M.R.P. Simons

Projects Massimiliano Simons

Veni Project ‘Towards an Ecology of Technoscience’ (2023-2026) (funded)

This project mobilizes a central idea within French philosophy of technology, namely that every technology can only function within certain environments, in order to shed new light on contemporary technosciences (synthetic biology, robotics, AI). Hence, the scientific question of what kind of applications we want to develop, also becomes a societal question of which technoscientific environments we find acceptable to live in. Through a set of case studies, mapping their commonalities and differences, this project aims to propose a framework that can study technosciences simultaneously at a technical and societal level.

PI: Massimiliano Simons

URL: https://www.nwo.nl/en/projects/viveni221f104

GENIUS Lab consortium on Generative AI (2024 - ) (funded)

The GENIUS (Generative Enhanced Next-Generation Intelligent Understanding Systems) Lab is a research lab that seeks to extend and enhance state-of-the-art Artificial Intelligence (AI) methods for semantic knowledge engineering, human-centered AI, and crowd computing. GENIUS Lab is a collaboration between Delft University of Technology, Maastricht University, dsm–firmenich, and Kickstart AI.

PI: Darian Meacham, Massimiliano Simons (for FASoS)

PhD student: Mykhaylo Bogachov (for FASoS)

URL:  https://icai.ai/lab/genius-lab-delft/

The History of Philosophy of Technology Society (funded)

We are a group of social theorists of technology who are interested in exploring the different ways that individuals and social groups have thought about technology throughout history. Through our website, you will find different resources that describe the history of the philosophy of technology. This includes a timeline of works in the philosophy of technology from 1800-1980 and short summaries of some of the traditions that help make up the history of the philosophy of technology.

PI: Darryl Cressman, Massimiliano Simons

Internship: Ezekiel Stevens (Sep 2025 – Feb 2026)

Visiting PhD students: Antonio Oraldi (2024), Enrico De Martin Topranin (2025)

URL: https://fasos-research.nl/history-of-philosophy-of-technology/

The History of The Empirical Turn in Dutch Philosophy of Science and Technology

This project aims to investigate one of the most dominant historical narratives in philosophy of technology: the idea that the field shifted in the 1990s from ‘classical philosophy of technology’ to ‘empirical philosophy of technology’. This history, however, has deep roots in Dutch philosophy and Science and Technology Studies (STS). The project aims to trace these many histories of the empirical turn in the Netherlands to map how it became the dominant and influential way of framing the field that became since 2000. The intended outcome is a monograph and a number of scientific articles.

PI: Massimiliano Simons, Darryl Cressman

Innovatieve PartnerProjecten: Entangled Genes (2026-2028) (funded)

This artistic research project explores the hybrid plant as a scientific, cultural, and ideological field of tension. Artist Matthijs De Block has been granted access to four leading research groups within the Flemish Institute for Biotechnology-Center for Plant Systems Biology (VIB-PSB), where he works with new plant tissue and transgenic DNA. Through artistic methodologies, the project investigates concepts such as hybridity, chimerism, and identity, thereby bridging the gap between cutting-edge biotechnological research and social reflection.

Collaborator: Massimiliano Simons

The History of Historical Epistemology

This project investigates the historical origins of the tradition of historical epistemology, which typically refers to a tradition of French philosophers of science, such as Gaston Bachelard, Georges Canguilhem, and Michel Foucault. In recent decades, this approach has received more attention and scope, raising questions about what precisely differentiates it from other approaches. This project aims to investigate the multiple historical roots, in France and elsewhere, of this tradition.

PI: Massimiliano Simons

PhD student: Hannes Van Engeland (Maastricht), Marjolein Holvoet (Ghent University)

The History of Philosophy of Experimentation

This project investigates the history of the ways scholars have been thinking about the role of experimentation in science. Whereas within analytic philosophy of science this is a topic that became prominent in the 1980s, there is a richer and more diverse history of thinking about experimentation, both in philosophy and beyond it. The project is in particularly also interested how philosophies of experimentation are related to political philosophies about the role of science in society. The project has looked at figures such as Hugo Dingler, Edgar Wind, Gaston Bachelard, Gilbert Hottois, among others.

PI: Massimiliano Simons

Collaborators: Tullio Viola, Jan Potters (University of Antwerp), Matteo Vagelli (University of Venice)