Form, Information, and Potentials

This short piece is a partial translation of the introduction to Gilbert Simondon’s most succinct philosophical reflections on the notions of form, information, and potentials. The material was presented on February 27, 1960, at the Session of the Société française de philosophie. After the abstract and Simondon’s definitions of form, information, and transductive operation, there is a discussion between Simondon and other attendees who were present at his talk, including Paul Ricoeur and Jean Hyppolite, both of whom had been part of Simondon’s viva panel in 1958. The piece represents an interesting moment in the history of philosophy where cybernetics and information theory were problematized by thinkers like Simondon, who thought that the concept of information needed to be expanded and refined to adequately account for processes of individuation, or "ontogenesis."