In 1958, Gilbert Simondon created mechanology, an empirical philosophy of technology.

Simondon framed mechanology as a response to a problem. Culture relates to technology in one of two inadequate forms. On the one hand, partial humanism sees the technical object as the ugly sibling of the aesthetic object and vilifies it as the source of all that is wrong with contemporary society. On the other hand, intemperate technicism elevates the same object to a sacred status, relinquishes humanity to it, and glorifies automation as the solution to all our problems. Whether sub-human or superhuman, the technical object is defined as non-human.

The task of mechanology would be to humanize the technical object, like a sociology or psychology of the machine. It would relate to the technical object differently than the user (too instrumental), the worker (too loaded), the engineer (too close), or the designer (too abstract). Here, the machine would primarily be treated as a figure of interior order, inorganic life, technical excellence, and evolutionary lineage.

I have to say ‘would’ because despite Simondon’s own work and some remarkable scholarship in this vein in the years since (e.g., Deleuze, Latour, Mol), mechanology remains an obscure pursuit. This oversight has obvious cultural implications and is especially unfortunate in the Anthropocene. In the war being waged on life, machines have variously played the role of instruments, targets, or saviors. Mechanology gives them a different role: a potential ally of biology in slowing the degradation of energy. Mechanology’s contribution, as Simondon said, would be to fight the death of the universe.