1.1.3.1 Reality and Relativity of the Foundation of Individuation
The final section of this first chapter on "Form and Matter" takes us back a step to the roots of the problem that the hylomorphic model purports to solve. Thus it advances some of the themes we saw in the introduction, though it reads a bit like a still compressed version of specific details I presume will be further elaborated as we go. Nevertheless, I'll venture a preliminary unpacking of these ideas, even though we may be forced to modify some of this interpretation later on.
We started with a fairly simple question: how do individuals come to be? We've seen that both atomism and hylomorphism beg the question because they place the principle of individuation before or outside the individual. With hylomorphism in particular, we've examined in detail how the schema sees the final product of a process of individuation in which matter meets form as somehow already contained in embryo in one or another of the two terms. The substance of the distinct individual is either in the different matter that waits to get stamped by a single form, or it's in the different forms crafted from a plastic matter. In either case, that principle that makes the individual exactly what it is, different from all other individuals, actually preexists the process of production of the individual. It rests, in principle fully formed, in the volume of matter or the head of the craftsman. The process of individuation just translates this principle that represents a possible individual into an actual individual. Clearly then, it doesn't answer the question of how the first individual comes to be.
In fact, if we stop to think about it, the hylomorphic model takes the individual for granted in an even deeper respect than the one we've just articulated. Because where does it get this notion of a possible individual, an imagined individual in embryo? Simondon has already suggested that the problem lies in the way it subjectively views the production of a specific empirical individual. It takes the fully constituted individual that is the end product of some production technique as the term whose existence needs to be explained, and then it offers an explanation of that term's distinctness based on a particular explainer's role in its production. Thus the master who owns property and issues production orders discovers the distinctness of each log in which of his particular trees it was milled from. Likewise, the craftsman discovers the distinctness of this log, right here, in his own labor which shaped it just so and not otherwise. Both of them take the empirical log in front of them for granted as a isolated, stable and self-identical individual, distinct from all the other logs. And then they look for a principle that produces this exactly this distinctness, only to rediscover their own distinctness as human individuals. In other words, they elevate one aspect of the empirical individual into a sort of transcendental principle of its production.
Which leads us to the question: are there actually any individuals at all? We've assumed that it's the empirical log which requires explanation. But how did we decide that was an individual? In a sense, we've just projected our own human individuality onto it as its intrinsic reality. This is Simondon's point in the first paragraph of this section, one which was removed from later editions but is still worth reading.
The individuation of objects is not entirely independent from the existence of man; the individuated object is an individuated object for man: in man there is a need to individuate objects, which is one of the aspects of the need to recognize oneself and to rediscover oneself in things, and also to rediscover oneself therein as a being who has a definite identity that is stabilized by a role and an activity. (I, 47)
While the paragraph only scratches the surface of the problem, it goes on to raise some interesting follow-up questions. We explain the log's individuality through our own subjective individuality as master or worker. But this merely displaces the individual that requires explanation -- after all, how do I know that I am an individual? While we usually take our own subjective individuality so for granted that it can serve as a convincing anchor for our explanation of the individuality of objects, SImondon is suggesting that this tendency actually reflects the fact that our self is not as certain or stable as we imagine. One, "need[s] to recognize oneself and to rediscover oneself in things". In other words, we individuate things in order to further individuate ourselves. We're not projecting a fixed sense of self onto a fixed object. We're creating self and world through a process of feedback. At bottom, Simondon is really seeking to understand this process of creation of conjoined individuals. This process can't be one of arbitrary "projection" because this metaphor requires the individuality of both projector and screen, as well as some explanation of how an individual image could be transferred from one to the other.
Are there any individuals at all then? Lurking under the question of how an individual comes to be is the deeper one: what is an individual? While Simondon has not offered us a definition yet, we seem to keep coming back to two components of individuality. One the one hand, the individual is what it is, an entity in itself and identical to itself. On the other hand, the entity is distinct from all other things. But do these two ways of defining an individual always converge? We take "I am what I am = I am not what I am not" for granted as an axiom. But when you think about it, this is a very peculiar assumption.
To confuse these two aspects is to suppose that an individual is what it is (at the interior of itself, in itself, relative to itself) because it involves a definite relation with other individuals and not with another specific individual, but with all other individuals. In the first sense, individuation is a set of intrinsic characteristics; in the second sense, individuation is a set of extrinsic characteristics, i.e. relations. But how can these two series of characteristics accommodate one another? (I, 48)
How can what is proper to an individual be bound to what this individual would be if it did not possess what it possesses on its own? (I,48)
How can what makes me me be the same thing that makes you, and everyone and everything else, not me? Is individuation something positive and productive, referring to an inside, or merely something negative and differentiating, that refers to an outside? It's far from obvious that these two perspectives should have anything to do with one another, much less axiomatically coincide. Unless, of course, they both stem from a deeper principle that ensures their compatibility. But we seem to only have principles of individuation which preexist the individual, and which, as we've seen are ultimately just disguised versions of this or some other individual. How can we think of the coming into being of an individual (ie. individuation) without taking the starting point or outcome of this process for granted? And how can we do that in such a way that it produces an individual whose intrinsic being-for-itself always matches its extrinsic being-for-others?
Clearly, this is the problem Simondon's theory of the pre-individual was supposed to address. It's puzzling then that this section doesn't mention the pre-individual at all, but instead talks about the "individuating system". As his critique of hylomorphism's "dark zone" pointed out, an individual only comes to be because it is part of an entire energetic system that connects form to matter. In a sense, it's not clear how to even distinguish the individual from the system as a whole. The individual is a singularity within the system that allows for what we think of as a particular empirical individual to take shape. But this singularity has no meaning outside of the system to which it belongs. At the same time, a system with no singularities would not be an individuating system, because nothing would ever take shape within it. As a result, individuating system and individual seem to be two sides of the same coin which correspond to the center and periphery that we saw went missing in the hylomorphic schema. Individuation is then the process by which a singularity triggers some system of potential energy to move to a new equilibrium. The actualization of this energy leaves behind a form that we usually call an individual object like the brick we discussed.
In this case, the principle of individuation is the state of the individuating system, this state of allagmatic relation within an energetic complex that includes all the singularities; the veritable individual exists for a mere instant during the technical operation: it lasts as long as the form-taking. After this operation, what remains is a result that will begin to degrade, and not a veritable individual; this is an individuated being rather than a real individual, i.e. an individuating individual, an individual undergoing individuation (I, 49)
While I think I understand the direction Simondon would like to go, I'm having difficulty fully articulating how his energetic model of individuation responds to the conditions of the problem he identified in critiquing hylomorphism. Basically, he wants to rethink the individual as a process, not a product. The process of course has a product, but if the appearance of the product marks the end of the process, that is, if the equilibrium reached by the individuating system is stable, then it actually ceases to be an individuating system. It's as if all the potential energy of the system is discharged, in which case it sort of ceases to be a system at all and is instead converted into a mere static object. And it seems that Simondon doesn't see any static object, any "individuated being" as a true individual because it lacks a mechanism to maintain, or perhaps more importantly to continue transforming, its individuality. If we explain the individual as the end point of a process that produces only and exactly this individual, and then halts, we have fallen into exactly the trap we outlined earlier -- we have made the principle of individuation preexist the individual and yet be tailor made for it alone. Effectively we have simply redoubled the empirical individual before us. The alternative is to see the individual product not as the endpoint of the system, but as its means of continuation. The individual then is better thought of as the process by which the individuating system continues to produce individuals, which are its way of continuing to produce individuals ... The true individual is a feedback loop that opens up new possibilities.
This is a pretty complicated idea that I'm sure we'll cover again in greater detail. I think the connection Simondon is trying to make here is just that the problem of not taking the individual for granted requires a strange solution like the one he proposes. The principle of individuation cannot preexist the individual, and so in some sense it must be the individual. Which borders on saying that the individual is the cause of itself.
The veritable individual is one that conserves its system of individuation with it, thereby amplifying singularities. The principle of individuation is in this energetic system of internal resonance; form is only the individual's form if it is form for the individual, i.e. if it is suitable for the singularity of this constituting system; matter is the individual's matter only if it is matter for the individual, i.e. if it is implicated in this system, if it enters into this system as the vehicle of energy and is distributed in accordance with the distribution of energy. (I, 49)
Thinking of the individual as a process, as the means by which the system continues the process of individuation, clearly starts to blur the line between individual and system. In a sort of fractal recursion, the individual has become an individuating system in its own right. As a result the idea of the individual as a process also does away with the separation between the intrinsic and extrinsic aspects of an individual. So we discover that energetic individuation is precisely the deeper process we needed to explain the mystery of why I am me and you are simultaneously not me. The individual doesn't really have a separate inside and outside. There's just a system, and a singularity (which allows this system to continue producing new singularities). Or what Simondon will call the individual and its associated milieu.
But the energetic system in which an individual is constituted is neither more intrinsic nor extrinsic to this individual: it is associated with this individual, it is this individual's associated milieu. Through its energetic conditions of existence, the individual does not merely exist within its own limits; it emerges from a singularity. (I, 49)
Indeed, in the next section we'll see how the individual and its associated milieu are dual concepts that can't be thought of without one another. We'll also look in more detail at whether there is a difference between an "associated milieu" and an "individuating system". For now though, Simondon is content to point out how his energetic schema for individuation completely changes the notion of what it means to be an individual. When the individual becomes process and activity, the very being of the individual becomes the relationship it creates between the pieces of an energetic system. In other words, the subtle point here is that the system doesn't preexist the individual, but is actually brought into being by the individual; the individual as singularity is what allows the system to become an individuating system. It's as if the system can't be fit together as such without this missing piece (recall unhinged time). But of course, there is no 'naked' singularity, defined without consideration for the system it is part of. So, again, we find a circularity -- the system is what it is because of the singularity, and the singularity is what it is because of the system.
For the individual, relation has the value of being; the extrinsic cannot be distinguished from the intrinsic; what is truly and essentially the individual is the active relation, the exchange between the extrinsic and the intrinsic; there is extrinsic and intrinsic relative to what is first. What is first is this system of internal singular resonance, this system of the allagmatic relation between two orders of magnitude. (I, 50)
To want to characterize the individual in itself or relative to other realities is to turn it into a relational term, i.e. into a relation with itself or a relation with another reality; first, one must find the point of view from which the individual can be grasped as an activity of relation, not as a term of this relation; properly speaking, the individual is in relation neither with itself nor with other realities; it is the being of relation and not a being in relation, for relation is an intense operation, an active center. (I, 50)
Naturally, thinking of the individual as relationship is pretty difficult for us. It recapitulates the basic problem of Difference & Repetition, namely, how can we conceive of difference in itself, rather than as something that merely compares two identities. In Simondon's case, we clearly can't define the individual as a relationship between other fully constituted individuals without begging the question of how an individual comes to be. But as soon as we replace every 'term' with a 'relationship between terms', we end up with the complicated fractal recursion that always seems to accompany any philosophy of immanence.
1.1.3.2 The Energetic Foundation of Individuation: Individuation and Milieu
This final section of chapter 1 sums up Simondon's critique of hylomorphism and returns us to the non-dual vision we glimpsed in the introduction. The problem with hylomorphism is that it takes the individual for granted, assuming it exists in embryo on the side of either matter or form, and fails to examine the process of its production. However, in the course of examining the blind spots of the hylomorphic schema -- its inability to address both the entire energetic system as well as the singularity that crystalizes a particular individual -- we've discovered that it not only fails to account for the production of the individual, but it fundamentally misconceives the very 'being' needs to be explained. It presumes that this being is a static, inert, fully differentiated and self-identical thing, like a substance or what Aristotle called a "concrete whole" (the súnolon is σύν+ολος = together + everything). In short, it presumes that all individuals are like bricks.
According to this path of research, the constituted individual wouldn't be able to seem like an entirely detached, absolute being in conformity with the model of substance, like the pure σύνολον [súnolon]. Individuation would be nothing but one of the possible becomings of a system and would be able, moreover, to exist on several levels and more or less completely; the individual as a definite, isolated, consistent being would be merely one of the two parts of the complete reality; instead of the σύνολον [súnolon], it would be the result of a certain organizational event occurring within the σύνολον and dividing the latter into two complementary realities: the individual and the associated milieu after individuation; the associated milieu is the complement of the individual relative to the original whole. (I, 51)
So, instead of taking the individual product for granted, Simondon will begin with the energetic process. The concrete individual produced by this process its not its endpoint, but a sort of event that crystalizes a form. This isn't the final form of the process, or its only possible form. It's simply one of the transformations that can happen in this energetic system, in particular, its a form-producing transformation that separates the system into two sides. In this way the concrete individual form is truly explained as a byproduct (as it were) of a process which does not presuppose it.
But how should we talk about the being of an event, about the reality of a transformation, a phase transition that produces the conjoined pair of individual/associated milieu or singularity/system? Apparently, this is how Plato used the term "symbol".
The individual cannot account for itself on the basis of itself, because it is not the being's whole to the extent that it is the expression of a resolution. It is simply the complementary symbol of another real, i.e. the associated milieu (here, as in Plato, the word symbol is taken in the original sense relating to the usage of relations of hospitality: a stone broken into two halves produces a pair of symbols; each fragment, conserved by the descendants of those who have bound together relations of hospitality, can be brought together with its complementary piece in a way so as to reconstitute the initial unity of the broken stone (I, 52)
I've never heard this etymology of symbol before, but it's very interesting. The symbol is what is thrown together (σύν + βάλλω = together + throw). That is, it's not everything together, but a particular system held together by a particular singularity. In a sense, the concrete individual produced by a process of individuation is just as arbitrary as a symbol. It is merely one token that indicates two correlated realities in the same way that a word indicates a correlation between concept and object. This is why Simondon says that we will conceive the individual as a "splitting" (I, 51) of an energetic system, that nevertheless represents a "conservation of being" for this system. The thing that splits the system is the same thing that holds it together. So, in what seems a clear statement of non-duality, he describes how being is neither produced nor consumed in this process, but is only transformed.
Furthermore, the separation initiated by the individuation within the system cannot lead to the individual's isolation; individuation, then, is the structuration of a system without a separation of the individual and its complementary, such that individuation introduces a new regime of the system but does not break the system ...The principle of the method that we are proposing consists in supposing that there is a conservation of being and that thinking cannot occur except starting from a complete reality. (I, 53)
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