TECHNICAL NORMATIVITY AT GILBERT SIMONDON

ABSTRACT: In Du mode d’existence des objets techniques, Simondon had proposed an ethics that could savethe machines, but in this text, now classical, it was only a philosophical ethic external to the techniquesthemselves. Beside this philosophical ethic, there is a normativity specific to the technical activity from whichSimondon infers the constitution of social norms, that is, ways of thinking and acting, as well as the modes ofexistence of individuals. Technical normativity is thus always “universal”, and from this point of view, the realidea of technical normativity in Simondon suggests that the techniques are all good and that the ways in whichthey are displayed are merely anthropological projections installed by man in these techniques. This article thenaims to highlight in a study first, exegetical these two moments of Simondonian ethics. Finally, he proposes toreopen the Simondonian theoretical offer of the absolute neutrality of technical objects, denouncing the antihumanist ways that necessarily load such a position.

Keywords: culture, man, normativity, technique, universality.