In this powerful philosophical and technological investigation, Gilbert Simondon confronts the resentment-fueled exclusion of technical objects from human culture as well as the technocratic visions of domination through machines. Instead, he advocates for the recognition and reflection on the existence of a collective made up of humans, open technical machines, and nature. His approach combines a detailed analysis of the functioning of engines, vacuum tubes, or early computers with far-reaching philosophical considerations. Engaging with traditional notions of form and substance, evolutionary thinking, gestalt theory, cybernetics, information theory, and questions of governmentality, he characterizes technical thinking and technical modes of existence as a stage in the process of becoming of life and thought.