahiers de Royaumont. (1965). Le concept dinformation dans les sciences
contemporaine. Philosophie nV. Paris: Les ditions de Minuit/Gauthier-Villars.
De Latil, P. (1953). La pense artificielle: introduction la cyberntique. Paris:
Gallimard.
Ducrocq, A. (1955). Dcouverte de la cyberntique. Paris: Rene Juillard.
Geoghegan, B. (2011). From information theory to french theory: jakobson, lvi-
strauss, and the cybernetic apparatus. Critical inquiry. 38. 96126.
Guilbaud, G.-T. (1954). La cyberntique. Paris: Presses Universitaires de
France.
Johnson, C. French cybernetics. French studies. 69(1). 6078.
Lafontaine, C. (2004). Lempire cyberntique. Paris: Seuil.
Lafontaine, C. (2007). The cybernetic matrix of french theory. Theory, culture &
society. 24(5). 2746.
Lentin, A. (1953). La cyberntique: problems reels et mystification. La pense. 47. 47
61.
Ruyer, R. (1952). La cyberntique: mythes et ralits. Les temps modernes. 84. 577
600.
Segal, J. (2203). Le zro et le un: histoire de la notion scientifique dinformation au 20e
sicle. Paris: Syllepse.
Wiener, N. (1948). Cybernetics: or control and communication in the animal and the
machine. Paris: Hermann.
Wiener, N. (1956). I am a mathematician: the later life of a prodigy. London: Gollancz.

The Question of Information in the French Theory of Complexity: Simondon,

Atlan, Morin

Jean-Hugues Barthlmy, Centre international des tudes simondoniennes

(Maison des Sciences de lHomme Paris-Nord)/Laboratory HAR/EA4414
(Universit Paris OuestNanterre La Dfense)

The book Le Concept dinformation dans la science contemporaine was the result of a
colloquium that had been co-organized in 1962 by the French philosopher Gilbert
Simondon (19241989), whose work has been progressively and internationally
 A. Iliadis et al.

(re)discovered since 2005.10 By organizing such an event, one of his central aims was
to introduce Norbert Wiener in France; the American creator of cybernetics11 had been
his main interlocutor in his two theses: LIndividuation la lumire des notions de
forme et dinformationhis main thesisand Du Mode dexistence des objets tech-
niqueshis secondary thesis.12
Indeed, Simondons ambitious ontology was proposed as a notional reform whose
center was a new concept of information. Classical information, understood as trans-
mission of a message, becomes in Simondon merely a secondarily derived case of
information, understood as genesis: transmission of a message is in fact a pursuita
continuationof genesis. Such an enlargement of the notion of information is
expressed by Simondon when he presents the genesis of the colloquium itself, and
one can understand in these lines that his aim is to think information as organization,
through his own ontological problematic of genesis.13 Therefore, Simondons aim is to
propose a systemic concept of information, rather than a cybernetic one.14 Henri Atlan
and Edgar Morin will be Simondons inheritors. However, the two French theoreticians
of complexity do not want to attribute to information itself the opposite properties that
Simondon attributed to it: in Atlan and Morin, organization is the real name of what
Simondon wanted to think under the name of information, and the two notions are no
longer in a relation of equivalence. Here are the points that we have to clarify.
Simondon is not the creator of the theme of complexity in philosophy, but he is
undoubtedly the inheritor of Theilhard de Chardins interrogation concerning the
process of complexification. Now, one of the differences between the two thinkers
is that Simondon discusses Wieners cybernetics and introduces the question of
information at the heart of his thought: Information is the formula of individuation
[], because it is the direction according to which a system individuates.15 Individ-
uation here is the process of genesis and not only one of individualization. The
equivalence between information and individuation means first that the word infor-
mation is understood through its etymology, which is to say as taking-form. But
because this taking-form is a true genesis, it cannot be mistaken for the hylomorphic
paradigm that already presupposes matter and form in order to constitute the indi-
vidual. Secondly, what does it mean that classical information as transmission of
message is merely a derived case of information as genesis? It means that information
theory has to be completed, because such a theory only explains how a message can be

10
Le Concept dinformation dans la science contemporaine, Paris: Les ditions de Minuit/Gauthier-Villars,
1965.
11
Norbert Wiener, Cybernetics, or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine, Cambridge:
MIT Press, 1948.
12
Both theses had been presented in 1958, but only Du Mode dexistence des objets techniques was published
in 1958 and under its original title (Paris: Aubier). LIndividuation la lumire des notions de forme et
dinformation had to wait until 1964 to see its first partand the first chapter of its second partpublished
(LIndividu et sa gense physico-biologique, Paris: P.U.F). The two last chapters of its second part were
published in 1989, as a strangely independent book titled LIndividuation psychique et collective (Paris:
Aubier). The first complete edition of LIndividuation la lumire is from 2005 (Grenoble: Millon).
13
Le Concept dinformation, op. cit., p. 157158.
14
On this difference, see Ludwig von Bertalanffy, General System Theory: Foundations, Development,
Applications, New York: George Braziller, 1968.
15
Gilbert Simondon, LIndividuation la lumire, op. cit., p. 31 (personal translation).
Book Symposium on Le concept dinformation dans la science...

faithfully transmitted, but it does not really explain how a message can inform: in it, the
state of the receiver does not matter, because information is not meaning.
Simondon explains his thesis information is the formula of individuation in a
footnote.16 His idea is that the problem of the state of the receiver and the one of the
existence of the receiver are the same problem, because information theory presupposes
the existence of this receiver without questioning the process of genesis that is the
condition of a state that itself makes possible information. Such a state of the receiver is
defined by Simondon through the notion of metastability. That is why Simondon
intends to rethink technological transmission within a universal process of information
as genesis that is first physical and overcomes entropy/negentropy problematics,
making also possible in this way information as meaning in the psycho-social field. To
inform someone, it is obviously to transmit a message that is not anticipated, but this
message does not identify with the less probable which Lon Brillouin17 and Wiener
talked about through the notion of negentropy.
To redefine information, through its etymology and as taking-form rather than only
transmission, in order to universalize it, here is then the aim in Simondons genetic
ontology, and this is the reason why Simondon, when he will finally consider founding
a new ethic on the basis of such a genetic ontology, will keep only his new notion of
information: Is a theory of individuation able to provide an ethics through the notion
of information?18 This universality of the new notion is what will authorize Georges
Canguilhem to speak of a new Aristotelism.19 Canguilhem emphasizes Simondons
ability to compete with the power of universality of the hylomorphic scheme, and he
does it at the risk of being taken for the one who does not understand the opposition
between genetic ontology and hylomorphism.20
Seven years after the publication of Le Concept dinformation dans la science
contemporaine, Atlan published his first classical book LOrganisation biologique et
la thorie de linformation. 21 There is an evolution of Atlans questioning since this
book until the recent and ambitious Le Vivant post-gnomique, ou quest-ce que lauto-
organisation?, and such an evolution will concern Atlans recent use of Simondons
thought. One can guess that this recent use is itself linked to the fact that the guiding
line of Atlans entire epistemological work has always been the idea of a theory of
complexity as theory of self-organization, that is to say individuation beyond the
technological concept of information as merely quality of transmission.
In 1972, Atlans aims were

1. to expose the fundamental elements of Shannons theory of information as

communication
2. to expose some applications of this theory to biology
3. to discuss the nature of biological organization

16
Ibid.
17
Lon Brillouin, Science and Information Theory, New York: Academic Press, 1956.
18
Gilbert Simondon, LIndividuation la lumire, op. cit, p. 330 (personal translation).
19
Georges Canguilhem, Le normal et le pathologique, Paris : P.U.F., 1966, p. 209.
20
On this opposition, see Jean-Hugues Barthlmy Simondon, Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 2014 (forthcoming
translation by Bloomsbury Publishing, 2016), p. 103112.
21
Henri Atlan, LOrganisation biologique et la thorie de linformation, Paris: Hermann, 1972.
 A. Iliadis et al.

The guiding line of this first book was therefore the following: if the notion of
information can help us to recognize the order that exists in the biological world, it is
not under the form of a static evaluation of structural complexity in systems, but rather
as rate of production or destruction of information in these systems, as open systems in
relation with an environment. The merit of such an attempt is to reconcile the
negentropic process of life with the second principle of thermodynamics: living
organisms are open systems, and Atlan uses Prigogines work on dissipative struc-
tures in order to understand the conditions in which a metastable system can disperse
some energy, that is to say produce some entropy, by generating organized structures.
In such a view, self-organization is strictly distinguished from any vitalist internal
finality, like the one that Kant had theorized in his Kritik der Urteilskraft. The construction
of the theory of self-organization in Entre le cristal et la fume22 had made it clear, and Le
Vivant post-gnomique reminds us of it. But what is new in this last book is the use of
Simondons thought in order to reproach information theory: first, its only probabilistic
character that seems to ignore any question of meaning, and secondly, the impossibility of
any creation of information. 23 However, Atlan does not go so far as attributing to
information itself the opposite properties that Simondon saw in it: regularity and unpre-
dictability. 24 Therefore, Atlan names organization, what Simondon dared to name
information, as genesis. One can find the same unwillingness in Morins La mthode,
where the most well-known theory of complexity is developed.
In La mthode 2. La Vie de la Vie, 25 Morin refers to Simondon in order to think
living being and applies to this being the category of subject that had been already
applied by Simondon in his fight against the anthropological cut and the separation
nature/culture. In fact, and beyond this link between La mthode 2 and Simondon, one
can say that the entire genetic encyclopedism built by Morin is inspired by his reading
of Lindividu et sa gense physico-biologique and not only by the works of the
philosophizing scientistsAtlan, Thom, Prigoginethat are mentioned at the be-
ginning of La mthode 1. La Nature de la Nature. That is why in Morin, the double
dialog with cybernetics and systems is central. Moreover, Morins paradoxical anti-
reductionist physicalism is strictly parallel to Simondons, by laying down an original
chaos whose properties echo Simondons preindividual as a new version of the
Greek phusis.
The third part of La mthode 1 is dedicated to the problem of information, and
Morin seems to follow Simondon when he writes that Shannonian information is
absolutely silent or blind on meaning, quality, value, and significance of information for
the receiver. 26 But Morins aim is no more to think information as a universal
operation of genesis that could be physical, vital, and psycho-social like it was in
Simondon. While Simondon hoped that a non-probabilistic term would be added to
the theory of information in the psycho-social field, 27 Morin intends to subdue
information to negentropy and negentropy to organization. Here, the methods diverge.

22
Henri Atlan, Entre le cristal et la fume, Paris: Seuil, 1979.
23
Henri Atlan, Le Vivant post-gnomique, ou quest-ce que lauto-organisation ?, Paris: Odile Jacob, 2011, p.
33 (personal translation).
24
Ibid., p. 6970.
25
Edgar Morin, La mthode 2. La Vie de la Vie, Paris: Seuil, 1980.
26
Edgar Morin, La mthode 1. La Nature de la Nature, Paris: Seuil, 1977, p. 303 (personal translation).
27
Gilbert Simondon, Lindividuation la lumire, op.cit., p. 542.
Book Symposium on Le concept dinformation dans la science...

Is there any possibility to think information beyond information theory, cybernetics,

and molecular biology? It has appeared that the French theory of complexity that is
attributed to both Atlan and Morin tried to think organization as irreducible to what
molecular biology calls information. It appeared also that in such a theoretical
gesture, Atlan and Morin did not exactly follow the French philosopher whose genetic
encyclopedism yet anticipated as early as 1958 their systemic mode of thought: Gilbert
Simondon.
Now, a new debate is possible today in France, and this debate will concern what is
missing in Simondons thought to justify his strange attribution of opposite properties
to information itself. Indeed, Simondon had examined the particularity of quantum
reality as theorized as both probabilisticthe particleand non-probabilisticthe
wave. But he never made the link between this duality and the duality of the opposite
properties that he attributed to information. In Simondon, the problem of quantum
reality is not thought as a problem of information. Such an equation appears in Michel
Bitbol, a French philosopher of quantum physics.28 But in Bitbols view, information as
the stake of quantum physics is distinguished, in an explicitly Kantian way, from the
world about which we receive information. What about the possibility of considering
information as what is theorized by quantum physics without being anything else than
reality itself as genesis?
In his more recent De lintrieur du monde. Pour une philosophie et une science des
relations, Bitbol points out the importance of Simondons realism of relations and
seems to have discovered it through my Simondon ou lencyclopdisme gntique. 29
But this book was only my pedagogical account of Simondons genetic encyclopedism,
and I did not explore in it the difficult question of quantum reality. That is why Bitbol
does not enter in dialog with my strictly epistemological questioning that had been
developed in Penser la connaissance et la technique aprs Simondon.30 I hope I will be
able to prolong this questioning, by going thoroughly into the problem of information.

Towards a Rich Ontology of Information and Intelligence

Marc J. de Vries, Eindhoven University of Technology/Delft University of Tech-

nology

One of the features of the colloquium proceedings Le concept dinformation dans la

science contemporaine is the rich variety in disciplines that were represented in the
colloquium program. This is striking as in 1965, the year in which these proceedings
were published, the whole discussion about information and cybernetics was still fairly
young. Clearly, the intention of the person who put together the program was to move
28
Michel Bitbol, Mcanique quantique. Une introduction philosophique, Paris: Flammarion, 1996.
29
Michel Bitbol, De lintrieur du monde. Pour une philosophie et une science des relations, Paris:
Flammarion, 2010, p. 395.
30
Jean-Hugues Barthlmy, Penser la connaissance et la technique aprs Simondon, Paris: LHarmattan,
2005. However, such an ignorance of Penser la connaissance et la technique aprs Simondon by Bitbol
remains all the more so strange since the philosophy of action that is explicitly announced by his
philosophy of relations seems to leave Kant and presents some contacts with the post-wittgensteinian
project of a philosophical semanticsunderstood as first problematics of the open system of the philo-
sophical relativitythat I presented in the last chapter of Penser la connaissance et la technique aprs
Simondon.
 A. Iliadis et al.

away from a reductionist view on information. Perhaps the most prominent reductionist
view at that time was Shannons. For him, information could be reduced to numbers.
This view is mentioned almost throughout the whole colloquium, and we get to see
differing opinions on its viability. Another reductionist view related to the debate was
Wieners cybernetic view in which the difference between humans and computers is
contested. We see this also reflected in his contribution to the colloquium. This debate
continues till today. It is particularly this discussion on what we now call strong
artificial intelligence versus weak artificial intelligence that makes the 1965 collo-
quium proceedings so interesting for contemporary readers. The contemporary in the
title of the proceedings has moved 50 years now, but some of the issues in the debate
still exist today. Brey and Sraker (2009) claim that the open problems in philosophy
of information often involve the most fundamental problems in computing. That
makes the French colloquium still worthwhile for contemporary discussions, as the
multidisciplinary approach taken in this colloquium seems to have a revival in our days.
Adriaans and Van Benthem (2008), for instance, refer to Barwise and Perry who
initiated the interdisciplinary Center for the Study of Language and Information at
Stanford.
As mentioned on page 15 of the colloquium proceedings, the program had been put
together by Gilbert Simondon, a French philosopher, known today particularly for his
philosophy of technical objects. He had also written about information. Iliadis even
calls him the first true philosopher of information (Iliadis 2013). A book symposium
describing his philosophy of objects was published in this journal recently (De Vries,
Feenberg, De Boever, and Sissel Hoel, published 2014). Although not entirely against
Shannons and Wieners perspectives on information, Simondon opted for a more
multimodal approach. This is clearly reflected in the program of the French collo-
quium. For him, information was an entity and could be described in terms of a process
that he called individuation. Information is the formula of individuation (Iliadis
2013). Information is more than just data. It plays a vital role in the process of
becoming of objects. The Research Networks introduction to the philosophy of
information offers an example of this: the information that air can change an engine not
by addition but by introducing new informational properties that redefine the interop-
erability of the engines components serves to introduce one moment of technological
change. This accounts for the indeterminacy (openness, unpredictability) of informa-
tions interactive existence in terms of biological and technical structures (The
Research Network, 2013). It is this rich view on information that must have driven
Simondon to bring in experts from very different disciplines to reflect on the nature of
information. In a way, Simondon has thus laid foundation for the philosophy of
information, a discipline that Floridi (2002) now calls a mature discipline but in
Simondons time was only in its infancy, if at all it can be said to exist then.
Interestingly, Simondon in this respect closely resembles a Dutch philosopher, Herman
Dooyeweerd, who also used the term multimodality in his view on reality. Although
Dooyeweerd himself never elaborated this into a philosophy of information, some of
his followers did.
Herman Dooyeweerd was a Dutch philosopher who, as stated above, developed an
ontology that in several ways resembles Simondons. Probably the authors were not
aware of each others work, as Simondons work was published in French and
Dooyeweerds in Dutch. In a previous publication (De Vries 2008), I have pointed
Book Symposium on Le concept dinformation dans la science...

out some communalities between Simondons philosophy of technology and the one
developed in Dooyeweerds line by Hendrik van Riessen, also a Dutch philosopher,
most of whose writings are still available in Dutch only (see De Vries 2010 for a more
general introduction to his philosophy of technology). Dooyeweerds ontology consists
of two important notions, for entities exist in different modalities or ways of being.
These modalities are aspects of reality. A chair, for instance, has a number of legs and
has therefore a numerical existence. It is, among other aspects, a numerical thing. It also
takes space and that makes it a spatial thing. It can be sold and bought and thus it is an
economic thing. People can like it or not and for that reason it is also an aesthetical
thing. In this line, Dooyeweerd defined fifteen different modalities in each of which
objects exist (see Table 1 and Basden 2008, who elaborated Dooyeweerds ontology
into a philosophy of information systems).
How is this related to Simondon? Although Simondon never made an effort to write
about the different ways of existence, he did defend a non-reductionist mode of
thinking. The colloquium program strongly reflects that. This explains the variety of
disciplines represented.
How would a Dooyeweerdian ontology of information work out? How does infor-
mation as an entity function in his 15 modalities of reality? I will go through each of
them one by one to illustrate the richness of this information ontology.

1. The first aspect is the numerical. Information is a numerical thing. It can be

counted and calculated. This was particularly Shannons interest. In the time of Le
concept, it was only 20 years after Shannon launched this idea. Today, we have
become quite used to the fact that information can be quantified in megabits and
gigabits.
2. The second modality is the spatial. Information can be in different places. We talk
about distributed information (systems) today. On the Internet, the fact that
information is a spatial thing has become extremely important.
3. The third modality is the motional. Information can move. Here, we can see the
numerical modality feature again also, because we often express the transfer rate
of information in quantitative terms, like megabytes per second.
4. The fourth modality is the physical. Information can be expressed in a physical
way. The information stored in a computer was always stored in such a way,
either as magnetized metallic rings or optically, as dimples on a disc.
5. The fifth modality is the biotic. Since DNA was discovered by Watson and Crick
in 1953, we have begun to realize the importance of information in life. Infor-
mation manifests itself in living beings. This insight has resulted in a connection
between biology, the discipline that focuses on life, and information science.
6. The sixth modality is the psychic. Human perception to a large extent is infor-
mation processing. This insight has had an enormous impact on theorizing about
perception.
7. The seventh modality is the analytic. Information can be analyzed and this is what
we do in data analysis. The analytic modality is foundational for doing science,
and the importance of data analysis in science shows how much information and
analysis are tied together.
8. The eighth modality is the formative. Information is very much the object of
human development. The mere concept of information is a human construct.
 A. Iliadis et al.

9. The ninth modality is the symbolic. Information is expressed in symbols. These

can be numbers but also pictures and spoken words.
10. The tenth modality is the social. The availability of information is one of the most
prominent debates about society at this moment. Here, the spatial modality plays
a role again, but there is more at stake than locality. Information can be available
for certain social groups and not for others.
11. The eleventh modality is the economic. Information can and is expressed in terms
of economic values. Information can be bought and sold.
12. The twelfth modality is the aesthetic. Information can be appraised in an aesthetic
manner. We can recognize certain types of harmony in numbers (like in the
number 4321234).
13. The thirteenth modality is the juridical one. Information is increasingly the object
of legislation. Who owns certain information? Whole domains like copyright and
intellectual property rights illustrate this.
14. The fourteenth modality of reality is the moral. Here, we can see the debates about
privacy as an example of how information can be the object of moral
considerations.
15. Finally, the fifteenth modality is the belief modality. Reliability and trustworthi-
ness of information is a key issue in many social/political discussions. But also in
science (with its roots in the analytic modality), this is very important.

As stated before, these fifteen modalities are just one way of exploring the
many modalities of reality. Other choices can be made and this would result in a
different list. But there are evident communalities between Dooyeweerds list and
the colloquium program as put together by Simondon, in the order of the
colloquium proceedings: the formative modality is represented by G. de
Santillana, the psychic aspect by L. Goldmann, N. Wiener, A. Moles, and G.G.
Granger, the analytical aspect by B. Mandelbrot, J. Zeman, L. Couffignal, A.
Perez, and L. Tondl, the symbolic aspect by R. de Possel and S. Bellert, the
biotic aspect by A. Lwolff, the spatial aspect by H. Greniewski, and the
numerical aspect by F. Bonsack. Looking in more detail, probably one finds
other aspects also represented but less prominently. Had Simondon known the
Dooyeweerdian approach, perhaps he would have more disciplines represented in
the colloquium program. Now, we find seven modalities represented, of which
the psychic and the analytical received most attention.
Another important Dooyeweerdian notion that we find in an analogous way in
Simondons writings is that of disclosure. According to Dooyeweerd, reality is
full of potential for development and it is the task of humans to disclose these
through cultural activities. Thus, the richness of the modalities becomes more
and more clear, the more the potentials are disclosed. This notion is quite similar
to Simondons notions of individuation and concretization. As the object evolves,
more and more functions are integrated. For Dooyeweerd, there is a connection
between functions and modalities. A certain function means that potentials in a
certain aspect are disclosed. A chair that is meant for a living room discloses
potentials in the social modality. A chair for the judge in a courtroom discloses
potentials in the juridical modality. A chair that is primarily meant to be admired
for beauty (for instance in a museum) discloses the potential in the aesthetic
Book Symposium on Le concept dinformation dans la science...

modality. This fits nicely with Simondons notion of concretization in that more
and more functions related to different aspects become part of the objects
existence. For information, this means that as an entity, this too can become
richer in meaning as it develops in, for instance, a cybernetic system.
When we compare the Colloquium program with the current debates on infor-
mation technology, we can see a striking difference between this program on the
one hand and Dooyeweerds framework and the current debate on the other hand,
namely the absence of ethics. This is particularly surprising given the disciplinary
broadness of the program as put together by Simondon on the basis of his broad
ontology. Although there was an impressive variety of disciplines represented in
the colloquium program, not a single session was dedicated to the ethics of
information (technology). This is remarkable because nowadays it is a primary
interest for philosophy of information (technology). We cannot imagine a similar
colloquium today without attention for ethics. It also would have been unlikely if
the Dooyeweerd scheme had been used for determining the disciplines represent-
ed, as in his approach the ethical aspect is a separate mode of being. All entities
are ethical in that they lend themselves to ethical judgments and decision making.
Today, the relevance of this has become very clear. Issues such as privacy,
ownership of information, the ethics of artificial intelligence and internet, just to
mention a couple of issues, would feature prominently on the program of a
multidisciplinary colloquium on information (technology). On second thought,
its absence is less surprising when we examine Simondons philosophy of artifacts
and technology. He himself has not written much that we would consider being
ethical considerations on either artifacts, information, or technology in general. He
always seems to accept technology as a natural development about which it does
not make sense to have an ethical debate as it almost naturally develops in such a
way that it enriches our human capabilities more and more. With all the differ-
ences in other regards, but here, Simondons philosophy of technology shows a
resemblance with Heideggers, who also did not develop an ethics of technology
of any substantial meaning.
We have seen how the colloquium proceedings reflect the ontology of informa-
tion as developed by its organizer, Gilbert Simondon. His non-reductionist view on
information was the basis for the multidisciplinary program for the colloquium. He
selected a number of disciplines to be represented in the program. Fifty years after
the colloquium, the need to take a multifaceted view on information, control
technology, artificial intelligence, and other related contemporary issues has become
even more evident. Herman Dooyweerds ontology can be helpful to explore this
complexity in more detail. Although his 15 modalities do not form a closed set
and different choices for defining the variety in reality can be made, they do
display the great variation in ways of being. Taking that variety into account will
make the contemporary debate on information rich in nature. This is important as
these reflections are often used for decision-making. In science, we can afford to
reduce to one or more aspects, depending on our discipline. There is nothing
wrong for a physicist to reduce his view on reality to the physical aspect. But
when we intervene with reality, we have to take into account the richness and
complexity that is mirrored in both Simondons and Dooyeweerds non-reductionist
views on information.
 A. Iliadis et al.

References

Adriaans, P. and & Benthem, J. van (2008). Introduction: Information is what infor-
mation does. In P. Adriaans & J. van Benthem (Eds.), Philosophy of information (p. 3
26). Amsterdam: North Holland.
Basden, A. (2008). Philosophical frameworks for understanding information systems.
Hersley, PA: IGI Publishing.
Brey, P. and Sraker, J.H. (2009), Philosophy of computing and information technol-
ogy. In A.W.M. Meijers (Ed.), Handbook philosophy of technology and engineering
sciences (pp. 13411408). Amsterdam: North Holland.
Cahiers de Royaumont. (1965). Le concept dinformation dans les sciences
contemporaine. Philosophie nV. Paris: Les ditions de Minuit/Gauthier-Villars.
Floridi, L. (2002). What is the philosophy of information?. Metaphilosophy, 33(1/2),
123145.
Iliadis, A. (2013). Informational ontology: The meaning of Gilbert Simondons concept
of individuation. Communication +1. 2(5).
The Research Network (2013). The philosophy of information: an introduction.
http://socphilinfo.org/sites/default/files/i2pi_2013.pdf (retrieved October 21, 2014).
Vries, M.J. de (2008). Gilbert Simondon and the dual nature of technical artifacts.
Techn, 12(1), 2335.
Vries, M.J. de (2010). Introducing Van Riessens work in the philosophy of technology.
Philosophia Reformata 75(1), 29.
Vries, M.J. de, Feenberg, A., De Boever, A. and Sissel Hoel, A. (2014), Book
symposium on the philosophy of Simondon: between technology and individuation
by Pascal Chabot (translation Graeme Kirkpatrick) Bloomsbury Academic, 2013.
Philosophy & Technology, Online 10 January 2014, DOI 10.1007/s13347-013-0144-5.

Gilbert Simondon and the 1962 Royaumont Colloquium: Information, Cybernet-

ics, and Philosophy

Nathalie Simondon, Classes prparatoires lcole Normale Suprieure

Translated by Andrew Iliadis

The participation of Gilbert Simondon at the 1962 Royaumont Colloquium
on the concept of information in contemporary science seems, if one judges by
the published proceedings of 1965, very discreet: his participation appears to
have involved little m ore than a presentation on comm unication
(LAmplification dans les processus dinformation, 1965, p. 417; 2010b, p.
159), an introduction of Norbert Wiener (1965, p. 99), and one or two moments
of discussion (1965 p. 157 and 167). Yet, his role was much more important,
given that Gilbert Simondon was the organizer who invited speakers, scheduled
days, and oversaw the publication of the proceedings. We will seek here to
explain not so much the actual role he played in the colloquium but rather the
pre-existing intellectual reasons for his involvement in the preparations. We
would like to show thereby that the relation between Gilbert Simondon and
cybernetics is critical, non-ideological, and problematic: critical, in that it
examines value as knowledge; non-ideological, in that it refuses both excessive
Book Symposium on Le concept dinformation dans la science...

claims and inappropriate attacks on the subject of cybernetics; finally, problem-

atic, in that it deals with a cybernetics that is possible and hoped for against
certain aspects of modern cybernetics.
In 1953, 8 years before the colloquium, Gilbert Simondon had tried to form a
research group on cybernetics involving both scientists and philosophers, and in so
doing, he established contacts at the cole Normale Suprieure in Paris (with Louis
Althusser, Michel Foucault, Jean Monnier, and Pierre Aigrain). His intention was
motivated by two observations: first, cybernetics was widely misunderstood in France;
French philosophers (such as Raymond Ruyer) were too fast to reduce cybernetics;
second, where it was better received, cybernetics needed a philosophical critique. It was
with this double intentionwith no contradiction for himof promotion and criticism
that Gilbert Simondon wanted to establish cybernetics institutionally in a workgroup.
This project failed, however. We know of the crucial role he gives to information in his
works on individuation (2013c) and technics (2013d). However, as evidenced by texts
written between 1950 and 1956pistmologie de la cyberntique (EC),
Cyberntique et philosophie (CP), and Fondements de la psychologie
contemporaine (FPC)his thinking on information and cybernetics had come even
earlier. As a young student, he had taken Alfred Fessards neurophysiology courses in
1945 at the Sorbonne, who already exhibited in France the doctrines of the analogy
between some operations of the nervous system and certain operations of electronic
models (synaptic networks)summation, inhibition, and facilitation (FPC).
Simondon closely examined the relationship between psychology and cybernetics
(the Macy Conferences, working groups in France with Louis de Broglie, the works
of Louis Couffignal); he offered a detailed analysis in FPC ranging the entirety of
cybernetics in its history since the 1943 team (consisting of Warren MacCulloch,
Walter Pitts, Jerome Lettvin, Arturo Rosenblueth, and Norbert Wiener) and in its
relation to the study of information: he writes of a correlative study of information
and circular causality as essential features of an effect, that of a structure in a situation, a
functional structure (FPC). In a 1961 lecture given to the French Society of Philoso-
phy titled Forme, information et potentiels (2013b), he emphasized the importance of
the idea of information in the search for an axiomatic of the humanities, and offered
corrections to be made in this context on the cybernetic approach to the idea of
information. Thereafter, the meaning he gave to his work at the General Psychology
and Technology Laboratory (located on rue Serpente at the University Paris V) was also
articulated in terms of information (his studies of information engaged all phenomena,
implied or explicit, whether the study was, for example, on perception or personality).
Finally, we can add that before defining the topic for his thesis (individuation), Gilbert
Simondon continued research on Fessard and participated in Nicholas Popovs studies
on cyclochrony at the College de France, works that held a great theoretical interest for
him to the extent that they highlighted a polarization of the organism (an important
perspective in relation to the cybernetic approach, in that it justifies this approach and at
the same time marks it as inadequate).
The importance that Gilbert Simondon grants to the idea of information is central
from the beginning to the end of his career. In terms of the colloquium that became the
basis of Le concept dinformation dans la science contemporaine (1965), the idea first
came (1965, p. 157) from Maurice Merleau-Ponty (just before his death), who decided
to study the fringes of the concept of information, particularly in the humanities. In
 A. Iliadis et al.

his 1963 conference paper, Les grands courants de la philosophie franaise

contemporaine (Simondon, forthcoming), Simondon quotes Jean Hyppolite as one
of the most active organizers of the conference and sees at this meeting the beginning of
the conversion of the phenomenologists and existentialists to scientific knowledge.
This colloquium has, at least partially, license to operate as an encounter between
science and philosophy, to sort of open the field of reflection for mutual enrichment
(and not dissolution). The mix between scientists and philosophers might well be
explosive, according to Martial Gueroult (1965, p. 9), in the self-regulated galley
of cybernetics (1965, p.15), and some controversy at the colloquium over the exten-
sion of the concept of information proves as much (such as those between Andr Lwoff
and Paule Salomon against Lucien Goldmann, 1965, p. 68). The choice of speakers
was the result of discussions held by the colloquium committee (Jean Wahl, Martial
Gueroult, Henry Goin, Ferdinand Alqui, Hyppolite, Leslie Beck, and Alexandre
Koyr). The colloquium, initially scheduled for September of 1961 and then moved
forward to July of the same year, was finally postponed and held in July of 1962, soon
after a general growing interest in another philosophical topic, that of information in
biology. Georges Canguilhem, Ruyer, Jean-Paul Sartre, Claude Lvi-Strauss, Louis de
Broglie, and mile Benveniste, who had all been invited, could not come. Cyberneti-
cians were well represented at the Colloquium: it was not only that cybernetics could
pass for a theory of information (Simondon wanted to ensure that it not be reduced to
that), nor a convenient reason for a gathering (the International Cybernetics Association
had already scheduled a meeting for 1962, and both meetings overlapped); the collo-
quium held a deeper justification related to the problems that cybernetics poses to
philosophy, and this was clearly shown by Gueroult in his opening lecture.
During the preparations, Gilbert Simondon was pushed by Canguilhem to offer a
conference paper, which was difficult for him to accept due to his role as secretary: it is
infelicitous to invite yourself. His work session on amplification in the information
process, on the very last morning, replaced at the very last moment an absent speaker
(Albert Prez) and Gilbert Simondon himself modestly chose not to publish it in the
proceedings. However, the theme of this session, both cybernetic and philosophical, is
absolutely essential to his work.
What value does Gilbert Simondon recognize in the cybernetic approach? We must
examine his analysis of contemporary cybernetics, to which he assigns a unique
epistemological status: it is of worth not as science or as knowledge of an object but
as an attitude, approach, or a way of looking at things.
This epistemological analysis is partly related to the notion of individuation, where
the central hypothesis is as follows (2013c): the idea of reality misses the real (only
captures a depleted real) if it is seen as a set of individuals that are already constituted; it
must think the individual from a process of individuation, which is an operation of
taking shape, an operation by which the real phase-shifts in individual and environ-
ment, an operation to be thought from the notions of information, metastability, and the
potential energy of a quasi-system. This hypothesis resides at the thought of physical
individuation, technique, and the living, both psychic and collective. It is valuable to
consider being not as a set of structures with a static and fixed determination that is
already given (as the structural objective sciences do, a requirement for objectivity) but
as a proceeding of operations, of conversions of operations in structures and structures
in operation. In the positivist formulation of science, the phenomenon is no longer
Book Symposium on Le concept dinformation dans la science...

being, it is simply a term that is linked to another term through a mathematical

relation; the phenomenon is a being from which the scientific method has removed
any characteristic that might make it look like a subject, including its dynamism, its
operative power, and its spontaneity (EC). Through this distinction between objectivity
and spontaneity, the reflective encounter of the operation and the structurein other
words, the purposeis rejected as being beyond the reach of the particular sciences,
just as becoming, and some disciplines, such as psychology and sociology, unsuccess-
fully try to mimic the objective sciences. However, when the field of cybernetics was
invented by Weiner, Simondon immediately recognized that it dealt with the encounter
of an operation and a structure, sometimes in the artificial object, sometimes in the
natural being (EC).
So it is, first, an epistemological problem of cybernetics, which presents itself as a
science of operations and therefore as a kind of reciprocal of sciences. Each particular
cybernetics studies a particular type of operation or how such a structure is transformed
into another (information theory studies the transformation of a message: encoding,
encryption, modulation) and invents hypotheses of structures (for the theory of
information, negentropy; for teleological mechanism and reaction, the relay, the inte-
grator, the modulator).
The epistemological hypothesis that Gilbert Simondon proposes is that, far from
being a great scientific hypothesis designed to unify the sciences, cyberneticsif it
rises to a true universal theory through an operative unificationwill nonetheless be
able to open up not a new domain in relation to the sciences (contrary to the wishes of
Wiener) but a complementary perspective on the same world (EC). But it would still
be a genuine allagmatic theory, organizing and defining the relationship between the
theory of operations (applied cybernetics) and the theory of structures (deterministic
and analytical science), which it alone would be able to introduce into the theory of
knowledge as well as the theory of values (2013a, p. 563).
Thus, the interest of cybernetics is immediately noted, under the condition that
cybernetics does not deceive itself: it does not occupy another target field, the one left
fallow by the specialized sciences (the no mans land of Wiener), because it is from
them that it receives its values and its method, its only method. This essential distinction
clarifies the meaning of cybernetics research: we can compare two operations (for
example, the computer and the brain) not because they are objectively comparable, nor
because one is an imitation of the other or does the same operations, but because the
method by which are established the rules of a fair mental operation and that by which
is predetermined the valid operation of a calculating machine maintain a technical
correlation between them, of an operating nature (EC). There is no structural imitation,
butonly, we could sayequality of functions constituted of different operations. So,
we are here in the land of methods, of functions, and of purpose, also known as the field
of technology. Cybernetics is not a science that knows structures but a technology
having teleological mechanisms at its core. It is an interscientific technique, whose
concepts are of general technology. It is a system of operations. It studies holic systems
(its objects are wholly structured, having a functional unit, an environment), operations
in different situations, and leads to a rethinking of causality (one that is circular). It is
defined by an attitude: one that considers the object as a system in a situation, as an
individual in relation to an environment and with itself (e.g., a relay, in which we can
distinguish control energy, power, effector). It does not penetrate the object or the being
 A. Iliadis et al.

but takes the phenomenon as a whole: the research of Wiener is a kind of eidetic
reduction of technical or vital operations (2015, p. 184). Cybernetics represents the
phenomenological attitude in scientific thinking. One could have baptized it with
another name; e.g., etiology or organology because cybernetics situation is where
the being becomes in some measure causa sui by the recurrence to causality ()
(CP).
But then, if the cybernetic induction is one that seeks the functional equivalence
of operations of beings, if it only examines analogies, it is because of this that
sometimes it is innocent of the criticisms it can receive, and sometimes too bold,
conversely, in its claims. Gilbert Simondon thus wanted to show in what sense
cybernetics could be promising in the areas whose purpose is operating (such as
psychology or sociology), and for the general vitality of scientific activity, through
its collective and transdisciplinary aspect; cybernetics, finally, has in itself a liberat-
ing power to the extent that it makes clear how man exceeds enslavement by
consciously organizing purpose, just as in the eighteenth century he tried to dom-
inate the unfortunate necessity of work, not by suffering it with resignation, but by
rationalizing it so as to make the work efficacious (2013d, p. 146). But, in doing
so, he has also multiplied the warnings against the claims of cybernetics when it
tends to go beyond its own power of explanation. If cybernetics has a value for
being a phenomenological attitude, it is less than a knowledge of things: it is seizing
functional equivalences and is fertile thanks to this, but cannot say more: Similar
analogies, even if they are not arbitrary, only indicate that there are common
operations to the living and to machinery. They leave open the question of the real
nature of these operations (2013d, p. 205). And individually taken, technicity
tends to become dominant and to give an answer to every problem, as it does
nowadays through the system of cybernetics (2013d, p. 208).
From what does cybernetics need to be defended then? From what reduces it,
and what sometimes causes it to reduce itself. It is accused of scientific reduc-
tionism (it will explain the complex by the simple, the brain by mechanics). This
accusation will be motivated by confusion between the robot and the automat
(pure). Applied automation exists, and there is technical research on automation,
but real cybernetics begins with pure automatism, with the purpose of studying
assemblies and their behaviors, as we have already stated, the holic behaviors by
themselves, such as with Ashbys homeostat. We are then in pure technics or
cybernetics (CP). The robotwhich begins with the statuetries to deceive the
viewer, while the pure automate has only the purpose of being a holic system
(containing in itself the principle of its movement).
But it is in France, against cyberneticians with a technocratic bent who study
control and self-regulation schemes (the other trend being, with de Broglie, that of the
theory of information) that it becomes necessary to defend cybernetics, when the
former disguise their automata as robots and promote the confusion between the
automatic release of mechanisms in their productions and a vital instinctive behavior:
W. Grey Walters turtles or Ducrocqs foxes are less interesting than Ashbys
homeostat, which has no robot appearance. Phrases like thinking machine or
living machine are questionable: these machines do not think, do not live but are
the theater of modifications (mechanical or electrical, for example) equivalent to
logical or vital functions (CP).
Book Symposium on Le concept dinformation dans la science...

There are special theoretical abuses to which cybernetics is conducted when it

misunderstands its domain of validity. Thus, in MEOT, not only is cybernetics insuf-
ficient as a technology because it isolates the wrong kind of automata (2013d, p. 59) by
focusing on negative reaction but also as technicity; it must be replaced in all human
ways of relating to the world, to thwart its overbearing trend (2013d, p. 208). The
cybernetic interpretation tends to become a myth: if the technical object concretizes,
then it approaches the organism, but it never becomes fully concrete, while the living
being is immediately fully concrete (which endangers to make the work of cybernetics
partially ineffective as interscientific study (this is the purpose that Norbert Wiener
assigns to his research); it is the initial assumption of the identity of living beings with
self-regulated technical objects, 2013d, p. 59). Ducrocqs cybernetics has technicist
and technocratic tendencies (2013d, p. 204). The formulation of a political or social
hypothesis starting from the study of control (regulations, enslavement) is without
rigor: thus, the form by which Wiener seeks to generalize his concepts constitutes an
abuse; homeostasis is only a base, only one of the ways of being of groups (see
2013d, 2010a, p. 85); however, the act of government must be a force of absolute
advent, based on homeostasis but also beyond it (2013d, p. 208). Positive reaction,
which does not have the same appearance of finality, and which cybernetics studies
even less, also plays an important role in individuals, groups and machines: it allows
self-maintenance, intense action, the excitement that implements all virtue, all the
specific excellence of an organized system (2010a). Positive reactions allow, in
individuals, the high level actions (2010a). Homeostatic functions or mechanisms
are conservative: rather, it is change in structure, linked to the appearance of a problem,
which one must look to for value. In ILFI (p. 267), the communication of Dr. Lawrence
Kubie at the 1949 Congress of Cybernetics is cited as an example of the remarkable
inability of psychological thought before analyzing its presuppositions: to take the
criterion of adaptation or adaptability as the principle of distinction between the normal
and the pathological raises an implicit sociology and shows a very serious possibility
of confusion. Finally, the theory of information is generally insufficient for a true
analysis of communication: what must also be thought is the quality of the information,
the consideration of the receiver, and its condition; do not just stick to the exchanged or
transmitted informationteleology or adaptationbut access information as original,
in the form of an initial problem that the invention directs; this is the foundation and
constitution (2010c; 2013b, and the importance of motivation in psychology).
One cannot use cybernetics as the real grid, or worse, as a guide to control men. In
fact, in a general sense, it is the very meaning of technicity in its relation to other modes
of being in the world of man which must be primarily philosophically thought (MEOT,
p. 209).
If controversy over cybernetics is clear in his texts, Gilbert Simondon made it so
discreet at the colloquium that it is undetectable. When he introduced Norbert Wiener
to the public (1965, p. 99), all the points he mentioned were, without exception,
sensitive: he introduced Wiener by way of known and public elements that he had,
however, criticized for a long time (EC). Could cybernetics be a renewal of Cartesian-
ism? Except that, as a new Discourse on the Method, cybernetics has not succeeded in
its own method. Constitute a unity of the sciences? But it is pure technique. Fertility of
the no mans lands between the sciences? It is purely operational. A new Newton? But
it is not Newton who should be evoked (because Newton provides a unified scientific
 A. Iliadis et al.

theory); it is Maxwell, who unified the electromagnetic theory of light by the operating
invention of the current of displacement, a unifying power that cybernetics will not
have unless it becomes theoretical.
What role, then, does cybernetics have to play? We have seen that it is as a pure
technology and as an attitude adopted by a holic system that cybernetics has an eminent
value as another point of view different from the objective sciences; it is complemen-
tary. It is a model of intelligibility among others (2013b). It creates many questions
regarding boundaries in science, distinctions between structural changewhich re-
quires some quanticsand state change, divisions between what is internal and what is
external to something. How must one think about the living, society, and ways of
thinking? What is an individual but a being whose functions have a holic character? All
these issues require philosophical reflection, and cybernetics, which cannot respond to
them but helps to formulate them, merits, on condition that it is universalized and
define its method, to be recognized at its fair value.
It is from this perspective, it seems, that in his speech at the Royaumont Colloquium,
Gilbert Simondon showed the fertility of a cybernetic theme, subject to corrective
critics and rigorous reflection: amplification in the process of information can be
exploited to better reflect a certain number of realities (nervous system, psycho-social
process, social phenomena, organism, visual perception, consciousness, instinctive
activities, activities of abstraction and generalization, proceedings of organizational
invention) on condition that its different modes are carefully distinguished
(transductive, modulating, and organizing amplification). One must avoid simple
technological models by which everything would be confused and, on the contrary,
embrace a variety of operations and deepen the fine analysis of relationships between
structures and operations.
Gilbert Simondon opposes the ideological trend of cybernetics itself, detected since
its baptism by Wiener in the summer of 1947, and Gueroult stresses this in his speech.
Gilbert Simondon transforms cybernetics, first in epistemology, that is to say through a
critique far removed from its diffuse technocratic ambition. He finds in it a fruitful
intellectual attitude but finds it insufficient in itself: it is called by reflective thinking,
and in turn calls it. This is, no doubt, the meaning of the involvement of Gilbert
Simondon at the Royaumont Colloquium.

References

Cahiers de Royaumont. (1965). Le concept dinformation dans les sciences

contemporaine. Philosophie nV. Paris: Les ditions de Minuit/Gauthier-Villars.
Simondon, G. (2010a). Cours sur la communication, in Communication et information.
Chatou: La Transparence.
Simondon, G. (2010b). Lamplification dans les processus dinformation, in Commu-
nication et information. Chatou: La Transparence.
Simondon, G. (2010c). Communication et information. Chatou: La Transparence.
Simondon, G. (2013a). Allagmatique, in Lindividuation la lumire des notions de
forme et dinformation. Grenoble: Editions Jrme Million. 1964, 2005, 2013.
Simondon, G. (2013b). Forme, information et potentiels, in Lindividuation la lumire
des notions de forme et dinformation. Grenoble: Editions Jrme Million. 1964, 2005,
2013.
Book Symposium on Le concept dinformation dans la science...

Simondon, G. (2013c). Lindividuation la lumire des notions de forme et

dinformation. Grenoble: Editions Jrme Million. 1964, 2005, 2013.
Simondon, G. (2013d). Du Mode dexistence des objets techniques. Paris: Aubier,
Flammarion. 1958, 1969, 2013.
Simondon, G. (2015). Fondements de la psychologie contemporaine, in Sur la
psychologie. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.
Simondon, G. (forthcoming). Cyberntique et philosophie. Paris: Presses Universitaires
de France.
Simondon, G. (forthcoming). pistmologie de la cyberntique. Paris: Presses
Universitaires de France.
Simondon, G. (forthcoming). Les grands courants de la philosophie franaise
contemporaine. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.