In the previous post, we reframed individuation as patterned variation, rather than simple difference. This allowed us to see repertoires not as discrete units, but as stabilised patterns within a semiotic field.
We now turn to the social domain and revisit a far more familiar — and far more misleading — notion: the individual.
1. The Usual Assumption
In everyday thinking, the individual is taken to be:
- a person
- a discrete unit
- the basic building block of social systems
From this perspective, individuation appears straightforward: the system differentiates into individuals, each with their own identity, role, or position.
But this assumption imports a form of entity-thinking that obscures the structure of social systems.
2. The Social System Revisited
Recall the social cline:
Collective → Individual
If we look more closely, the collective is not simply a group of pre-existing individuals. It is a field of social relations:
- alignments
- influences
- patterns of coordination
Within this field, participation is not evenly distributed. Instead, we observe:
- recurring centres of influence
- stabilised roles
- uneven patterns of alignment
What we call an “individual,” in this context, emerges from these patterns.
3. The Individual as Concentration
Rather than treating the individual as a fundamental unit, we can describe it more precisely as:
a concentration of patterned social variation
This means:
- Influence is more concentrated at certain points
- Participation is more sustained or visible in certain positions
- Alignment patterns stabilise around particular participants
The “individual” is where these tendencies converge.
- Not: individuals produce the social system
- But: the social system patterns participation such that individuals appear as centres of organisation
4. Parallel with the Semiotic Domain
We can now see a clear parallel:
- Repertoire (semiotic): a stabilised pattern of meaning
- Individual (social): a stabilised concentration of participation and influence
In both cases:
- we are not dealing with primary units
- we are observing emergent patterning within a field of variation
This parallel reinforces the earlier insight:
individuation operates across domains, but what emerges are patterns, not entities
5. Why This Matters
Reconsidering the individual in this way allows us to:
- avoid attributing causal power to individuals as isolated units
- understand social roles and identities as products of patterned relations
- maintain the distinction between value (social) and meaning (semiotic) without collapsing one into the other
It also prepares us to describe social systems more precisely in terms of:
- distribution
- concentration
- likelihood
— rather than fixed units or essences.
Takeaway
The individual is not the starting point of social systems.It is a stabilised concentration of patterned participation within a collective.
Seen in this way, the “individual” is no longer a primitive unit, but an effect of individuation — just as repertoires are effects of semiotic patterning.
In the next post, we will extend this line of thought by examining variation and likelihood, introducing a more explicit account of how individuation shapes what tends to occur, rather than what simply is.
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