Haecceity

If there were not a certain inherence of the haecceity to the atom, to matter, or even to form, there wouldn't be the possibility of finding a principle of individuation in these invoked realities. To seek the principle of individuation in a reality that precedes individuation itself is to consider individuation strictly as onto-genesis. The principle of individuation is then the source of haecceity.

Simondon identifies haecceity as the conceptual stake in all doctrines of individuation, arguing that the principle of individuation must be understood as the very source of haecceity rather than its pre-given substrate.

Simondon, Gilbert, Individuation in Light of Notions of Form and Information, 2020thesis

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what makes one object different from another is the set of particular limits-varying from one case to another-that guarantee that this object possesses its haecceity; the experience of the recommencement of the construction of objects coming out of the technical operation is what gives the impression of attributing to matter the differences that guarantee that one object is individually distinct from another.

Simondon locates haecceity in the particular limiting conditions that differentiate one object from another, tracing the illusion that matter is its source to the repeated experience of technical fabrication.

Simondon, Gilbert, Individuation in Light of Notions of Form and Information, 2020thesis

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the haecceity does not simply recover an objective characteristic detached from the subject but has the value of a belonging and of an origin. Only a commercially abstract thought could fail to attach a price to the haecceity of the matter and fail to seek a principle of individuation in it.

Simondon argues that haecceity bears relational and affective weight — encoding belonging and origin — and that abstract commercial rationality's failure to recognise this represents a philosophical impoverishment of the individuation concept.

Simondon, Gilbert, Individuation in Light of Notions of Form and Information, 2020thesis

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the true implicit forms are not geometrical but topological; the technical labor must respect these topological forms that constitute a parceled haecceity, a possible information without anything lacking.

Simondon extends haecceity into the philosophy of technics, arguing that the implicit topological forms of natural materials constitute a 'parceled haecceity' that technical labour must respect rather than override.

Simondon, Gilbert, Individuation in Light of Notions of Form and Information, 2020supporting

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individuation will not be considered solely from the perspective of the explanation of the individuated individual; it will be grasped, or at the very least we will say that it should be grasped, before and during the genesis of the separate individual; individuation is an event and an operation within a reality that is richer than the individual that results from it.

Simondon frames his broader methodological departure — grasping individuation as a living event rather than reading haecceity back into a pre-formed substrate — which is the theoretical basis for his reconception of the term.

Simondon, Gilbert, Individuation in Light of Notions of Form and Information, 2020supporting

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the living being is to itself partially its own principle of individuation; it continues its individuation, and, instead of merely being a result that progressively degrades, the result of an initial operation of individuation becomes the principle of a further individuation.

Simondon distinguishes the living being's ongoing self-individuation from the one-off technical operation, providing the context within which haecceity becomes a dynamic, historically accumulated character rather than a static property.

Simondon, Gilbert, Individuation in Light of Notions of Form and Information, 2020supporting

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What the hylomorphic schema primarily reflects is a socialized representation of labor and an equally socialized representation of the individual living being; the coincidence between these two representations is the mutual foundation of the extension of the schema from one domain to the other.

Simondon contextualises the hylomorphic schema — the theoretical framework within which haecceity was classically attributed to matter — as a sociologically conditioned, not metaphysically neutral, construction.

Simondon, Gilbert, Individuation in Light of Notions of Form and Information, 2020aside

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