Soglie dell’immaginazione

Abstract

The concept of thresholds plays a fundamental role in Gilbert Simondon’sperspective on ontogenesis. Although best known for hisoriginal theoretical stance on technology, Simondon cannot, however,be defined solely in these terms, as this would amount to arestrictive oversimplification.1 From the very beginning, his was, in fact, anencyclopaedic endeavour in a sense that sought to trace its origins beyond the(in the sense of Diderot and D’Alembert’s Encyclopédie), extendingas far back as the Renaissance conception.2 His own course ofstudy was, in this sense, a constant positioning of himself at the thresholdsof the sciences within a fundamentally transdisciplinary framework. Theoverall thrust of Simondon’s work is, in fact, the overturningand transcendence of one of the philosophical principles which, in his view, mostsignificantly condition the relationships between the disciplinary fields of knowledge: thatof individuation.