In the previous post, individuation was repositioned as a problem rather than a given. Once the individual is no longer treated as an explanatory primitive, a further step becomes unavoidable.
If individuation is to be explained rather than assumed, then the individual cannot remain the unit of analysis.
This post makes that replacement explicit.
Why the Individual Will Not Do
The concept of the individual carries too much baggage to serve as a neutral analytic unit. It smuggles in assumptions about:
boundedness
persistence
ownership of agency
internal sources of meaning
Even when we try to use “individual” descriptively rather than metaphysically, it continues to orient explanation toward persons as origins rather than as effects.
If we want to understand how differentiation actually emerges within meaning-making, we need a unit that is:
relational rather than substantial
positional rather than bounded
capable of shifting without contradiction
That unit is perspective.
Perspective as Position Within Meaning Potential
A perspective is not a point of view inside a head. It is a position within a field of meaning potential.
To occupy a perspective is to stand in a particular relation to:
what meanings are readily available
what futures are imaginable
what commitments are already in force
what obligations are difficult to avoid
Perspectives are defined not by interior states, but by differential access and constraint within a shared semiotic field.
They are cuts through potential, not containers of content.
Three Axes of Perspectival Differentiation
Perspectives differ from one another along several dimensions. Three are especially important for understanding individuation.
Readiness
Perspectives differ in what they are ready to take up.
Some futures arrive as live options; others barely register. Some commitments feel feasible; others feel unreachable or already foreclosed.
Readiness is not a trait. It is a positional condition, shaped by prior uptake, obligation atmospheres, and semiotic climate.
Available Futures
Because readiness differs, so too do available futures.
From one perspective, a proposal may appear urgent and binding. From another, the same proposal may appear premature, optional, or unintelligible.
This does not require disagreement. It reflects differential positioning within meaning potential.
Binding Histories
Perspectives are also differentiated by what they are already bound to.
Past commitments, stabilised expectations, and sedimented responsibilities constrain what can be taken up next. These binding histories are not personal memories; they are semiotic trajectories.
To be individuated is, in part, to be bound differently.
Overlapping, Nested, and Transient Perspectives
Unlike individuals, perspectives do not need to be:
mutually exclusive
stable over time
aligned with a single bearer
Perspectives can overlap: a single interaction may position participants within multiple readiness fields at once.
They can be nested: local perspectives operate within broader institutional or cultural climates.
They can be transient: some perspectives exist only briefly, stabilising long enough for a commitment to form before dissolving again.
None of this makes sense if individuation is equated with personal identity. It makes perfect sense if individuation is understood as perspectival differentiation.
Hosting Without Ownership
This brings us to a crucial distinction.
A person may host multiple perspectives — professional, familial, institutional, interactional — often simultaneously. Shifts between perspectives can occur without any change in biological organism or psychological identity.
Conversely, no perspective requires a person.
Perspectives can be enacted by:
collectives
roles
procedures
documents
technologies
What matters is not who hosts the perspective, but how meaning potential is cut and constrained.
Ownership drops out of the picture.
Individuation Reconsidered
Once perspective replaces person as the unit of analysis, individuation takes on a different shape.
It is no longer about separation between selves. It is about differentiation within a shared field.
Individuation becomes:
the divergence of readiness
the uneven binding of futures
the stabilisation of distinct semiotic trajectories
This differentiation can occur within a single person, across multiple people, or entirely outside any person at all.
Looking Ahead
Replacing persons with perspectives allows us to locate individuation where it actually happens: in the binding of futures.
In the next post, we will examine commitment as a site of individuation, showing how differential binding — not internal identity — stabilises perspectives over time.
Individuation will emerge not as a fact of being, but as a consequence of meaning becoming binding.
No comments:
Post a Comment