The philosophy of the networks is, according to the sociologist Pierre Musso, philosophical doctrines conceived by Claude Henri de Rouvroy, count of Saint-Simon, developed thereafter by the school saint-simonienne: Barthelemy Childish Prosper, Armand Bazard and Michel Knight mainly.

The Philosophie of the Réseau X is based on the metaphor of the human networks applied to physical networks of the company, and on the concept of Capacité of a physical bond to ensure a connection between individuals.

Pierre Musso considers that the philosophy of the networks corresponds to a Idéologie which is pressed on the technical object made up by the network.

Origin: Saint-Simon (count of)

At the origin of the philosophy of the networks, one finds the count of Saint-Simon , whose doctrines are based on the concept of Réseau X physical.

Saint-Simon claimed that God was replaced by the universal Loi of the gravitation (a very simple Expérience consisting in placing a Aimant on a surface Métal lic vertical shows that the Aimant does not fall, therefore that the force of gravitation is not the only force of the Univers).

This idea appears at the beginning of its philosophical career, in the letter of an inhabitant of Geneva to his contemporaries (1803). One can consider that Saint-Simon is thus the heir, with two centuries of delay, of the theory of the Héliocentrisme, and the Révolution copernician who developed with the XVIIe and with the 18th centuries.

History: development of the railroads

The philosophy of the networks inspired the engineers who built the networks of railroads in France during the Industrial revolution at the 19th century (star of Belgrand, of the name of the engineer hydrologist Eugene Belgrand under the Second Empire). After having taken part in the Colonization of Algeria, Barthélemy Prosper Enfantin was director of the Compagnie of the railroad the Paris-Lyon-Mediterranean. It applied to this occasion the principles of the philosophy of the networks to the railroads.

At that time, the metaphor related to the blood networks, blood being compared to the money which circulated between the Entreprise S and the financial institutions.

Current application to the telecommunication networks

Pierre Musso teaches us that the philosophy of the networks applies now to the networks of Télécommunications, by taking this time the metaphor from the Cerveau and the central Nervous system. In this metaphor of the neural Networks, which is important, in fact the Synapse S make the connection between the Neuron S, and which represent the bonds of telecommunications, which reorganize in the company.

Consequently, the definition of the policy of deregulation of telecommunications is entrusted to the Engineer S of telecommunications, the political S not having a great role to play.

This idea was also one of the war-horses of Richard Buckminster Fuller.

Question of the relation to others

This type of philosophy raises the question of the Human relation with Others .

Examples of questions which are posed :

Do we Somme in relation to Others only when we use techniques Informatique S and of Télécommunication S? Don't we create a object, an instrument, behind which, as Pierre Musso affirms it, a Idéologie is hiding place? Don't we confuse Communication, and Télécommunication S, group of techniques and instruments which should be with the service of the human Communication?
La technical transmission of a message provides it the guarantee that the message is well Perçu by the Destinataire: doesn't one confuse Transmission and exchange (example of the weapon of the transmissions in the army)?

That comprises some Risque S :

• That to cut the relation with Others, to replace the human relation, which is a relation of prone on subject, by a relation of subject with object, to take again the terms of Carl Gustav Jung,

• That to privilege the quantity compared to the quality: capacity being related only to the quantity of matter transported in a grid system, or quantity of bytes conveyed by a telecommunication network.

The consequences can then be serious:

• In Theory of knowledge, one can completely underestimate the importance of the cognitive Sciences, with the practical consequences that can have on the policies of Innovation, on the economic Intelligence and the Knowledge management: one will see only Réseau X of telecommunications whereas one needs at least as much to structure of the contained,

• In economy, one can over-estimate the exchange values compared to other types of values, in the economic transpositions of the model, and to be unaware of the Total costs of possession,
• In Sociologie, one can attach the group dynamics, which can have important consequences on the modes of Décision Politique.

In Communication , the Russian linguist Roman Jakobson designed a model Linguistique of Communication centered on the message itself, and not on his transmission. This type of model avoids the Risque S of instrumentalisation of the technical tools of communication.

See: Diagram of Jakobson

See also: Philosophy of the language.