Shati' Tea-and-Falafel Shop, Gaza - On Learning..Philosophy of TechTalk*

*TechTalk, by Oxford University Press, is the series we use to teach Elementary and Pre Intermediate English to future Engineering students here at KFUPM.
According to Barthélémy, a professor at Lycée Henri IV, where Philippe Daumas* studied, we have to take the Encyclopedists of the Enlightemment, the age of "Les Lumieres" as an approach to a humanistic view of Machines and tools.(picture of Lycée Henri IV, above)

This is summarized in this nice translation of part 1 of Gilbert Simondon's 1958 Ecole Normale Supérieure - Sorbonne Thesis, L'individu et sa génèse physico-biologique, translated here, downloadable in pdf(copy here).

I'll have to put this kind of relation to Diderot's Encyclopedia with the Aleppo soap manufactures and "sina,a" of the Arabs.

Technical Mentality, translated by Arne De Boever, gives a nice summary of what Simondon meant by a culture of Technology(copy here). He has references to the potter making the pot; so this relates very closely to the trades of Syria. This unpublished text of Simondon, given to Jean-Hugues Barthélémy by his son was first published in Gilbert Simondon. Revue philosophique 3 (2006) Paris, P.U.F. 343-357
*Philippe Daumas, great supporter of the Palestinian Cause at University of Montpellier, where Taha Hussein studied, too.