Montévil, Maël. n.d. “Individuation et Désindividuation.” In Atlas Des Sciences de La Culture, edited by Lia Kurts-Wöste, Jean Lassègue, Régis Missire, Vincent Michaud-Laine, and Muriel van Vliet. Classiques Garnier
La notion d’individu a une grande importance en sciences sociales, notamment à travers la doctrine de l’individualisme méthodologique qui se propose de comprendre les phénomènes sociaux sur la seule base des individus et de leurs interactions, un point de vue atomiste donc. Cette notion renvoie à deux idées liées mais distinctes. Tout d’abord, les individus forment des unités à peu près insécables, comme le terme l’indique. De plus, les individus sont distincts les uns des autres, ainsi que séparables, au moins analytiquement, de leurs contextes. L’individuation renvoie alors à deux questions. Tout d’abord, sur quelles bases identifier les différents individus et les distinguer de leurs contextes ? L’individuation est alors la question théorique et épistémologique de l’identification des différents individus. Deuxièmement, notamment à la suite de Simondon, la notion d’individuation peut être une manière de dépasser l’atomisme inhérent au concept d’individu, en posant l’individuation comme première par rapport aux individus. Alors, l’individuation est le processus qui devient le centre de l’intérêt théorique.
]]>Montévil, Maël. 2026. “Qu’appelle-t-on Produire ?” In Pour Une Nouvelle Écologie de l’industrie: Une Bifurcation Vers l’écotechnologie et de Nouvelles Localités Industrielles, edited by Olivier Landau & Franck Cormerais Vincent Puig. Vol. 18. Les Entretiens Du Nouveau Monde Industriel (ENMI). Caen, France: C&F Éditions
Chollat-Namy, Marie, and Maël Montévil. 2025. “What Drives the Brain? Organizational Changes, FEP and Anti-Entropy.” Organisms. Journal of Biological Sciences 8 (1–2): 63–84. https://doi.org/10.13133/2532-5876/19211
The free-energy principle (FEP) provides a computational, physical and teleological theory for understanding biological organization as cognitive agents minimizing their entropy in relation to their environment. Is minimizing entropy the first principle driving all dynamics of cognition? Is it enough to account for organizational changes in an open-ended way?After a general presentation of the literature on the FEP, we turn to the paradoxical case of the brain under the influence of psychedelics, where the FEP is challenged by an increased cerebral entropy, which induces organizational changes of cognition. Building on this paradox, we identify some limits of the FEP, notably its application of concepts of information, optimization, and predefined phase spaces to biology that do not fit our criteria for a theory of biological organization.We also identify two aspects of entropy in physics and in the FEP: the local entropic trend that implies variations, and the global entropic trend that leads to homogenization and stability. Extending these concepts outside of their physico-mathematical context, we contribute to an organicist theoretical alternative in which living systems find a balance between these two trends. Conceptually, a biological system’s disorganization enables its “unprestatable”unprestatable reorganization and thus its open-ended evolution.
]]>Montévil, Maël, Cheryl Schaeberle, Julie Boberg, Sofie Christiansen, and Ana M. Soto. 2025. “Quantitative Analysis of Endocrine Disruption by Ketoconazole and Diethylstilbestrol in Rat Mammary Gland Development.” Reproductive Toxicology 135 (August): 108929. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.reprotox.2025.108929
Endocrine disruptors alter mammary gland development, impair the ability to nourish offspring, and increase the cancer risk in animal models. Epidemiological studies reveal trends towards early mammary development, nursing problems, and breast cancer in younger women. Morphological changes in mouse postnatal mammary gland development are considered sensitive markers of endocrine disruption. While the mouse mammary gland is easily amenable to morphometric measurements from the fetal stage to full maturity, the rat mammary gland grows more conspicuously into the third dimension, hindering conventional morphometric analysis. However, since rats are more commonly used in international toxicological reproductive studies, it would be beneficial to include mammary gland whole-mount analysis in these studies. Using our quantitative software to perform computer-driven analysis of the rat mammary epithelium we examined the effects of gestational and postnatal exposure to ketoconazole, an antifungal medication that affects steroidogenesis, and to the estrogen diethylstilbestrol in the mammary glands of 6- and 22-day-old females. Both treatments produced effects at both ages; the epithelium was smaller and less complex in exposed animals compared to controls. Global analysis with the permutation test showed that morphological evaluation of the PND22 mammary gland is sensitive to endocrine disruption and possibly non-monotonic. In addition to revealing that ketoconazole altered the mammary gland structure, these results suggest that for future toxicology studies, day 22 (at weaning) is more suitable than day 6 because it showed significant measurements and trends. If the collection of mammary glands is added to existing international test methods, PND22 could be a relevant time point.
]]>Montévil, Maël. 2025. “How Does Randomness Shape the Living?” In Figures of Chance II Chance: In Theory and Practice, edited by Anne Duprat and Alison James, 477–531. London / New York: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003329060-4
Physics has several concepts of randomness that build on the idea that the possibilities are pre-given. By contrast, an increasing number of theoretical biologists attempt to introduce new possibilities, that is to say, changes of possibility space – an idea already discussed by Bergson and that was not genuinely pursued scientifically until recently (except, in a sense, in systematics, i.e, the method to classify living beings). <br> Then, randomness operates at the level of possibilities themselves and is the basis of the historicity of biological objects. We emphasize that this concept of randomness is not only relevant when aiming to predict the future. Instead, it shapes biological organizations and ecosystems. As an illustration, we argue that a critical issue of the Anthropocene is the disruption of the biological organizations that natural history has shaped, leading to a collapse of biological possibilities.
]]>Bekhta, Natalya, Divya Dwivedi, Shaj Mohan, Maël Montévil, and Ivana Perica. 2025. “For One Another, without Conditions: On Palestine and Ukraine.” Philosophy World Democracy, June. https://www.philosophy-world-democracy.org/articles-1/for-one-another-without-conditions-on-palestine-and-ukraine
Do the Palestinian people and the Ukrainian people understand one another? Do they support one another? What are the similarities and the distinctions between these two conditions of oppression? The question of Ukraine and Palestine are one for this reason; no condition, no argument, no geo-poli-technique can justify what is taking place in either regions. Further, none of the so-called solutions to Ukraine—divide it between Russia, Europe and America—is acceptable because the very existence of freedom, which is what people are, what each individual is, is going to be thus divided and partitioned, and hence annihilated.
]]>Montévil, Maël. 2025. “Comment Le Hasard Façonne Le Vivant ?” In Le Hasard. Littérature, Arts, Sciences, Philosophie, edited by Anne Duprat, Fiona McIntosh‑Varjabédian, Anne‑Gaëlle Weber, and Alison James, 505–16. Paris, France: CNRS Éditions. https://www.cnrseditions.fr/catalogue/philosophie-et-histoire-des-idees/le-hasard/
La physique possède plusieurs concepts de hasard qui reposent néanmoins tous sur l’idée que les possibilités sont données d’avance. En revanche, un nombre croissant de biologistes théoriciens cherchent à introduire la notion de nouvelles possibilités, c’est-à-dire des modifications de l’espace des possibles - une idée déjà discutée par Bergson et qui n’a pas été véritablement poursuivie scientifiquement jusqu’à récemment (sauf, en un sens, dans la systématique, c’est-à-dire la méthode de classification des êtres vivants). <br> Alors, le hasard opère au niveau des possibilités elles-mêmes et est à la base de l’historicité des objets biologiques. Nous soulignons que ce concept de hasard n’est pas seulement pertinent lorsqu’on cherche à prédire l’avenir. Au contraire, il façonne les organisations biologiques et les écosystèmes. À titre d’illustration, nous soutenons qu’une question cruciale de l’Anthropocène est la disruption des organisations biologiques que l’histoire naturelle a structurées, conduisant à un effondrement des possibilités biologiques.
]]>Montévil, Maël. 2025. “Disruption of Biological Processes in the Anthropocene: The Case of Phenological Mismatch.” Acta Biotheoretica 73 (2): 5. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10441-025-09496-2
Biologists are increasingly documenting anthropogenic disruptions, both at the organism and ecosystem levels, indicating that these disruptions are a fundamental, qualitative component of the Anthropocene. Nonetheless, the notion of disruption has yet to be theorized. Informally, disruptions are direct or indirect consequences of specific causes that impair the contribution of parts of living systems to their ability to last over time. To progress in this theorization, we work here on a particular case. Even relatively minor temperature changes can significantly impact plant-pollinator synchrony, disrupting mutualistic interaction networks. Understanding this phenomenon requires a specific rationale since models describing it use both historical and systemic reasoning. Specifically, history justifies that the ecosystem initially exists in a very narrow part of the possibility space where all its populations are viable, and the disruption leads to a more generic configuration where some populations are not viable. Building on this rationale, we develop a mathematical schema inspired by Boltzmann’s entropy, apply it to this situation, and provide a technical definition of disruption.
]]>Stiegler, Bernard, Maël Montevil, Victor Chaix, and Marie Chollat-Namy. 2025. “Towards a New Industrial Revolution? Entropy and Its Challenges.” Edited by Joel White. Technophany, A Journal for Philosophy and Technology 2 (2): 1–28. https://doi.org/10.54195/technophany.19608
This is a transcribed and translated a podcast of the interview concerning the 1st chapter of the book Biurquer: Il n’y a pas d’alternative (Bifurcate: There Is No Alternative) on the scientific, technological and political stakes of the notion of entropy. The discussion took place between Bernard Stiegler, Maël Montévil, Marie Chollat-Namy and Victor Chaix, on the 1st of July 2020.
]]>Montévil, Maël. 2024. “Le Vivant et Le Jeu.” In Jeux, Gestes & Savoirs: Jouer, Une Puissance d’émancipation Dans Un Monde de Calcul, edited by Mathieu Triclot, Vincent Puig, and Franck Cormerais, 17:286. Les Entretiens Du Nouveau Monde Industriel (ENMI). Caen, France: C&F Éditions. https://cfeditions.com/jeux-gestes-savoirs/
La dix-septième édition des Entretiens du Nouveau Monde Industriel apporte un éclairage théorique, historique et épistémologique sur le pouvoir du jeu. Cet ouvrage mobilise les apports théoriques des sciences du vivant, de la psychologie, de l’économie, de la philosophie ou des sciences du jeu, aussi bien que des comptes-rendus d’expérimentations de terrain.
]]>Montévil, Maël. 2024. “Disruptions Du Développement Humain.” In L’humain Qui Vient, edited by Raphael Zagury-Orly and Alain Fleischer
Les biologistes décrivent actuellement une multitude de disruptions ayant lieu à tous les niveaux d’organisation du vivant, humains et non-humains. Ces disruptions proviennent principalement des technologies, qu’il s’agisse de la machine thermique issue de la première révolution industrielle, et du changement climatique subséquent, de la chimie avec notamment les perturbateurs endocriniens qui en sont issus, ou du numérique avec l’immixtion des écrans dans la relation parents-jeunes enfants (dans le cas des humains). Les infidélités du milieu ne sont pas étrangères au vivant comme le soulignait Canguilhem, mais la spécificité de ces disruption est leur rythme qui excède les capacité normative du vivant, humain et non-humain, conduisant à une contrepartie biologique de ce que Stiegler appelait la disruption comme régime actuel des sociétés humaines. Nous insisterons sur les conséquences de ces disruptions concernant le développement humain, biologique et psychique, et nous indiquerons des réponses possibles face à ces disruptions.
]]>Montévil, Maël. 2024. “Normativité et Disruption Du Vivant Dans l’anthropocène.” In Georges Canguilhem, 80 Ans Après Le Normal et Le Pathologique, edited by Pierre-Frédéric Daled, Mathias Girel, and Nathalie Queyroux. Les Rencontres de Normale Sup’. Paris: Rue d’Ulm. https://presses.ens.psl.eu/georges-canguilhem.html
Quatre-vingts ans après, Le Normal et le Pathologique est une référence majeure en philosophie mais qu’en est-il en biologie et en médecine ? Plus précisément, quelle est aujourd’hui la pertinence des concepts de Canguilhem dans la compréhension du vivant et de l’action concernant le vivant ?
]]>Montévil, Maël. 2024. “Bernard Stiegler: Friendship and Fellowship.” In On Bernard Stiegler - Philosopher of Friendship, edited by Shaj Mohan and Jean-Luc Nancy, 1st ed. London: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc. https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/on-bernard-stiegler-9781350329034/
What I love, and those whom I love, you, that is to say us in so far as we are capable of forming a we, all this I love, and I love them, and I love you infinitely (Bernard Steigler April 1952- August 2020). <br> When Bernard Stiegler writes ’I love you’ in the quote above, he openly provokes us to question or experience the meaning or contact of these words. He also invites us to question the relationship between a thinker’s life and their thought. For Stiegler, they were inextricable. His life was one that focused on friendship but not friendships at a purely social level but ones that produced philosophy, politics, and existential truths. <br> Bringing together scholars who knew Stiegler, including Shaj Mohan, Achille Mbembe, Divya Dwivedi, Peter Szendy, and Emily Apter, this volume provides an original - and personal - insight into his life and philosophy. Each piece gives a sense of the wide range of Stiegler’s work and how it affected the praxis of the philosopher in different parts of the world.
]]>Dwivedi, Divya, Shaj Mohan, and Maël Montévil. 2024. Indian Philosophy, Indian Revolution: On Caste and Politics. Edited by Shaj Mohan. 1st ed. La Vergne: Hurst Publishers. https://www.hurstpublishers.com/book/indian-philosophy-indian-revolution/
In their brave and challenging book, grounded in political science and the Continental philosophical tradition, Divya Dwivedi and Shaj Mohan engage with the resurgence of upper-caste supremacism in India and its justification via the legacy of “the Aryan doctrine” and Hindu nationalism. Their essays were written from 2016 to 2023, when India’s democratic institutions were subverted and caste-based oppression overflowed into public space―killing and menacing the lower castes of all religions, minorities, women, students and the media. <br> This book chronicles the ascending oppression of democracy in India, a veritable biography of authoritarianism. Dwivedi and Mohan reject simplistic accounts of India’s politics as the opposition between “Hindu majoritarian nationalism” and “the religious minorities”, or between “Hindu fundamentalism” and “religious pluralism”. They propose instead a genuinely transformative account of Indian politics, grounded in political philosophy and in the lower- caste majority position <br> What does revolution mean where the constitutional promise of equality is betrayed daily by the millennia- old inequality of caste? What does politics mean where religion serves as the justification for descent- based enslavement and indignity? Revolution has only one sense in India, the annihilation of caste; and “citizen” has only one sense, the people of the state shedding caste and racism.
]]>Montévil, Maël. 2024. “Plaine Commune, Contributive Learning Territory.” In Memories for the Future: Thinking with Bernard Stiegler, edited by Bart Buseyne, Georgios Tsagdis, and Paul Willemarck. London: Bloomsbury Academic. https://doi.org/10.5040/9781350410473
The program Plaine Commune, contributive learning territory, started in late 2016. It emerged from the theoretical work of Bernard Stiegler and the Ars Industrialis group. The contributive economy is a strategy to disrupt technological disruption by developing knowledge in all its forms. This program has led to several concrete working groups in Plaine Commune, while others are still developing. Mainly, work is taking place on the economy, digital urbanism, and young children’s development in the context of the overuse of digital media. Here, we focus on the group on digital media and young children’s development and how academics and inhabitant works integrate.
]]>Montévil, Maël. 2024. “Mathematical Modeling in the Study of Organisms and Their Parts.” In Systems Biology, edited by Mariano Bizzarri, 2nd ed. 2024., 105–19. Methods in Molecular Biology 2745. New York, NY: Springer US. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-0716-3577-3_7
Mathematical modeling is a very powerful tool to understand natural phenomena. Such a tool carries its own assumptions and should always be used critically. In this chapter we highlight the key ingredients and steps of modeling and focus on their biological interpretation. Particularly, we discuss the role of theoretical principles in writing models. We also highlight the meaning and interpretation of equations. The main aim of this chapter is to facilitate the interaction between biologists and mathematical modelers. We focus on the case of cell proliferation and motility in the context of multicellular organisms.
]]>Montévil, Maël. 2023. “Entropies and the Anthropocene Crisis.” AI & SOCIETY 38 (6): 2451–71. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-021-01221-0
The Anthropocene crisis is frequently described as the rarefaction of resources or resources per capita. However, both energy and minerals correspond to fundamentally conserved quantities from the perspective of physics. A specific concept is required to understand the rarefaction of available resources. This concept, entropy, pertains to energy and matter configurations and not just to their sheer amount. However, the physics concept of entropy is insufficient to understand biological and social organizations. Biological phenomena display both historicity and systemic properties. A biological organization, the ability of a specific living being to last over time, results from history, expresses itself by systemic properties, and may require generating novelties The concept of anti-entropy stems from the combination of these features. We propose that Anthropocene changes disrupt biological organizations by randomizing them, that is, decreasing anti-entropy. Moreover, second-order disruptions correspond to the decline of the ability to produce functional novelties, that is, to produce anti-entropy.
]]>Montévil, Maël. 2023. “Remarques Sur Les Corps.” In Jean-Luc Nancy : Anastasis de La Pensée, edited by Divya Dwivedi, Jérôme Lèbre, Maël Montévil, and François Warin. Hermann. https://www.editions-hermann.fr/livre/jean-luc-nancy-anastasis-de-la-pensee-divya-dwivedi
Dans ce texte, je propose trois ouvertures à partir des réflexions de Jean-Luc Nancy concernant le corps, notamment dans Corpus et L’Intrus.
]]>Dwivedi, Divya, Jérôme Lèbre, Maël Montévil, and François Warin. 2023. Jean-Luc Nancy : Anastasis de La Pensée. Hermann. https://www.editions-hermann.fr/livre/jean-luc-nancy-anastasis-de-la-pensee-divya-dwivedi
L’œuvre singulière plurielle de Jean-Luc Nancy a croisé presque toutes les préoccupations majeures de la philosophie – temps, être, espace, négativité, forme, image, poésie –, et a exercé une influence considérable sur de nombreux intellectuels et chercheurs du monde entier. Dans cet ouvrage, qui rassemble des articles rédigés par des philosophes et spécialistes reconnus, français et étrangers (Europe, Inde, États-Unis, Japon, Brésil, Chili, Égypte), les auteurs rendent hommage à Nancy pour son amitié et sa pensée. <br> Considérant qu’une histoire particulière de la philosophie a pris fin, Nancy a montré que la philosophie peut se lever à nouveau, touchant à son éternité. Il a invité à la recommencer de manière multiple, métaphysique, post- phénoménologique, politique, littéraire et esthétique. Se souvenir de sa pensée, c’est donc recommencer ici d’une manière plurielle avec lui ; c’est relancer dans son sillage la réflexion sur la démocratie et l’art, en réassumant une approche résolument transversale, avec ce que Nancy appelait anastasis – ce qui « ne provient pas de soi » mais « vient de l’autre, ou relève de l’autre en lui ».
]]>Montévil, Maël, and Ana M. Soto. 2023. “Modeling Organogenesis from Biological First Principles.” In Organization in Biology, edited by Matteo Mossio, 263–83. History, Philosophy and Theory of the Life Sciences 33. Cham: Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-38968-9_12
Unlike inert objects, organisms and their cells have the ability to initiate activity by themselves, and thus change their properties or states even in the absence of an external cause. This crucial difference led us to search for principles suitable for the study organisms. We propose that cells follow the default state of proliferation with variation and motility, a principle of biological inertia. This means that in the presence of sufficient nutrients, cells will express their default state. We also propose a principle of variation that addresses two central features of organisms, variation and historicity. To address interdependence between parts, we use a third principle, the principle of organization: more specifically, the notion of the closure of constraints. Within this theoretical framework, constraints are specific theoretical entities defined by their relative stability with respect to the processes they constrain. Constraints are mutually dependent in an organized system and act on the default state. <br>Here we discuss the application and articulation of these principles for mathematical modeling of morphogenesis in a specific case, that of mammary ductal morphogenesis, with an emphasis on the default state. Our model has both a biological component, the cells, and a physical component, the matrix that contains collagen fibers. Cells are agents that move and proliferate unless constrained; they exert mechanical forces that i) act on collagen fibers and ii) on other cells. As fibers are organized, they constrain the cells’ ability to move and to proliferate. This model exhibits a circularity that can be interpreted in terms of the closure of constraints. Implementing our mathematical model shows that constraints to the default state are sufficient to explain the formation of mammary epithelial structures. Finally, the success of this modeling effort suggests a step-wise approach whereby additional constraints imposed by the tissue and the organism can be examined in silico and rigorously tested by in vitro and in vivo experiments, in accordance with the organicist perspective we embrace.
]]>Montévil, Maël. 2023. “Normativité et Infidélités Du Milieu : Actualités Biologiques de Canguilhem.” In La Philosophie et Ses Dehors. Centre Lauragais d’Études Scientifiques
Montévil, M. 2022. “Penser Au-Delà de l’identité : Philosophie et Sciences.” Philosophy World Democracy, June. https://www.philosophy-world-democracy.org/other-beginning/penser-au-dela-de-lidentite-philosophie-et-sciences
Ce texte est le séminaire public donné le 31 mai à l’École Normale Supérieure de Paris. Les sciences se sont écartées de la philosophie. Si la philosophie est entrée en stasis et se porte vers un nécessaire Autre Commencement de la Philosophie, alors les sciences aussi sont à un autre commencement. L’Anastasis des sciences exige une enquête sur la persistance des concepts théologiques en leur sein et en même temps la découverte de nouveaux principes par lesquels les sciences peuvent recommencer de telle manière qu’elles soient libérées des fardeaux métaphysiques. Les homologies d’un autre commencement des sciences sont déjà visibles dans les crises conceptuelles, y compris dans les concepts de singularité en physique et d’immunité en biologie. Pour commencer à nouveau, une épistémologie bâtarde est proposée comme nouveau rapport entre les sciences et la famille bâtarde de la déconstruction.
]]>Montévil, Maël. 2022. “Conceptual and Theoretical Specifications for Accuracy in Medicine.” In Personalized Medicine in the Making: Philosophical Perspectives from Biology to Healthcare, edited by Marta Bertolaso, 47–62. Human Perspectives in Health Sciences and Technology Series, v. 3. Cham: Springer International Publishing AG. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-74804-3_3
Technological developments in genomics and other -omics originated the idea that precise measurements would lead to better therapeutic strategies. However, precision does not entail accuracy. Scientific accuracy requires a theoretical framework to understand the meaning of measurements, the nature of causal relationships, and potential intrinsic limitations of knowledge. For example, a precise measurement of initial positions in classical mechanics is useless without initial velocities; it is not an accurate measurement of the initial condition. Conceptual and theoretical accuracy is required for precision to lead to the progress of knowledge and rationality in action. In the search for accuracy in medicine, we first outline our results on a theory of organisms. Biology is distinct from physics and requires a specific epistemology. In particular, we develop the meaning of biological measurements and emphasize that variability and historicity are fundamental notions. However, medicine is not just biology; we articulate the historicity of biological norms that stems from evolution and the idea that patients and groups of patients generate new norms to overcome pathological situations. Patients then play an active role, in line with the philosophy of Georges Canguilhem. We argue that taking this dimension of medicine into account is critical for theoretical accuracy.
]]>Stiegler, Bernard, Internation Collective, and Daniel Ross. 2021. Bifurcate: There Is No Alternative. Edited by null null. CCC2 Irreversibility. London: Open Humanities Press. http://www.openhumanitiespress.org/books/titles/bifurcate/
Bifurcating means: reconstituting a political economy that reconnects local knowledge and practices with macroeconomic circulation and rethinks territoriality at its different scales of locality; developing an economy of contribution on the basis of a contributory income no longer tied to employment and once again valuing work as a knowledge activity; overhauling law, and government and corporate accounting, via economic and social experiments, including in laboratory territories, and in relation to cooperative, local market economies formed into networks and linked to international trade; revaluing research from a long-term perspective, independent of the short-term interests of political and economic powers; reorienting digital technology in the service of territories and territorial cooperation. <br> The collective work that produced this book is based on the claim that today’s destructive development model is reaching its ultimate limits, and that its toxicity, which is increasingly massive, manifest and multidimensional (medical, environmental, mental, epistemological, economic – accumulating pockets of insolvency, which become veritable oceans), is generated above all by the fact that the current industrial economy is based in every sector on an obsolete physical model – a mechanism that ignores the constraints of locality in biology and the entropic tendency in reticulated computational information. In these gravely perilous times, we must bifurcate: there is no alternative.
]]>Alombert, Anne, Victor Chaix, Maël Montévil, and Vincent Puig. 2021. Prendre Soin de l’informatique et Des Générations. Fip. https://www.fypeditions.com/prendre-soin-de-linformatique-et-des-generations-hommage-a-bernard-stiegler/
Lorsque les technologies numériques sont mises au service de l’économie des données, leur design et leur fonctionnement exploitent les attentions, afin d’orienter, voire de contrôler, les comportements des utilisateurs. Réduits à un ensemble de processus cognitifs et de réactions réflexes, ils se voient dépossédés de leurs savoirs, alors même que, dans nos sociétés en situation de crise sanitaire, sociale, politique et écologique, le partage et la transmission des savoir-faire, des savoir-vivre et des savoir-penser sont plus que jamais nécessaires. <br> Comment concevoir et réaliser des plateformes numériques au service des relations sociales et intergénérationnelles, aujourd’hui menacées par les applications addictives et l’économie des données ? Comment intégrer dans les dispositifs computationnels des fonctions délibératives et interprétatives ? Comment transformer les technologies numériques en supports de mémoire et de savoirs ? Comment mettre les algorithmes au service de l’intelligence collective ? En un mot, comment prendre soin de l’informatique pour les générations actuelles et à venir ? Ce livre interroge la manière dont les supports techniques configurent nos capacités psychiques et nos relations collectives, et propose des solutions pour concevoir de nouveaux dispositifs et de nouvelles pratiques, afin de mettre les technologies numériques au service de la production et de la transmission de savoirs, ainsi que des liens entre les générations.
]]>Montévil, Maël. 2021. “Il Faut Qu’il y Ait En Informatique Théorique Un Symbole Tel Qu’il Empêche de Calculer.” In Prendre Soin de l’informatique et Des Générations, edited by Anne Alombert, Victor Chaix, Maël Montévil, and Vincent Puig. Fip. https://fypeditions.com/prendre-soin-de-l-informatique-et-des-generations/
Pour progresser sur la question du rapport entre l’informatique et le calculable, je propose de réinterpréter l’objet de l’informatique théorique puis de faire un détour par la biologie théorique où la question d’un symbole qui empêche de calculer se pose. Enfin, je reviens vers l’informatique en transférant de manière critique certains concepts issus de mes travaux en biologie théorique.
]]>Montevil, M. 2021. “Understanding Living Beings by Analogy with Computers or Understanding Computers as an Emanation of the Living.” Trópos V. 13 N. 2 (2, 2020): etica. https://doi.org/10.13135/2036-542X/8104
The analogy between living beings and computers was introduced with circumspection by Schrödinger and has been widely propagated since, rarely with a precise technical meaning. Critics of this perspective are numerous. We emphasize that this perspective is mobilized to justify what may be called a regressive reductionism by comparison with physics or the Cartesian method. <br> Other views on the living are possible, and we focus on an epistemological and theoretical framework where historicity is central, and the regularities susceptible to mathematization are constraints whose existence is fundamentally precarious and historically contingent. <br> We then propose to reinterpret the computer, no longer as a Turing machine but as constituted by constraints. This move allows us to understand that computation in the sense of Church-Turing is only a part of the theoretical determination of what actually happens in a computer when considering them in their larger theoretical context where historicity is also central.
]]>Montevil, M. 2021. “Computational Empiricism : The Reigning Épistémè of the Sciences.” Philosophy World Democracy, July. https://www.philosophy-world-democracy.org/computational-empiricism
What do mainstream scientists acknowledge as original scientific contributions? In other words, what is the current épistémè in natural sciences? This essay attempts to characterize this épistémè as computational empiricism. Scientific works are primarily empirical, generating data and computational, to analyze them and reproduce them with models. This épistémè values primarily the investigation of specific phenomena and thus leads to the fragmentation of sciences. It also promotes attention-catching results showing limits of earlier theories. However, it consumes these theories since it does not renew them, leading more and more fields to be in a state of theory disruption.
]]>Montevil, M. 2021. “Vaccines, Germs, and Knowledge.” Philosophy World Democracy, April. https://www.philosophy-world-democracy.org/vaccines-germs-and-knowledge
Vaccines for COVID-19 have led to questions, debates, and polemics on both their safety and the political and geopolitical dimension of their use. We propose to take a step back on both the history of this practice and how current theories in immunology understand it. Both can contribute to providing a rational assessment of COVID-19 vaccines. This assessment cannot consider vaccine as an isolated procedure, and we discuss its intergradation with the broader question of knowledge and politics in the COVID-19 pandemic.
]]>Montévil, Maël. 2021. “Sciences et Entropocène: Autour de Qu’appelle-t-on Panser ? De Bernard Stiegler.” EcoRev’ N° 50 (1): 109–25. https://doi.org/10.3917/ecorev.050.0109
En examinant le second tome de Qu’appelle-t-on panser (1), le théoricien de la biologie et épistémologue Maël Montévil, qui a collaboré avec Bernard Stiegler à la fois sur des questions théoriques et sur des expérimentations territoriales, s’arrête sur le rôle des sciences dans l’Anthropocène pour souligner leur difficulté à penser cette ère et, ce faisant, à prendre soin des vivants, humains et non-humains, des techniques et des sciences elles-mêmes. Stiegler soulignait l’importance de la question de l’entropie, conduisant au concept d’entropocène. L’auteur introduit et illustre ce concept pour montrer sa pertinence d’un point de vue physique, biologique et social. Ce faisant, il insiste sur la parenté mais aussi sur les différences entre ces phénomènes. Dans le cas des humains, les savoirs jouent un rôle central pour lutter contre l’entropie, et les sciences pourraient retrouver leur compte en contribuant au développement – urgent – de savoirs territoriaux.
]]>Montévil, Maël. 2021. “Le Sens Des Formes En Biologie.” In Biomorphisme. Approches Sensibles et Conceptuelles Des Formes Du Vivant, edited by David Romand, Julien Bernard, Sylvie Pic, and Jean Arnaud. NAIMA. https://www.naimaunlimited.com/biblio/biomorphisme-approches-sensibles-et-conceptuelles-des-formes-du-vivant/
Dans l’interface entre biologie et mathématiques, les formes et les processus de morphogenèse sont souvent étudiées pour eux-mêmes. Nous pensons que cette manière de procéder est insuffisante pour capturer le sens biologique de ces formes. La biologie comporte des spécificités qui se manifestent tant sur le plan philosophique que sur celui des principes théoriques : en particulier, tout processus biologique tel qu’un processus de morphogenèse ou une régulation physiologique (i) s’inscrit dans l’évolution et dans une histoire naturelle et (ii) s’intègre dans un organisme dont il dépend et auquel il participe. Nous aborderons alors le sens des formes biologiques à l’aune de ces principes, tant au niveau de la théorie qu’au niveau de la compréhension de l’accès expérimental aux objets biologiques.
]]>Montévil, Maël. 2021. “Bernard Stiegler (1952-2020).” LINKS Series. http://links-series.com/n-5-6-marcel-proust/
Montévil, Maël. 2021. “Postface de La Révolution Contributive, 2022, Pierre Giorgini.” In La Révolution Contributive, edited by Pierre Giorgini. London: ISTE Editions Ltd. https://www.istegroup.com/fr/produit/la-revolution-contributive/
La révolution contributive résulte du passage rapide à une conception dominante des systèmes (techniques, sociaux, organisationnels, culturels, etc.) où chacun des composants des systèmes co-élabore la performance du tout, en dehors de tout pilotage et contrôle centralisé et extérieur au système. Elle réinvente fondamentalement la relation sujet-objet. <br> La révolution contributive en cours est globale et profonde. Elle apparaît comme une solution possible à la crise économique, écologique et politique qui frappe les sociétés contemporaines, elle concerne tout le champ épistémologique, des sciences jusqu’aux organisations sociales (épistémè).
]]>Montévil, Maël. 2020. “Code for: Disruption of Biological Processes in the Anthropocene: The Case of Phenological Mismatch.” Code, Github/Zenoto; Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4290494
CRAN R code to analyze disruption of plant-pollinator networks for the article: Disruption of biological processes in the Anthropocene: the case of phenological mismatch
]]>Longo, Giuseppe, and Maël Montévil. 2020. “From Physics to Biology by Extending Criticality and Symmetry Breakings: An Update.” Acta Europeana Systemica 9 (1): 77–92. https://doi.org/10.14428/aes.v9i1.56043
Symmetries play a major role in physics, in particular since the work by E. Noether and H. Weyl in the first half of last century. Herein, we briefly review their role by recalling how symmetry changes allow to conceptually move from classical to relativistic and quantum physics. We then introduce our ongoing theoretical analysis in biology and show that symmetries play a radically different role in this discipline, when compared to those in current physics. By this comparison, we stress that symmetries must be understood in relation to conservation and stability properties, as represented in the theories. We posit that the dynamics of biological organisms, in their various levels of organization, are not “just” processes, but permanent (extended, in our terminology) critical transitions and, thus, symmetry changes. Within the limits of a relative structural stability (or interval of viability), qualitative variability is at the core of these transitions.
]]>Montévil, Maël. 2020. “Historicity at the Heart of Biology.” Theory in Biosciences 141 (2): 165–73. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12064-020-00320-8
Most mathematical modeling in biology relies either implicitly or explicitly on the epistemology of physics. The underlying conception is that the historicity of biological objects would not matter to understand a situation here and now, or, at least, historicity would not impact the method of modeling. We analyze that it is not the case with concrete examples. Historicity forces a conceptual reconfiguration where equations no longer play a central role. We argue that all observations depend on objects defined by their historical origin instead of their relations as in physics. Therefore, we propose that biological variations and historicity come first, and regularities are constraints with limited validity in biology. Their proper theoretical and empirical use requires specific rationales.
]]>Montévil, Maël, and Matteo Mossio. 2020. “The Identity of Organisms in Scientific Practice: Integrating Historical and Relational Conceptions.” Frontiers in Physiology 11 (June): 611. https://doi.org/10.3389/fphys.2020.00611
We address the identity of biological organisms at play in experimental and modeling practices. We first examine the central tenets of two general conceptions, and we assess their respective strengths and weaknesses. The historical conception, on the one hand, characterizes organisms’ identity by looking at their past, and specifically at their genealogical connection with a common ancestor. The relational conception, on the other hand, interprets organisms’ identity by referring to a set of distinctive relations between their parts, and between the organism and its environment. While the historical and relational conceptions are understood as opposed and conflicting, we submit that they are also fundamentally complementary. Accordingly, we put forward a hybrid conception, in which historical and relational (and more specifically, organizational) aspects of organisms’ identity sustain and justify each other. Moreover, we argue that organisms’ identity is not only hybrid but also bounded, insofar as the compliance with specific identity criteria tends to vanish as time passes, especially across generations. We spell out the core conceptual framework of this conception, and we outline an original formal representation. We contend that the hybrid and bounded conception of organisms’ identity suits the epistemological needs of biological practices, particularly with regards to the generalization and reproducibility of experimental results, and the integration of mathematical models with experiments.
]]>Montévil, Maël, Bernard Stiegler, Giuseppe Longo, Ana M. Soto, and Carlos Sonnenschein. 2020. “Anthropocène, Exosomatisation et Néguentropie.” In Bifurquer. Il n’y a Pas d’alternative, 57–80. Les liens qui libèrent. http://www.editionslesliensquiliberent.fr/livre-Bifurquer-609-1-1-0-1.html
L’économie industrielle a pris forme entre la fin du XVIIIe siècle et le XIXe siècle – d’abord en Europe occidentale puis en Amérique du Nord. Outre les productions techniques, elle aura conduit à des productions technologiques – mobilisant des sciences pour produire des biens industriels – : comme Marx l’aura montré en 1857, le capitalisme fait du savoir et de sa valorisation économique son élément premier. <br> La physique de Newton et la métaphysique qui l’accompagne sont à l’origine du cadre épistémique (au sens de Michel Foucault) et épistémologique (au sens de Gaston Bachelard) de cette grande transformation – qui est la condition de ce que Karl Polanyi appellera lui-même « la grande transformation ». Dans cette transformation, l’otium (le temps de loisirs productifs) se soumet au negotium (les affaires du monde). Pendant ce temps, les mathématiques sont appliquées à travers des machines à calculer toujours plus puissantes et performatives – appelées computers après la deuxième guerre mondiale. <br> Après des précurseurs tels que Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen, lui-même inspiré par Alfred Lotka, nous soutiendrons dans le présent ouvrage que l’économie politique, dans ce qui est appelé l’ère Anthropocène (thématisée en 2000 par Paul Krutzen, et dont les caractéristiques ont été décrites par Vladimir Vernadsky dès 19263) est un défi qui nécessite un réexamen fondamental de ces cadres épistémiques et épistémologiques. <br> Avec Darwin, les êtres vivants sont devenus partie intégrante d’un processus historique en constant devenir. Chez l’homme, les savoirs sont une partie de ce processus qui est performative, au double sens de ce mot : à la fois au sens de l’efficience et au sens de la prescription. Ce processus devient exosomatique, c’est à dire extra-corporel, comme le montre Lotka, qui façonne et remodèle les modes de vie afin, notamment, de limiter les effets négatifs des nouveautés techniques.
]]>Montévil, Maël, Nicole Acevedo, Cheryl M. Schaeberle, Manushree Bharadwaj, Suzanne E. Fenton, and Ana M. Soto. 2020. “A Combined Morphometric and Statistical Approach to Assess Nonmonotonicity in the Developing Mammary Gland of Rats in the CLARITY-BPA Study.” Environmental Health Perspectives 128 (5): 057001. https://doi.org/10.1289/ehp6301
We aimed to a) determine whether BPA showed effects on the developing rat mammary gland using new quantitative and established semiquantitative methods in two laboratories, b) develop a software tool for automatic evaluation of quantifiable aspects of the mammary ductal tree, and c) compare those methods.<br> Conclusions: Both the semiquantitative and the quantitative methods revealed nonmonotonic effects of BPA. The quantitative unsupervised analysis used 91 measurements and produced the most striking nonmonotonic dose–response curves. At all time points, lower doses resulted in larger effects, consistent with the core study, which revealed a significant increase of mammary adenocarcinoma incidence in the stop-dose animals at the lowest BPA dose tested.
]]>Montévil, Maël, Bernard Stiegler, Giuseppe Longo, Ana M. Soto, and Carlos Sonnenschein. 2020. “Anthropocene, Exosomatization and Negentropy.” In On Transition : In Response to Antonio Guterres. https://internation.world/
The industrial economy took shape between the late eighteenth century and the nineteenth century, initially in Western Europe and then in North America. Besides technical production, it involves technological production – the integration of sciences in order to produce indus-trial goods –, to the strict extent that, as Marx showed, capitalism makes knowledge and its economic valorization its primary element. <br> Newton’s physics and the metaphysics that goes with it originated the epistemic (in Michel Foucault’s sense) and epistemological (in Gaston Bachelard’s sense) framework of this great transformation. In this transformation, otium (productive leisure time) submits to negotium (worldly affairs, business). All along, mathematics has been applied with ever more powerful and performative calculating machines. <br> After precursors such as Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen, himself inspired by Alfred Lotka, we maintain that political economy in what is now called the Anthropocene (whose features were delineated by Vladimir Vernadsky in 1926) is a challenge that requires a fundamental reconsideration of these epistemic frameworks and epistemological frameworks. With Dar-win, living beings became part of a historical process of becoming. In humans, knowledge is a performative part of this process that shapes and reshapes lifestyles in order to tame the im-pact of technical novelties.
]]>Montévil, Maël. 2020. “De l’œuvre de Turing Aux Défis Contemporains Pour La Compréhension Mathématique Du Vivant.” Intellectica 72: 237–53. https://intellectica.org/fr/de-l-oeuvre-de-turing-aux-defis-contemporains-pour-la-comprehension-mathematique-du-vivant
Turing distingue soigneusement l’imitation de la modélisation d’un phénomène. Cette dernière vise à saisir la structure causale du phénomène étudié. En biologie, il n’y a cependant pas de cadre théorique bien établi pour encadrer la pratique de modélisation. Nous partons de l’articulation entre la compréhension du vivant et la thermodynamique, en particulier le second principe. Ceci nous conduira à expliciter les défis théoriques et épistémologiques pour la compréhension mathématique du vivant. En particulier, l’historicité du vivant est un défi rarement abordé explicitement dans ce domaine. Nous pensons que ce défi nécessite un renversement complet de l’épistémologie de la physique afin d’aborder de manière théoriquement précise les organismes vivants. Ce changement épistémologique est pertinent tant pour la pratique théorique que pour l’interprétation des protocoles et résultats expérimentaux.
]]>Montévil, Maël. 2019. “Measurement in Biology Is Methodized by Theory.” Biology & Philosophy 34 (3): 35. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10539-019-9687-x
We characterize access to empirical objects in biology from a theoretical perspective. Unlike objects in current physical theories, biological objects are the result of a history and their variations continue to generate a history. This property is the starting point of our concept of measurement. We argue that biological measurement is relative to a natural history which is shared by the different objects subjected to the measurement and is more or less constrained by biologists. We call symmetrization the theoretical and often concrete operation which leads to considering biological objects as equivalent in a measurement. Last, we use our notion of measurement to analyze research strategies. Some strategies aim to bring biology closer to the epistemology of physical theories, by studying objects as similar as possible, while others build on biological diversity.
]]>Stiegler, B., and Maël Montévil. 2019. “Entretien Sur l’entropie, Le Vivant et La Technique : Première Partie.” Links Series 1. http://links-series.com/n-1-2-virtuel-et-biologie/
Stiegler, B., and Maël Montévil. 2019. “Entretien Sur l’entropie, Le Vivant et La Technique : Deuxième Partie.” Links Series 2. http://links-series.com/n-1-2-virtuel-et-biologie/
Montévil, Maël. 2019. “Analyses d’ouvrages : Franck Varenne, from Models to Simulations.” Revue d’histoire Des Sciences 72: 451–53. https://www.cairn.info/revue-d-histoire-des-sciences-2019-2-page-411.htm?contenu=article
L’invention et le développement des ordinateurs a ouvert de nouvelles possibilités pour la modélisation. En physique, l’existence de théories mathématisées permet d’utiliser l’ordinateur pour calculer des solutions approchées à des problèmes déjà bien circonscrits théoriquement et épistémologiquement. En biologie, par contre, il n’existe pas de théorie jouant ce rôle épistémologique, et l’informatique a permis l’émergence de pratiques de modélisation combinant plusieurs cadres mathématiques. L’ouvrage de Franck Varenne porte sur ces pratiques novatrices, leur histoire et leur épistémologie, à travers le cas des simulations de morphogenèse d’arbres et plus généralement de plantes.
]]>Montévil, Maël. 2019. “Which First Principles for Mathematical Modelling in Biology?” Rendiconti Di Matematica e Delle Sue Applicazioni 40 (3–4, 3–4): 177–89. http://www1.mat.uniroma1.it/ricerca/rendiconti/40_3-4_(2019)_177-189.html
Like theoretical physics, theoretical biology is not just mathematical modeling. Instead, theoretical biology should strive to find suitable first principles to ground the understanding of biological phenomena and ultimately frame biological experiments and mathematical models. First principles in physics are expressed in terms of symmetries and the associated conservations, on the one side, and optimization on the other side. In biology, we argue instead that a strong notion of variation is fundamental. This notion encompasses new possibilities and the historicity of biological phenomena. By contrast, the relative regularity of some aspects of biological organisms, which we call constraints, should be regarded as the consequence of a mutual stabilization of the parts of organisms. We exemplify several aspects of this framework with the modeling of allometric relationships. Our change of perspective leads to reconsider the meaning of measurements and the structure of the space of description.
]]>Montévil, Maël. 2018. “A Primer on Mathematical Modeling in the Study of Organisms and Their Parts.” In Systems Biology, edited by Mariano Bizzarri, 41–55. Methods in Molecular Biology. New York, NY: Springer New York. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-7456-6_4
Mathematical modeling is a very powerful tool for understanding natural phenomena. Such a tool carries its own assumptions and should always be used critically. In this chapter, we highlight the key ingredients and steps of modeling and focus on their biological interpretation. In particular, we discuss the role of theoretical principles in writing models. We also highlight the meaning and interpretation of equations. The main aim of this chapter is to facilitate the interaction between biologists and mathematical modelers. We focus on the case of cell proliferation and motility in the context of multicellular organisms.
]]>Gayon, Jean, and Maël Montévil. 2018. “Répétition et Réversibilité Dans l’évolution : La Génétique Des Populations Théorique.” In Temps de La Nature & Nature Du Temps. Études Philosophiques Sur Le Temps Dans Les Sciences Naturelles, edited by Christophe Bouton and Philippe Huneman, 315–42. CNRS éditions. http://www.cnrseditions.fr/philosophie-et-histoire-des-idees/7678-temps-de-la-nature-nature-du-temps.html
La répétitivité et la réversibilité ont longtemps été considérées comme des traits caractéristiques de la connaissance scientifique. Dans la génétique des populations, la répétitivité est illustrée par un certain nombre d’équilibres réalisés dans des conditions spécifiques. Étant donné que ces équilibres sont maintenus en dépit du renouvellement des générations (réarrangement de gènes, reproduction ...), on peut légitimement dire que la génétique des populations révèle d’importantes propriétés d’invariance par transformation. La réversibilité est un sujet plus controversé. Ici, le parallèle avec la mécanique classique est beaucoup plus faible. La réversibilité est incontestable dans certains modèles stochastiques, mais au prix d’un concept probabiliste particulier de réversibilité. Par contre, elle ne semble pas être une propriété de la plupart des modèles déterministes classiques décrivant la dynamique des changements évolutifs au niveau des populations. Nous distinguons plusieurs sens de la « réversibilité ». En particulier, la symétrie par inversion du temps ne doit pas être confondue avec la rétrodiction.
]]>Montévil, Maël. 2018. “A Few Pending Challenges from the Perspective of a Theory of Organisms.” Constructivist Foundations 13 (3): 377–79. http://constructivist.info/13/3/377.montevil
Open peer commentary on the article “What Is a Cognizing Subject? Construction, Autonomy and Original Causation” by Niall Palfreyman & Janice Miller-Young. http://constructivist.info/13/3/362.palfreyman Upshot: I discuss convergences between the approach of the authors and my work aiming for a theory of organisms. I also discuss some pitfalls and challenges pertaining to biological randomness, which, I argue, require original developments.
]]>Longo, G., and Maël Montévil. 2018. “Comparing Symmetries in Models and Simulations.” In Springer Handbook of Model-Based Science, edited by M. Dorato, L. Magnani, and T. Bertolotti, 843–56. Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-30526-4
Computer simulations brought remarkable novelties to knowledge construction. In this chapter, we first distinguish between mathematical modeling, computer implementations of these models and purely computational approaches. In all three cases, different answers are provided to the questions the observer may have concerning the processes under investigation. These differences will be highlighted by looking at the different theoretical symmetries of each frame. In the latter case, the peculiarities of agent-based or object oriented languages allow to discuss the role of phase spaces in mathematical analyses of physical versus biological dynamics. Symmetry breaking and randomness are finally correlated in the various contexts where they may be observed.
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