Gilbert Simondon and speech communication

Sayapin Vladislav Olegovich ORCID: 0000-0002-6588-9192 PhD in Philosophy Associate Professor; Department of History and Philosophy; Tambov State University named after G.R. Derzhavin 392000, Russia, Tambov region, Tambov, Internatsionalnaya str., 33 vlad2015@yandex.ru Other publications by this author

Despite the recent publication of numerous articles about the work of J. Simondon, any attentive researcher is faced with a question that remains unanswered today. This question sounds like an aporia: how does Simondon interpret speech communication in his theory of "individuation"? And the answer to this question may be that Simondon, having abandoned the paradigm of the structuralist "fashion" of the mid-twentieth century in European philosophy, practically does not conduct any research on the problem of speech communication, for the explication of which, as if, all the conditions in his theory of "individuation" were created. To make sure of this, it was enough to see that he pays more attention to the theory of "meaning" than to the theory of "speech communication". In our opinion, the following reasons contribute to this.

The first assumption (or hypothesis) is that Simondon did not need to raise the problem of speech communication, because it is incompatible with the substantialist tradition, which defines logos as the source of truth, as the cause of philosophy, as the structure of all thought. And that is why all these characteristics of the logos not only contradict all knowledge about individuation, but also impose the primacy of being over becoming. In this case, according to the famous French philosopher J. Deleuze (1925-1995): "Becoming is not one or two, nor is it a relationship between two; it is an interval, a boundary, a line of escape or fall perpendicular to the two"^{[1, p.487]}. In addition, logos has always been viewed as an entity, as an opposition of subject and object, and as the hegemony of the principle of identity and the logic of the excluded third. As a result, such philosophical reflection always contradicts discursivity, logic and communication. From this it follows that the two constituent conditions of reflective life are organic and technical life. That is why philosophy, as a reflexive way of relating an individual to the world, is neither the original nor the only form of thinking. Since before philosophy there were not only religious, technical and aesthetic meanings, but which even today, together with philosophical meanings, form a multiphase system of cognition^[2].

The second assumption is that Simondon viewed the problem of speech communication differently, namely, he considered it as a problem of technosocial development, that is, he took into account the relationship of meaning, technology and information in communication. Therefore, this more fundamental problem always requires the inclusion of speech communication not only in the system of phases of an individual's genesis, but also in the complexity of the levels of this entity's relationship to itself and the world. In other words, this state of affairs makes this communication seem like a relative, localized and late reality. In addition, this problem is much broader than the problem of speech communication, since it affects both living non-human and living human, aesthetic and religious objects, as well as technical objects, in accordance with the modalities that any linguistic paradigm would tend to impoverish. However, rejecting speech communication as the basic condition of thinking, such a point of view would make Simondon's philosophy a fundamental critique of logocentrism. This would immediately put him on a par not only with Nietzschean and Bergsonian criticism of language, from which he inherited much, but also in parallel with the criticism proposed by M. Heidegger (1889-1976), with whom he never really entered into a dialogue. In this case, it would be necessary to explain what thinking can mean, which, without breaking away from speech communication in accordance with his own philosophy, can be an alternative to Heidegger's "speech".

Therefore, the central purpose of this study is not to provide a systematic and thorough verification of these two assumptions, but to find some basis in the issue of speech communication in Simondon's work, which can not only combine the criticism of logocentrism and anthropocentrism, but also clarify them. At the same time, it will be a question of putting here not only the problem of speech communication, but also not pretending to neglect the stated aporia, but rather coming to terms with it in order to more accurately distinguish it, as well as to better understand its hermeneutic effects. Moreover, the study of the concept of "speech communication" suggests considering it through studying: 1) the Simondonian critique of language, understood as a condition of cognition and thinking; 2) the internal tension in the relationship between technology and speech communication; 3) the elements that Simondon puts forward for technosocial communication.

So, it is within the framework of his unique understanding of the process of individuation that Simondon offers a critique of language and speech communication, but such a critique, without being fully presented by him, is neither direct nor systematic. And that is why all this applies, first of all, to the initial gesture of the ontological overthrow of substantialism and its epistemological and logical consequences.: explain, produce, and function. However, such a premise prevents any knowledge of the process of individuation, since not only is the "ontological privilege" granted to the individual as a constituted being, but also the search for the origin forces genesis to function in the opposite direction in order to find this principle responsible for the existence and development of this individual and his characteristics, which must be explained. This search for the original, similar to the search for the substrate of the predicative, necessarily involves neglecting the operation of individuation or even jumping over it in order to join the principle underlying reality. But such an explication includes, first of all, an explanation of the individuation of an individual in a simple term, that is, that which is already an individual or something individualized. That is why the operation of individuation itself remains unclear and cannot be the subject of real knowledge. Hence, in order to avoid such an imperfection, Simondon suggests an epistemological turn, which consists in: "... knowing the individual through individuation, and not individuation from the individual"^{[3, p.24]}.

So, thanks to this revolution, the operation of individuation becomes paramount, not only does it no longer depend on the earlier principle, but it is itself that principle. In other words, the individual is no longer an absolute reality, but reveals himself to be a phase occurring within the process of individuation. Hence, in order to think about individuation, it is impossible to resort to the model of substance and its corresponding logic. In this case, substantialist logic is really based on the idea that a substance is something that consists of its unity and exists in its identity, that is, something that obeys, without exception, the principle of the excluded third (or the law of classical logic), which is formulated as follows: every being is either A or not-A, and there can be no third term between A and non-A that is both A and non-A, or neither A nor non-A. In other words, in the cognition of an individual through individuation, unity and identity are no longer relevant cognitive categories.

If, in the cognition of individuation through the individual, unity refers to an individual (an individualized being) who is self-contained and composed of himself, then this unity has absolutely nothing to do with an individual who is in the process of individuation, and also this unity excludes itself from the pre-individual being. Therefore, a pre-individual being, which is more than unity to the extent that it hides potential possibilities, and which the individual never exhausts in the process of his individuation to the end. On the other hand, identity refers to the idea that the becoming of being cannot be anything other than a framework that has nothing to do with what it should be for this being, remaining what it is, in accordance with a completely stable state in which no transformation is possible. Simply put, the knowledge of what existence is cannot be anything other than an insignificant framework for this being. That is why the process of individuation always requires thinking about becoming as a dimension of being, that is, something that transforms pre-individual being, resolving its initial incompatibility, rich in potentials. It follows that unity and identity are applicable only to one of the phases of being, that is, to the phase in which the intermediate formation of the individual took place, that is, where the being partially individualized itself, and not to the operation of individuation, through which all this happens^[4].

As a result, any appeal to the concept, taken in its classical sense, is inadequate to solve the problem of knowledge. From the point of view of the theory of "individuation", the concept is indeed neither a priori nor a posteriori, but present (but praesenti), since it is an informative and interactive communication between what is greater than the individual and what is less than him. Strictly speaking, it arises as a result of a mental operation that is not realized abstractly on the basis of sensations that make up a given matter a posteriori for a priori forms of sensuality. Therefore, the formation of a concept is always an operation of individuation, namely, a solution to a problem, which is performed in accordance with the phases of the cognition operation, that is, in accordance with the levels of the cognizing being, as well as by including all the elements of a specific situation. That is why, according to Simondon, the preservation of the Kantian distinction between a priori and a posteriori has an echo of the "hylomorphic scheme" in the theory of knowledge, which prevents the comprehension of individuation due to the double illusion regarding the influence of the cognizing subject on a known object. In addition, there is an illusion of a priori forms that are not really a priori, since they arose as a result of the initial solution to the problem caused by the orientation of a living being in a polarized world, that is, they serve as structures of a pre-individual system that exists and becomes individual before any object is formed.

It can be noted that the illusion of a priori forms is more accurately explained from the pre-existence in a pre-individual system of conditions of totality, whose dimension exceeds that of an individual in the process of ontogenesis. In addition, such reasoning suggests that there is a premise for the individual, as for any possible knowledge, which takes into account that the illusion of a priori forms is an extreme term of the highest order in the system in which the problem arises. At the same time, the illusion proceeds a posteriori from the same logic, imposing the idea that sensation brings necessary matter into cognition, constituting itself as a posteriori given for an a priori form. It follows that this sequential operation precedes the creation of a space-time frame, which later appears in conjunction with perception, or, in other words, the operation of individuation. In this case, perception is not only an operation that precedes sensation, but also ensures compatibility between the individual and the environment. Therefore, the illusion of the a posteriori stems from the mutual existence of reality, whose order of magnitude, as far as space-time modifications are concerned, is lower than the order of the individual. That is why there is a posteriori datum external to the individual, while he exists and acts as an additional extreme term and is an order of magnitude smaller in the same system.

As a result, only the concept of "a praesenti" allows for informative and interactive communication between what is greater than an individual and what is less than him. Moreover, this concept solves the problem of cognition of individuation, avoiding the need to resort to abstraction implemented on the basis of individuality, since its formation occurs in the middle of two poles of the pre-individual dyad, namely between a priori and a posteriori. That is, we want to say that a priori and a posteriori are not in knowledge.: they are not non-knowledge, but the extreme terms of a pre-individual system and, consequently, pre-ethical. Simply put, we are talking about returning to the real situation, namely, to the problem that arises not only during the process, but also at the center of the relations of cognition, rather than trying to reconstruct entities or classify them as "universal" in accordance with the categories of genus and species. Thus, Simondon, relying on A. Bergson (1859-1941), believes that speech communication makes a static contribution to the movement of things and that the concepts created by the intellect realize themselves as operations of generalization and abstraction, which prevent a concrete and complete understanding of reality. That is why Simondon's idea that concepts are "a praesenti" not only corresponds to Bergson's^[5] flexible and mobile ideas, but also to their common desire to realize the existence of thought simultaneously with the existence of an object^{[3, p.24]}.

At the same time, Simondon's originality lies in his transductive method, which, admittedly, is an "intuition" in the Bergson sense and offers an "analog paradigm" that allows us to reflect on the uniqueness of each phase of individuation (physical, vital, technical and psychosocial). Strictly speaking, Simondon's task was not to surpass the logic of concepts, as Bergson wanted, but to propose an ontogenetic theory that precedes all logic and which should give it the character of diversity in accordance with the types of individuation encountered, as G. Bachelard (1884-1962) wanted. Here it becomes obvious that the idea of pluralization of logic was formulated by Simondon following Bachelard. For example, Bachelard argued that after the discoveries of modern science, it is necessary to somehow change the game of logical values. In other words, it is necessary to define as many logics as there are any types of objects^{[6, p.111]}. Therefore, any knowledge of reality is an analogy between two operations. In other words, an analogy that always seeks to solve a real problem by establishing a way to connect these two operations. As a result, the individuation of the real, external to the subject, is realized by this subject through the analog individuation of knowledge in it. However, it is through the individuation of knowledge, and not just knowledge, that the individuation of entities that are not subjects is realized. Beings can be known through knowledge of an object, but the individuation of beings can be comprehended only through correlated parallel and mutual individuation of knowledge^{[3, p.36]}. Therefore, any knowledge of individuation is an individuation of knowledge, which debunks all the principles of logocentrism of the substantialist tradition and calls for "thinking in the middle." Thus, the modern French social researcher Barthélemy J.-Y. He rightly attaches two meanings to this formula, which at the same time are two fundamental "rules" of the unity of Simondon's creativity: "to think about the environment, not just about the individual" and "to think about the environment based on the center of being"^[7].

It should be emphasized that based on this reversal of the substantialist tradition and the logical model of interpretation, Simondon offers another piece of criticism about the importance of language and speech communication in the process of individuation. This criticism is more explicit, it manifests itself when he refers to the mental and collective phases of individuation, or, in other words, to their common - transindividual, in relation to which his theory of the social subject is formulated. In order to solve his mental problem and truly realize his being, the subject, indeed, through the discovery of meanings, must participate in the team. Such participation of this social subject stems not from an effective dialogue, but from the presence of other similar individuals. This presence is not a simple existence of another being here and now; it is also not an affirmation of a special identity or recognition of a common belonging to a genus or species; it is already synonymous with a new phase of individuation that is superimposed on the individual and overwhelms him. This second phase of individuation can take place not only because there is an expectation of completion, but above all because the presence of the other polarizes the available reserve of individualized being, which remains unstructured despite the first phase of individuation. The afterglow of this charge of nature – arising in the pre–individual phase of being, during the trans-individual (psychosocial) phase - is exactly what makes meanings manifest. That is why, for the process of individuation, instead of the relationship between individualized identities through given linguistic structures, a certain correspondence of individuals is required, contributing not only to this process of formation, but also to the emergence of meanings. In other words, in order for a mutual response to the presence of another individual and the establishment of a relationship with him, it is necessary to compare the relationships of individuals with their own pre-individual loads, which are not only pre-linguistic, but also pre-vital. It follows from this that it is impossible to assign an exceptional position to a priori or a posteriori meaning, since it is a posteriori to the extent that a second phase of individuation is necessary for its appearance, and this appearance requires for the existence of a real a priori, which is always the subject's attitude to his own load of a pre-individual nature. As a result, we can say that the meaning is not only paradoxical, but it is also an a priori correspondence in a posteriori individuation, that is, it is as open as it is produced. As a result, the classical idea that speech communication precedes meanings is then explicitly refuted by Simondon: "... it is absolutely not enough to say that it is language that allows an individual to access meanings; if there were no meanings that support language, there would be no language; it is not language that creates meaning; it is only that what transmits information from one subject to another, which, in order to become meaningful, must correspond to this aspect associated with the personality defined in the subject; language is an instrument of expression, a means of transmitting information, but not a creator of meanings. Meaning is a relation of entities, not a pure expression; meaning is relational, collective, transindividual, and cannot be provided by the meeting of expression and subject. We can tell what information is based on meaning, but not value based on information"^{[3, p.307]}.

Simondon's position here is unequivocal: speech communication does not precede, generate, or give access to meanings, but rather meanings that support it. Speech communication simply performs the functions of a medium of information and an instrument of expression, it is in no way something by which subjects meet as subjects, that is, as conditions for possible relationships. The true expression of a social subject is a transindividual relationship through which information can become meaningful. To be accepted, any information requires individuation, which takes place within the subject and in accordance with which a team is subsequently formed with the subject who provided the information. Simply put, to reveal the meaning of a message coming from a similar entity or several entities does not mean to establish a logical connection between the sign and the reference in accordance with the natural or formal rules of language, but it means to form a collective with them, or, in other words, to individualize oneself in the social phase of individuation. Further, speech communication appears as a secondary reality for the subject, that is, as something that follows his individuation and that arises in addition to the non-linguistic meanings that arise between individuals. From this secondary nature of language, it cannot be concluded that Simondon denied the specificity of oral speech; he only says that speech communication is not a principle of meaning and is not what constitutes a subject as a subject. By turning the relationship between the subject and speech communication upside down, between speech communication and meaning, Simondon radically relativizes the place usually assigned to language to such an extent that he cites here a fundamental criticism of logocentrism, which is addressed to anthropocentrism, which supports and legitimizes it. In this case, it is incorrect to assert that the subject is the essence of speech communication, the one who speaks as a subject is the one who is "existing as existing" in accordance with the meaning that speech communication gives him.

Obviously, in his work "On the mode of existence of technical objects" (1958)^[2], Simondon proposes a philosophy of methods that expands the theory of "individuation", where this expansion takes on the principles of genetic and relational thinking applied to technology. Moreover, the Simondonian theory of "individuation" implies a "new encyclopedia" capable of going beyond the alternative between humanism and technicism, in order to achieve an awareness of the meaning of technical objects against the dominant cultural "resentment" as the primary source of modern alienation. That is why, when it comes to exploring the terms of this new encyclopedism, Simondon offers an analysis of its three epochs (ethical, technical, and technological). Moreover, encyclopedism is an absolutely fundamental concept for evaluating Simondon's creative work, since his goal is to initiate a third type of encyclopedism in the 20th century after those related to the Renaissance and Enlightenment. The new encyclopedism is "genetics" in the sense that it examines the genesis of everything. On the other hand, he struggles with a different type of alienation than those his predecessors struggled with: "In the sixteenth century, man was enslaved by intellectual stereotypes; in the eighteenth century, he was limited by hierarchical aspects of social rigidity; in the twentieth century, he is a slave to his dependence on unknown and distant forces that control him.… <..Having become a machine in a mechanized world, he can gain freedom only when he assumes his role and surpasses it through understanding the technical functions conceivable in terms of universality"^{[2, p.101]}.

In this regard, Simondonian encyclopedism considers not only the Renaissance, which, with the help of the original texts of antiquity, made an initial attempt to abandon the arbitrary limitations of thought and knowledge, but also the Enlightenment, which in the XVIII century, with the help of science, liberated technology and proposed a new approach. As a result, according to Simondon, the new encyclopedia is a place where a new relationship between language and image is being invented in the 20th century, or rather, a place where the dominance of language over image is being overthrown. And it was at the stage of the modern revolution that visual symbols became adequate for technical objects. For example, any technology always requires another means of expression other than oral speech. In this case, despite the fact that speech communication can convey emotions, however, it is quite difficult to express patterns of movement or precise material structures with its help. On the contrary, the symbolism adequate to the technical operation is visual symbolism with its rich and understandable visual effect, and including the play of shapes and proportions. That is why the civilization of the word gives way to the civilization of the image, which is universal in nature and does not require a preliminary set ^{[3, p.97]}.

Therefore, speech communication is inadequate not only to individuation, but also to technical reality, since it is unable to express the patterns of movement and material structures of technical objects, that is, to provide access to functioning that defines both their own essence and their belonging to the evolutionary line of formation. It follows that such an impossibility is associated, on the one hand, with the use of given concepts that fix the object and its components within the boundaries separating it from its environment and origin. While visual symbolism, translated as a play of shapes and proportions, includes not only movement and structure, but also being, form and evolution. On the other hand, the inability of speech communication to express technical reality is explained by the tendency towards closure, encryption, or even secret formulas of the insider community (when speech communication is a business language). At the same time, visual symbolism is immediate in perception and truly universal in the perception of cognition. So, "... any speech communication tends to become active; it specializes, and as a result, a kind of encrypted language is obtained, a vivid example of which is the old corporate jargon. To understand spoken or written speech, one must belong to a closed group; it is enough to perceive in order to understand a schematic expression. It is with the help of the scheme that technical encyclopedism acquires all its meaning and power of dissemination, becoming truly universal"^{[2, p.97-98]}.

Thus, the whole problem of the Simondonian critique of speech communication lies in the limitation it imposes on knowledge, and this limitation, both sensory and cognitive, is compounded by a false universality that prevents the emergence of true encyclopedism. Unlike the image, speech communication does offer false universality to the extent that it allows one to believe in free and unrestricted access to knowledge, while this access is systematically sanctioned by an established culture and is most often reserved for the social group that represents it. In the Renaissance, at the first ethical stage of encyclopedism, the distribution of texts through the printing press brought the first expansion. It was an oral message that was conveyed by visual signs, and their meaning, for accessibility purposes, required bypassing the social institution of language. At the same time, during this period, printing methods were difficult to formalize due to the limited development of sciences, and in order for encyclopedism to truly become a reality, it was necessary to master all living languages. Even scientific language could not achieve this, since such language remained the prerogative only for scientists. That's why, despite the fact that the printing press paved the way for technological versatility by making visual symbolism accessible to as many people as possible (including the illiterate). As a result, until the end of the 17th century (before the publication of the encyclopedia), it was necessary to purify symbolism from any desire to use allegorical expression, which tended to return to oral expression ^{[2, p.98]}.

Meanwhile, this juxtaposition of image and speech communication may seem problematic in at least three ways. In the first sense, all this seems incompatible with philosophy, which systematically seeks to overcome conceptual oppositions inherited from the history of metaphysics, which, nevertheless, Simondon clearly defined as the basis of all knowledge. In the second sense, this juxtaposition of image and speech communication seems abstract, since the image seems to be completely separated from any determination of language in its formation and interpretation. In a third sense, it seems reductive, since the image, which is the opposite of speech communication, eventually merges with a schema that would express it as an essence or true universality. Although these three objections may seem legitimate, they are not fully justified: first, because the juxtaposition of image and speech communication can be understood genetically as a phase shift that structures the evolution of encyclopedism, where the technological phase is the resolution in the theory of "information" of the incompatibility of speech communication and the image effect for the universal expression of technical reality. Secondly, because the image is really connected with oral speech, which requires significant formalization efforts to separate the image from the language, namely the efforts made since the Renaissance and which still remain incomplete (in the first quarter of the 21st century). However, we must add that the image is more primitive, not only with respect to any linguistic meaning, but also with respect to any established culture, since, based on Simondon, it corresponds to the pre-subjective and pre-objective level of an individual's relationship to the environment, the level of a pair of sensations-tropisms before any geometric element is of interest to perception^{[2, p.192]}.

Finally, the multiplicity of images is clearly not denied or disputed by Simondon, the scheme appears only as the most direct image, the least saturated with formed cultural meanings, that is, the most suitable for expressing the full universality of technological encyclopedism. It remains to be clarified that an image alone cannot be sufficient, even in the form of a rational scheme, to carry out the cultural reform necessary for technological encyclopedism. In addition, this scheme should be accompanied by technical education, which requires not only putting the subject in an operational situation, but also meanings that are formulated through speech communication ^[8].

At the same time, to go through the social mechanism, which is speech communication, it means to take a workaround that hinders technological universality. Although the second technical phase of encyclopedism in the age of Enlightenment paved the way for a visual scheme more adequate to the technical reality achieved through the liberation of science from ethics, and it still has not reached its fullness. That is why the formalization of methods is not fully implemented, since technology corporations maintain secrecy with business language and production secrets. And that is why the "engravings" of the encyclopedia still contain literary references and non-functional ornaments. It follows that a real cultural reform is needed so that this universality is effective, comprehensive, and not illusory. This cultural reform requires a "new encyclopedia" based on information that is even more universal than the image. However, despite the introduction of the latest computer and Internet technologies into the new technosocial reality, which are rapidly developing and are in the constant process of formation, which are increasingly endowed with various forms of multi-species intelligence, this new encyclopedism is still waiting for its ways of universal expression. According to Simondon, such a delay in the development of universal symbolism in the middle of the 20th century was associated with the cultural primacy of speech communication over the spatial effects of technosocial reality, but which nowadays increasingly has the features of technological universality. Today, robotic systems (robots, chatbots, generative-adversarial neural networks, etc.) endowed with artificial intelligence totally intrude into the process of forming generally meaningful meanings among social subjects.

As for the theory of "information", it is true that in the 20th century it opened the way to a universal symbolism capable of providing synergy between man and machine, since it not only serves as the basis of this synergy, but also makes possible a "common language" that is more universal than speech communication. In this sense, the theory of "information" made it possible to discover coding, which provided the possibility of transformation between a person and a machine, namely, it discovered a connection that gave the machine some meaning and partially freed a person from his alienation, bypassing the prestige of speech communication. But the theory of "information" was only a preparation for universal encyclopedism, since it remains today a thinking based on abstract technicism, which adheres to a reductionist view of it and seeks to solve social problems through homeostasis. All this contradicts what Simondon says we should think about the conditions of a metastable society. It is in this sense that Simondon proposes "universal cybernetics" or "allagmatics", which is aimed at correcting the "information ontology" taking into account the tasks of the new encyclopedia, and in which information is regulatory, and culture is truly universal^{[4, p.119-120]}.

Simondon's second reflection on the relationship between speech communication and technology manifests itself in the form of a contradiction between the theory of "phases of culture" and the analogical method. This tension arises due to the lack of research on speech communication in the theory of "phases of culture" and its re-introduction into the analogical method, while these two approaches do not complement each other. That is why, if we consider the analysis of the various phases of man's relationship to the world proposed in the Simondonian theory of "phases of culture," then none of these phases is the subject of linguistic reflection. Indeed, at the magical stage, neither a spell to the forces of nature, nor a legend about exceptional events and beings, nor even toponyms specifying the uniqueness of notable places, are analyzed or even considered. After the first phase shift, when religion and technology confront each other, technology is not considered in its relation to speech communication, whereas previously technical terms, secret formulas and education were discussed – not to mention language as a technique: body technique, grammar technique, writing technique. Therefore, religion, even through theology and dogmas, as an interpretation of the divine word and as a norm of moral actions, is also not connected with speech communication. In addition, aesthetic thinking, the first neutral point in the chain of phases, also provides little to speech communication. At best, speech communication in aesthetics is remembered as something that supports the ability to think without being thinking ^{[2, p.180]}. And in the future, as something that supports the ability to comprehend aesthetic reality, which remains attached to the body in the form of "voice modulation" or "speech turning".

In this regard, philosophical thought, which is at a neutral point in the second stage of the transition between science and ethics, is not presented as a discursive thought, and the reform it should introduce into culture by developing a "reflective technology" that gives meaning to technical objects requires a new theory of knowledge. That is, it should be transformed into a new philosophy, without creating a new theory of "language". This is the peculiarity of Simondon's philosophy, that it has become reflexive, and therefore it can be formed only after exhausting the possibilities of conceptual cognition and cognition through ideas, that is, after technical awareness and religious awareness of the real ^{[2, p.237]}.

All this indicates not negligence on the part of Simondon, but a desire to explain the origin of technicality and the meaning of technology in a different way than using the prevailing literary culture and language as the preferred way of man's attitude to the world. As a result, Simondon's theory of "phases of culture" is completely consistent with the theory of "individuation." Along with this, Simondon offers a new theory of the stages of human progress, in which speech communication is positioned in relation to technology and religion^[9]. This inclusion of speech communication in the analysis is partly due to Simondon's critical response to R. Ruyer's article entitled "The Limits of human Progress"^[10].

In this article, Ruyer compares the progress of scientific technology with the evolutionary progress of language, which eventually self-restricts over a period of time. Simply put, Simondon believes this identification between linguistic progress and technological progress is reductive, as is what equates technological progress with human progress. However, Simondon does not deny that internal inhibition can exist within technical specification, and that it can cause self-limitation, taking the form of a sigmoid curve similar to the curve of language. However, in his opinion, there is only a gradual saturation of the system that man and the world form, that is, a system that is first a language system and then is involved in the development of technology, and the latter system, in turn, can be saturated to give way to another form of progress. In any case, if each phase can be matched according to this evolution by limiting saturation, then each of them is also repeated and overlapped. Therefore, if progress exists, it is only in accordance with the principle of absolute saturation, namely from a strict sequence of isolated concretisations (language, technology, religion), and not in connection with evolution, determined by the constant use of speech communication. However, despite this appeal, speech communication cannot be a paradigm for thinking about technical evolution. Therefore, Simondon directly criticizes the structuralist method^{[9, p.169]}.

In other words, the strengthening of the internal resonance of the system formed by man occurs based on its objective embodiments. That is, as this system transitions from a self–limited human–language cycle to a human-religion cycle and, eventually, to a human–technology cycle. That is why speech communication as a primitive phase and a preparatory means for other phases is not a true analogue of magical thinking in the form in which it was presented by phase theory, since it does not have the same nature and status. Neither technology nor religion, strictly speaking, are phases resulting from a shift in language, and within the limits of human progress there is no neutral point between technology and religion that could play the role of convergence. In this respect, the two theories are neither interchangeable nor completely complementary, they are even partially incompatible in their structure. In any case, the evolution inherent in speech communication is isolation, when, for example, it becomes the work of grammarians or formalist logicians who strive for the etymological correctness of names in late classical antiquity with the help of corporate and esoteric jargon without the possibility of constructive expansion. But for Simondon, this tendency to insularity is not the only reason for refusing to give real universality to speech communication, since grammar or formal logic do not reflect the individual, or at least reflect only a minimal part of him, and this is what, in his opinion, does not correspond to reality and cannot be expanded. Only a holistic individual is the driving force of concretization, and not an individual with a language that reveals itself to be the essence of narrow and pseudo-universal humanism^{[9, pp.272-273]}.

In this regard, the paradox formulated by Simondon is that universality increases not with formalization and abstraction, but due to gradual "decentralization". As a result, speech communication is less universal than religion, since it concerns a more primitive, less localized, more natural, more implied reality in a person. But religion also aspires to become theology, just as speech communication aspires to become grammar. On the other hand, technology is even more primitive than religion, since it directly satisfies biological needs, which allows it to act as a link between man and nature, but also between people, which is becoming apparent today thanks to the global Internet. In this understanding, technology is designed to effectively and completely replace language and religion, however, provided that it is a union of human metrology and energy, that is, that it establishes a real reciprocity between man and his objective incarnations. As a result, Simondon comes to the conclusion, as in the case of the phase theory he proposes, that only philosophical thought is common to the progress of speech communication, religion, and technology. Thus, philosophical reflection is a conscious form of internal resonance of thinking, namely, a set that is not only formed by an individual, but it is also an objective concretization. That is why philosophical thought ensures continuity between successive phases of progress, and only it can maintain concern for totality and ensure that the decentralization of the individual, parallel to the alienation from objective concretization, never ceases its formation ^{[9, p.278]}.

On what elements could the Simondonian theory of speech communication be built? This question should be asked as a preliminary conclusion to this study. It's not about ultimately denying the original aporia or doubling it down by trying to reverse criticism of speech communication and abstractly reduce internal tension, but rather about opening up several possible paths. These paths are united by a fundamental critique of logocentrism and anthropocentrism, which are the condition and horizon for any reflection on meaning, expression, and communication. However, in his works ^{[8, 11]}, Simondon proposed a progressive development of this theory, which is based mainly on the idea that speech communication is a kind of relationship between information and meaning. Moreover, such a relationship exists before any input of signs, and which, as such, must be transferred to the phases and levels of communication that structures the body's relationship with the environment. This is the bioethological relativization of language and this is also the decentralization of human language, which involves taking into account the totality of conditions and dimensions of speech communication for any search for meaning, since such a perceived message contains semantic units of various orders, as well as different and overlapping dimensions ^{[8, p.112]}.

Then it is important to confirm that communication is neither primitive nor even inherently verbal; as the theory of "individuation" shows, it exists before language and even before life, inside metastable systems capable of structuring amplification. As a result, in the most general sense, communication is the elimination of inconsistencies and incompatibilities within a metastable system at the physical, biological, psychosocial, and even technosocial levels. For the vital individual, before taking the form of a system of complex signs, communication is already "meaning" at the primary biological level and speech communication at the intermediate ethological level^[11]. This is why the body's relationship with the environment, as well as instinctive motives in perceiving signals from other beings, persist and guide complex human speech: encouraging action, synchronizing behavior, and acting as a criterion for recognizing, integrating, and excluding other beings.

In other words, in addition to the biological and ethological levels, the mental level not only provides for the storage and processing of information different from previous levels, but also provides for "intelligent" species, and in particular social species such as the human species, a tendency towards universality. That is, it allows us to formalize semantic units in symbolic systems capable of transcending people and cultures. It is thanks to this formalization that technosocial communication with technical objects is possible. Simply put, without establishing a common code that cuts off any connection with the biological and ethological levels of relations, a social subject is able to interact with the environment. Consequently, multidimensional, multiphase, relational and irreducible to speech communication, such a general theory of communication would be a fundamental condition for a universal culture capable of including everything that a person is, everything that he produces, as well as all living things in which he is understood. This leads to the most important conclusion of our research. If we finally had to reduce this state of affairs to one statement, we could say that Simondon is not a thinker of language, but a thinker of the conditions for the emergence of speech communication at all stages and levels of an individual's attitude to the environment in the course of his evolution. Then the meaning of speech communication is no longer the meaning of truth as the adequacy of thought and the world, not a logocentric and anthropocentric expression of abstract and partial humanism, but the solution of the vital problem of a social subject through universal and technosocial communication.