indi1

THE INDIVIDUATION

IN THE LIGHT OF THE CONCEPT OF FORM AND INFORMATION

© Éditions Jérôme Millon - 2013 [ 1st edition 2005] Marie-Claude Carrara and Jérôme Millon  3, place Vaucanson F-38000 Grenoble ISBN: 978-2-84137-181-5  www.millon.fr

Gilbert Simondon

The individuation

in the light of the notions of form and information

Preface by Jacques GARELLI

Work published with the support of the RHÔNE-ALPES REGION

MILLON

From the same author :

D u Mode of existence of technical objects, Paris, Aubier (1958, 1969, 1989, 2001, 2012)

The Individual and its Physico-Biological Genesis, Paris, PUF, 1964, Grenoble, Millon, 2005 The Psychic and Collective Individualization, Paris, Aubier, 1989, 2007  Two Lessons on the Animal and the Man, Paris, Ellipses, 2004  The Invention in Techniques, Paris, Seuil, 2005

Course on Perception (1964-1965), Chatou, Transparency, 2006, Paris, PUF, 2013 Imagination and Invention (1965-1966), Chatou, Transparency, 2008  Communication and Information, Courses and Conferences, Chatou, Transparency, 2010

Warning

Since the reissue of the first part of Gilbert Simondon's doctoral thesis entitled The Individual and its Physico-Biological Genesis, the work of this philosopher has had a major impact, manifested in colloquia, seminars, conferences the journal articles and the various works devoted to it in France and abroad.

These studies show that it is not only the epistemological aspect of this work, which has attracted the attention of the public, but its philosophical dimension, which, in the methodological framework of the " allagmatic" problematic1 2,and the "Theory of the analogical act",has renewed in depth the questioning of the thought of our time.

This edition reproduces, under its original title, the entire PhD thesis of Gilbert Simondon, until now published in separate editions3 , followed by an unpublished text,History of the Individual Concept,written at the same time as the thesis.

JG

Note on the 2013 reissue

This new edition 2013 is consistent with the plan of the copy of the thesis as it was supported in 1958. This plan was presented in two parts only: first part, "Physical Individuation"; second part, "Individuation in living beings ". Psychic and collective Individuation were the last chapters of this second part.

The circumstances of the truncated 1964 publication at PUF and its Aubier complement in 1989 led initially to the belief that "psychic and collective individuation " could be considered as a separate, even autonomous, part. It is not so.

The texts in brackets, which were added in previous editions (1995 and 2005), were removed in the first edition of 1964, as was the entire final study on psychic and collective individuation. These texts are not just brief passages but include the essential part of the chapter "Fun and substance"4 .

\ NS

PREFACE

Introduction to Gilbert Simondon's problematic

by Jacques Garelli

1. THE PHILOSOPHICAL AND SCIENTIFIC HORIZON OF THE METHOD

If it is noted that this work is paradoxically at the confluence of a meditation inspired by the Ionian physiologists on the notion of Physis, the thought of Anaximander of the unlimited: arrEipov, that of Plato on the One and the indefinite dyad of the Grand and Petit as this principle appears in particular in discussions books Met N of the Metaphysics of Aristotle, criticism of the Aristotelian principle hylomorphic and atomistic substantialist of Leucippus and Democritus and other share the latest theories of thermodynamics, quantum physics and information 1 , rarely stressed that the Individual and physical-biological genesis was dedicated " tothe memory of Maurice Merleau-Ponty ". An essential guiding thread, as long as "memory" implies recognition, therefore fidelity and remembrance. - What? - From the Merleau-Pontian thought of the Preindividual in his connection to the individualizing formations, from his invitation to meditate the pre-democratic thought of the "element", his critique of the Theory of Form, of the hylemorphic dualism and symmetrically of atomism materialistic developed by several currents of contemporary psychology, finally, a radical critique of Nothingness and dialectic, in the sense that this notion and this process manifest a kind of overt positivism of the negation, which diverts the philosophy of the dimension preindividual of the World.

On the other hand, on the methodological level, there is a common attitude to merleau-pontian phenomenology and to the epistemology of microphysics, as stated by Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg, according to which we can not to radically separate the scientific "object" discovered at the end of a search, of the path of thought and of the operative processes that led to revealing and constructing it. This attitude is developed with extreme originality according to a personal inflection, in the Simondian conception of the transduction and the information of which it will be necessary to take measurement. Also, it seems to us difficult to conceive Gilbert Simondon's problematic, which, among other things, raises the question "Of the mode of existence of technical objects "5 6 , as a renewed form of physicalism. The dedication to Merleau-Ponty would make surprising a positivist attitude of this style. ■

On the contrary, it is the strange relation between the presocratic thought of the "Unlimited" and the "element", on the one hand, the Merleau-Pontian style of the preindividual Being, in its processes of related selectivities - and this is Gilbert Simondon's paradox and little understood originality - to the thermodynamic conception of meta-stable systems, irreducible to the order of identity, unity and otherness, that Gilbert Simondon invites to meditate and remodel from a radically new perspective. Such is the stake of this work, whose strength of invention prohibits any attempt to enclose it in a current of thought forming school.

If phenomenology, for its part, can find an interest in this meditation, it is by the questions that it poses to it, by the path, the courses, the bifurcations, the modes of problematization that it deploys on the horizon questions, which are at the heart of phenomenological concerns. Also, it is from the central question of the Preindividual, in its processes of self-selection, that we will attempt to grasp the legitimacy of the notions of metastable system, potential and energy tensions, transductivity and information, in a thought of the preindividuality of being.

He. Questioning conventional concepts and ways of thinking: Criticism of the principle of individuation

In a February 1960 working note, Merleau-Ponty writes:

"But what is beautiful is the idea of taking literally the Erwirken of thought: it is really empty, the ' invisible - All jumble positivist" concepts,' 'the' 'judgments', 'relationships' are eliminated, and the spirit deaf as water in the crack of Being - There is no searching for spiritual things, there are only structures of emptiness - I simply want to plant this emptiness in the visible Being, to show that it is Venvers, in particular the reverse of the language 7 . "

The criticism of the principle of individuation by Gilbert Simondon, whose corollaries are those of form, matter, substance, fixed and stable, autonomous terms, posited as realities in themselves forming the structure of the World, of relations, of inductive judgment and deductive judgment, proceeds from the same critical style as that recommended by Merleau-Ponty8 .

In fact, it is from the realization of a movement of being and thought closely conjoined, which generates complex processes of self-realization, stemming from a transindividual dimension of being, that this double call from Merleau-Ponty and Gilbert Simondon to the radical rethinking of philosophical concepts is pronounced.

The striking simplicity of Gilbert Simondon's demonstration, from the very beginning of his doctoral thesis, should not overshadow all the preparatory work resulting from a thorough meditation of the Ionian physiologists,9 as the thought of Plato and Aristotle. Also, is it the conclusion of a long historical meditation pursued over years of reflection and teaching, which leads to the introduction of this book. What is the nerve of the argument?

III. UNPROCESSED PRESUPPOSITIONS OF THE PRINCIPLE OF INDIVIDUATION

The first presupposition is ontological, in the sense that it is self-evident that the individual is the essential reality to explain.10 11This conviction comes from the primacy granted by Aristotle to the individual, the ouvoÀov with regard to the question of Being as Being. Why, asks Simondon, the Being, in its totality, should it end in a multiplicity of individualities to know? Why, as such, is not being a preindividual dimension? Correlatively, why does the individual, as it appears, not retain, in its dimension of being, a pre-individuality, somehow associated, irreducible to what can be thought of in terms of "individual"? Dimension that would not cease to intervene in the formation and evolution of the individual, which, therefore, takes a double relative value. In relation to the preindividual being, which he proceeds, without eliminating it. In relation to himself, as retaining an associated preindividual dimension, which continues to shape its subsequent individualizations. If this were the case, the whole quest for the principle of individuation and the very idea of this principle should be reformed.

In fact, it is not unimportant to note that it is about a theological problem, that of "the distinction of angels in persons" that Duns Scott writes his treatise on The Principle of Individuation. A problem that develops in the context of a metaphysical discussion subordinated to Aristotelian logic, itself controlled by the hylemorphic dualism and the theory of the four causes. Thus, from the "Question 1" of Ordinatio II, distinction 3, part 1, whose title is: " Is material substance individual or singular of itself, that is, by its nature ? Duns Scott puts it this way:

"(1) In the third distinction, we have to inquire into the distinction of angels into persons. Now, to see what happens to this distinction among angels, we must begin by inquiring about the distinction of material substances into individuals, because the way in which we conceive of this depends on the way of conceiving the plurality of individuals. in the same angelic species ?. "

Now question (2) shows the substantialist origin of the discussion in the dispute that Aristotle addressed to Plato. It states in these terms:

"(2) In the affirmative:

A u Book VII of the Metaphysics , the philosopher sets against Plato that "the substance of

everything is clean for what it is substance and not belong to any other " 8 . "

It is this thought of substance, not called into question, as the logical and metaphysical processes of discussion, which require criticism, as soon as the problem of individuation arises.

The second non-questioned presupposition is that individuation has a principle, which would be anterior to it, and which would make it possible to explain the formation of the singular individual. The fact that this three-tier hierarchical structure, individual, individuation, principle of individuation, is polarized by the unquestioned ontological privilege granted to the individual, which constitutes the ultimate purpose of the research, is aggravated by the fact that the The quest for the principle of individuation, as such, is a paralogism that crystallizes in the dual nature of the principle. In this respect, two historical attitudes accomplish this false course. The one, substantialist, atomist, monist, discovers in the atom of Leucippus and Democritus, the absolute elementary principle to explain the formation of the individual and the individuated universe. The theory ofclinamen, in Epicure, explains the fortuitous formation of more complex individual structures, starting from the unit atom. The modern atomistic materialism which, contrary to the warnings of Heisenberg and Bohr, continues to conceive of quantum particles as first infinitesimal substances, having an autonomous reality, as the formation of matter, continue the course of this same illusion. 9Paralogism consists in conferring upon the already individuated atom the status of principle which is supposed to explain the very formation of the individual as such. In other words, and in a contradictory way, the individual is erected as the object of research at the same time as held for the principle of his own explanation. But hylomorphic dualistic attitude of Aristotelian style hardly escapes the same contradiction, since the shape and theThe subject, as the conditions and principles of the formation of the uvovov, are in fact treated as unitary terms, as "causes" already individuated. However, it is not enough to explain that it is exclusively by abstraction and a posteriori that these principles can be disengaged from the only concrete reality that is the ovov, because, on the one hand, they are erected into causes. supreme metaphysics, therefore, principial and first. But on the other hand, the novelty of Gilbert Simondon is to demonstrate on concrete examples borrowed from the formation of natural individualities, such as the islands in a river, the sand dunes under the pressure of the wind, the gullies of a path dug by the runoff, the formation of crystals, but also on technological examples,from a form to a material. The hylemorphic schema inevitably lets escape the energetic conditions of the taking of form, which reside in the energetic potentials already deposited in the structure of the matter, that the natural conditions due to the chance or the work of the man can free, direct, channel in the formation of an individual.

8. Aristotle, Metaphysics , Z, c 13, 1038b 10-11.

9. Werner Heisenberg, Nature in contemporary physics, Paris, Gallimard, "Ideas" collection, 1962. The Part and the whole, Paris, Albin Michel, 1972. Cf on this subject J. Garelli, Rhythms and worlds, Grenoble, J. Millon, "Krisis" Collection, 1991.

On the other hand, there is no structuring form, which at the other end of the half-chain of the shape-taking rests on a certain material structure of the form allowing the potential energy, included in form, to structure matter. Problem of extreme complexity that renders the principle of hylemor-phic individuation obsolete. Now, in terms of artistic creation, that is to say, the formation of material individualities which, by the organization of their structure, give rise to thought, we can show that the formation of a poem, in its irreducible individuality to another poem, of a painting or a statue, never arises from a principle of monistic or hylemorphic individuation. But of a process of differentiation, developed from a field of preindividual tensions, which constitutes the meta-stable horizon of the World of Work. From then on, the quest for the principle of individuation, be it atomistic, substantialist or dualistic, hylemorphic, leads to the contradiction of seeking in the individual already formed into atoms or particularized according to the fixed terms of a form and of a matter, erected into causes, which should have precisely explained the formation of the individual as such. This situation leads Simondon to ask the following questions: which should have precisely explained the formation of the individual as such. This situation leads Simondon to ask the following questions: which should have precisely explained the formation of the individual as such. This situation leads Simondon to ask the following questions:

Can we not conceive of individuation as being without principle, because it itself an intrinsic process to the formations of individuals, never completed, never fixed, never stable, but always fulfilling in their evolution, an individuation which structures them without it? they eliminate the associated preindividuality charge, constituting the horizon of transindividual Being from which they stand out?

IV. METHODOLOGICAL CONSEQUENCES OF THIS CHALLENGE

Such is the radical novelty of Gilbert Simondon's problematic, which will make it possible to conceive in terms of transduction the processes of differentiation that unfold from a pre-individual metastable system, worked with tensions, of which the individual is one of the deployment phases. It is in this context that the concepts of potential charge, oriented voltages, supersaturation, phase shift, borrowed from thermodynamics, but also internal resonance to the system, intervene. According to this perspective, instead of reducing ontogenesis to the restricted dimension and derived from the genesis of the individual, it is a matter of conferring on him the broader character of "becoming of being, by which being becomes as it is, as being12 13 . The ontological dimension of the problem is reinforced by the concern with which Simondon emphasizes the non-competence of the principle of identity and the excluded third, wrought from a perspective of substantialist and identity-oriented logic of the individuated being to tackle the problematic of the problem. to be preindividual. Gilbert Simondon can declare:

"The unity, characteristic of the individuated being, and the identity, authorizing the use of the principle of the excluded third, do not apply to the preindividual being, which explains why we can not recompose the world of monads even by adding other principles, such as sufficient reason for ordering universe 11 . "

This reference to Leibniz, like those of the pre-Islamic philosophers, Plato and Aristotle, attest to the philosophical scale of the irreducible debate to a strictly physicalist attitude. Not only does Gilbert Simondon justify the philosophical use of notions borrowed from thermodynamics as paradigms, but he also gives a precise account of the historical methodological reasons which have blocked the ancients in the sliced alternatives established between being and becoming, movement and rest, substantial stability and chaotic instability . 1 2

Now, three data are involved in the understanding of the metastable equilibrium to which thermodynamics has familiarized us and which Simondon introduces in an original way into its problematic.

This is, firstly, the potential energy of a system.

Secondly, the concept of order of magnitude and different scale within the system.

Third, the increase in entropy, which corresponds to the energy degradation of the system and involves the resolution of initial potentialities. The taking into individualizing forms, therefore, is correlative to the progressive degradation of the potential energy. A so-called completed form is a stabilized energy corresponding to the highest degree of negentropy.

Guided by this paradigm, borrowed from thermodynamics, and not from the physics of fixed substances, which ignores the problems of energy, as attested by the concepts of classical philosophy, especially the idea of res extensa,Simondon will attempt to think of the order of the preindividuality of being, in terms of a supersaturated potential charge within a metastable system, from which the degradation of energy resulting from a state of overvoltage of the system, will produce processes of differentiation and individuation. Therefore, it is by being displaced that a metastable system, charged with a supersaturated energy potential, becomes individualized at the same time as it makes spring, from its internal tensions not yet individualized, a profusion of individualizing forms, which subsequently, are able to structure themselves into later systems and to reform into renewed metastable equilibria. So, according to Simondon's expression:

"... any operation, and any relationship to the inside of an operation is an individuation which splits, phase shifts the preindividual be, while correlating outliers, orders of magnitude originally without mediation , 3 . "

Situation that gives relationships a burden of being that exceeds and exceeds the order of knowledge and strictly logical meanings. This makes it possible to avoid dualism between an act of intellectual knowledge, abstract and inert objects on which the cognitive act bears.

How is this pitfall avoided? 14 15

First, by conferring on relationships traditionally treated in strictly logical terms, as is the case in the classical theories of deduction and induction, a dimension of being.

Secondly, by treating the transduction operation, together with that of individualizing fitness, which manifests the passage from the preindividual metastable field to the individuations in formation. Let's examine the first point. The relations between the extreme stress fields of the metastable system, charged with potentiality, have the rank of being, insofar as the differential values between what can no longer be described as preexisting terms, are not yet individualized, but correspond to "Dimensions" and "scales of tension" from which emerges the resolving energy of the system. According to this perspective:

"The relationship does not spring between two terms that are already individuals; it is an aspect of the internal resonance of a system of individuation ; it is part of a system state. This living being, which is at the same time more and less unity, has an inner problematic and can enter as an element into a larger problem than its own being . Participation, for the individual, is Lefait to be part of a broader individuation through the reality of load preindividual that contains the individual,  that is to say thanks to the potential that recèlei 4 . "(Emphasis by the author).

According to the second point, the transduction, closely linked to the discharge of the supersaturated potential energy of a metastable system, will appear as a form-finding and, as such, in the two-way topological and conjugated noetic, "in-formation" . For, in the same movement in which a process of transduction, correlative to the discharge of the potential preindividual energy of a metastable system "in-form" topologically-a structure, which is given to see and to think, one can recognize that it "informs" nobly what it shows up and according to its associated preindividual load, the horizon to be preindividual from which it is detached. What makes transduction, unlike induction and deduction, which have no rank of being, but are strictly logical relations external to the pre-existing terms which they connect, reveal themselves, according to a double dimension of being and of thought, never external to the terms which it makes appear. An individualized movement of knowledge, but also, a movement of being, transduction is a form of solidarity with the energy discharge of the metastable system, which is revealed as being other than a unit and other than identity. As such,

"Transduction is not only the approach of the mind; it is also intuition, since it is what a structure appears in a field of problematic as providing the resolution of the problems posed. But unlike deduction, transduction is not going to look elsewhere for a principle to solve the problem of a domain: it draws the resolving structure from the very tensions of this domain, as the supersaturated solution crystallizes thanks to its own potentials. and according to the chemical species which it contains, not by contribution of some foreign form. "

It is in this sense that transduction is

"A discovery of dimensions whose system makes those of each of the terms communicate, and such that the complete reality of each of the terms of the domain can come to order without loss, without reduction, in the new structures discovered 16 17 . "

Therefore, the good form is no longer the stabilized, fixed form that Gestalt-theory believed to be spotting, but the one rich in energetic potential, charged with future transductions. Good form never ceases to make one think, and in this sense to engender subsequent individuations, in the sense that it makes it possible to anticipate future individuations. Therefore, the information carried by the transducer movements is no longer to be conceived as the transmission of an already established coded message, sent by a transmitter and transmitted to a receiver, but as the taking form: (topological information), which, starting from a field of preindividual tensions, of the same movement in which the form becomes individualized, informs in the noetic sense of that which appears topologically and from which it is detached. "Ray of Time", "Ray of World", which points to a preindividuality of being, which is its source and origin. In this sense, information is a "theater of individuals". This is a situation that can only be understood in the context of the transition from an energy problematic of meta-stable states to states in the process of stabilization, which, therefore, are in a situation of resolution, but also of energy depletion, like the volcanic rocks, in the splendor of their individual forms, manifest the energetic death of an earlier lava flow. Also, the pure form, the good form of the Gestaltists is a stabilized energy that has come to the end of all its processes of individuation and transformation. The same can be said of the pure and completed pictorial form, which is looming on the horizon of the almost illegible entanglement of earlier sketches, such as the admirable preparatory drawings of the drawing painters who let the feather forming the preindividual skein run for future births. As such, the drawing is a metastable field worked with tensions from which lines gradually emerge where the individualizing forms stabilize. However, these forms can become energy power again, if we combine them with other forms and if we integrate them into a more complex structure in which they will compose as energy potential in phases of tension and in search of resolution. The painter's gesture in direct contact with this field of linear and colored metastability is a theater of individualizations. such as the admirable preparatory drawings of the drawing painters who let the feather forming the preindividual skein run for future births. As such, the drawing is a metastable field worked with tensions from which lines gradually emerge where the individualizing forms stabilize. However, these forms can become energy power again, if we combine them with other forms and if we integrate them into a more complex structure in which they will compose as energy potential in phases of tension and in search of resolution. The painter's gesture in direct contact with this field of linear and colored metastability is a theater of individualizations. such as the admirable preparatory drawings of the drawing painters who let the feather forming the preindividual skein run for future births. As such, the drawing is a metastable field worked with tensions from which lines gradually emerge where the individualizing forms stabilize. However, these forms can become energy power again, if we combine them with other forms and if we integrate them into a more complex structure in which they will compose as energy potential in phases of tension and in search of resolution. The painter's gesture in direct contact with this field of linear and colored metastability is a theater of individualizations. the drawing is a metastable field worked with tensions from which lines gradually emerge where the individualizing forms stabilize. However, these forms can become energy power again, if we combine them with other forms and if we integrate them into a more complex structure in which they will compose as energy potential in phases of tension and in search of resolution. The painter's gesture in direct contact with this field of linear and colored metastability is a theater of individualizations. the drawing is a metastable field worked with tensions from which lines gradually emerge where the individualizing forms stabilize. However, these forms can become energy power again, if we combine them with other forms and if we integrate them into a more complex structure in which they will compose as energy potential in phases of tension and in search of resolution. The painter's gesture in direct contact with this field of linear and colored metastability is a theater of individualizations. if we combine them with other forms and integrate them into a more complex structure in which they will compose as energy potential in phases of tension and in search of resolution. The painter's gesture in direct contact with this field of linear and colored metastability is a theater of individualizations. if we combine them with other forms and integrate them into a more complex structure in which they will compose as energy potential in phases of tension and in search of resolution. The painter's gesture in direct contact with this field of linear and colored metastability is a theater of individualizations.

Such is the situation, for example, of a fragment of a statue bust photographed in a "collage", which in itself has a fixed form of fragment of stable reality, indexed and defined by a name, but which, a Once integrated into the new "system", takes a potential charge value, whose enigma dimension is relative to the metastable set of the composition. Now, in this metastable system in the internal resonance phase, it is the enigmatic character of the form introduced by a foreign element, which reshapes the whole by raising questions. This indicates that the questioning is crossed by chiasm on the meta-unit structure of the composition, full of potential forms and meaning inépuisablesi 6. Therefore, taking elm in the topological sense, by its structural metastability responsible for unresolved tensions, reveals "information" topological and noetic closely intertwined and taken chiasm on one autrei 7 .18 19

Also, is it to a non-identity World, where the individuations in formation always return to an underlying field of preindividuality, most often inapparent and forgotten, that the meditation of Gilbert Simondon refers to, as the inexhaustible enigma to meditate.

V. THE CRISIS OF UNDERSTANDING IN THE PHYSICAL SCIENCES AND ITS IMPLICATIONS

IN THE PHILOSOPHICAL CONCEPT OF THE BEING

However, a question remains about the use of theories borrowed from thermodynamics and quantum physics, from the philosophical problem of the preindividual and the contemporary conception of being. Without discussing the purely technical aspect of the problem, however, it is necessary to recall the complexity of the debate and it is important to reflect on the exemplary prudence of Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg, each time they have tackled the question of philosophical status, but one could also say of the "mode of being" of the quantum particle. This ontological question was at the heart of the meditations of these physicists. So, it is not useless to recall the end of the conversation between these two scholars, which concerns The Notion of Understanding in Modern Physics. ls This problem is also ours, not only as soon as the question of being is posed, but as soon as the philosopher, taking note that the dominant state of nature is not matter, but energy, ask about the ability of our mind to "understand" the components of this phenomenon.

Thus, to the pressing question formulated by Heisenberg:

"If the internal structure of the atom is as inaccessible to a visual description as you say, and if basically we do not even have language that allows us to discuss this structure, is there any hope? that we never understand anything about atoms? "

Bohr hesitated a moment, reports Heisenberg, then says:

"All the same, yes. But only then will we understand what the word "understand" means20 21 22 . "

It is in having taken this attitude of circumspection that we can attempt to evaluate Gilbert Simondon's no less cautious one, when he refers to the theory of quanta and the possible use of mechanics. undulatory, in the clarification of the preindividual problematic. The crisis of meaning, that shook the scientific and philosophical problems of the XX th century can not do without these issues.

Thus, after having contested the mechanism and energetics that remain theories of identity, which, as such, can not give a complete account of reality, 2 Simondon notes the insufficiency of field theory, added to that of corpuscles, as of the conception of the interaction between fields and particles, because these attitudes remain partially dualistic. However, they allow, according to Simondon, to move towards a renewed theory of preindi vidual. 2 1

It is then that he tries another way, which takes up, in a new form, the theses that Bohr had elaborated on the complementarity of quantum theory and wave mechanics and that he tries to "converge two theories hitherto impenetrable to one another22. "

In fact, it is a question of "considering these two theories as two ways of expressing the preindividual through the different manifestations where it intervenes as pre-dividend" 3 . "

According to this methodological approach, Simondon notes that

"... by another way, the theory of quanta seizes this regime of the preindividual which exceeds

unity: an exchange of energy is done by elementary quantities, as if there were a

individuation, which in a sense can be considered as physical individuals. »24

It is within the framework of this hypothesis integrated into what he calls "an analogical philosophy of" as if "" that this philosopher proposes to conceive, under the order of the continuous and the discontinuous, "the quantum and the complementary metastable (most unit) which is the true preindividual25. "

Reflecting on the need for physics to correct and couple basic concepts, Simondon suggests the hypothesis that this need "may reflect the fact that concepts are adequate to reality alone". and not to the preindividual reality. If this is so, no positive physical certainty can give an objective solution to a philosophical problem, such as that posed by the preindividual dimension of an original "there is", from which will emerge, by the following, an elaborate problematic of the being in the phase of individuation, precisely because the act of "understanding" is crossed in chiasm on the physical field and that this joint structure of being and knowledge poses a philosophical problem which exceeds by its intertwined structure of "chiasm", a simple problem of positive style, whatever the timeliness of the scientific theory envisaged.

It is within this framework of thought that the reevaluation of the principle of complementarity, stated by Niels Bohr, and the meaning to be given to the dual approach of particle physics and wave mechanics, as Louis de Broglie has rephrased it, at the end of his life, after his simplified presentation to  the Solvay Council in 1927, which had been criticized by the founders of quantum physics, are presented in a new light. As such, Simondon suggests, in addition to the re-evaluation of the complementarity principle of Niels Bohr, an original interpretation of Heisenberg's indeterminacy principle, as well as a reassessment of the introduction of statistical computing into the mathematical formulation of this principle. 23 24 25 26 27 28  principle2 7 . It is in this framework of reform that Simondon presents his conception of transduction as the effort to think in the same unity, the "object" of research and the movement of knowledge that leads to it.

The question that arises is therefore whether, in view of this methodological reform, the distinction made by Heisenberg between the actual reality of the quantum particle and the knowledge that the physicist has of it, does not appear to be tainted. of a dualism, which would be controlled by the methodological privilege granted to the individual unity of the quantum particle, initially considered as the "reality" to be explained, whereas it appears, perhaps, only as a possible process of individuation, coming from a preindividuality, which would be in a relation of discontinuity with respect to the field of its manifestation.

This is the philosophical and not merely epistemological challenge of Gilbert Simondon's questioning. In fact, this non-identity conception of the being, which requires to be restored in a field of original metastability, goes beyond the framework of a subatomic physics, a problematic of the technical object and vital individuation. . It is based on three different lines of research, 1) the perception of the thing in the world, 2) the question of artistic creation as a whole, 3) the still current ontological difference, as far as the question of the Being, as Heidegger teaches, remains that of the Being of being29 30 31 32 33 34 .

Now, the non-identity dimension of being, with regard to which the ontological difference is marked, forbids asking this question according to the terms used by Heidegger, in each of his works.3 I For what this philosopher held for a an individual reality with a fixed and stable unitary character of being "intramondan" is immediately revealed as a non-being: no ens, "no-thing". This introduces in an unexpected way the problematic of the Nothingness at the very heart of the structure of being, which, therefore, is no longer one! Paradox that requires going beyond the question of the ontological difference, as Heidegger conceived it32.

From then on, a whole field of contemporary philosophical research is invited to fundamentally renew the mode of questioning the thing in its relation to the preindividuality of the world. It is not the least merit of Gilbert Simondon, beyond the strictly epistemological character of his approach, to have sensitized the philosophical attention to the magnitude of these upheavals.

The individuation

in the light of the notions of form and information

In memory of Maurice Merleau-Ponty

Introduction

There are two ways in which the reality of being as an individual can be approached: a substantialist way, considering being as consisting in its unity, given to itself, based on itself, ungenerated, resistant to what is not himself; a hylemorphic way, considering the individual as engendered by the meeting of a form and a matter. The self-centered monism of substantialist thought is opposed to the bipolarity of the hylemorphic schema. But there is something common in these two ways of approaching the reality of the individual: both assume that there exists a principle of individuation prior to individuation itself, capable of explaining it, of to produce it, to drive it. Starting from the constituted and given individual, we try to go back to the conditions of his existence. This way of putting the problem of individuation on the basis of the observation of the existence of individuals conceals a presupposition which must be elucidated, because it entails an important aspect of the solutions proposed and slips into the search for the principle of individuation: it is the individual as a constituted individual who is the interesting reality, the reality to be explained. The principle of individuation will be sought as a principle capable of accounting for the characteristics of the individual, without any necessary relation to other aspects of being which could be correlative to the appearance of an individuated real. because it involves an important aspect of the solutions that are proposed and slips into the search for the principle of individuation: it is the individual as a constituted individual who is the interesting reality, the reality to be explained. The principle of individuation will be sought as a principle capable of accounting for the characteristics of the individual, without any necessary relation to other aspects of being which could be correlative to the appearance of an individuated real. because it involves an important aspect of the solutions that are proposed and slips into the search for the principle of individuation: it is the individual as a constituted individual who is the interesting reality, the reality to be explained. The principle of individuation will be sought as a principle capable of accounting for the characteristics of the individual, without any necessary relation to other aspects of being which could be correlative to the appearance of an individuated real.Such a research perspective grants an ontological privilege to the constituted individual. It therefore risks not operating a real ontogenesis, not placing the individual in the reality system in which individuation occurs. What is a postulate in the search for the principle of individuation is that individuation has a principle. In this very notion of principle, there is a certain character which prefigures the constituted individuality, with the properties it will have when it is constituted; the notion of the principle of individuation comes to a certain extent from a reverse genesis, an inverted ontogeny : to account for the genesis of the individual with his definitive characters, we must assume the existence of a prime term, the principle, which carries with it what will explain that the individual is individual and will account for its ecstasy. But it would remain precisely to show that ontogeny can have as a first condition a prime term: a term is already an individual or at least something that can be individualized and that can be a source of ecstasy, which can be converted into multiple ; all that can be a support of relation is already of the same mode of being that the individual, that it is the atom, nonbreaking particle and eternal, the material prime, or the form: the atom can enter in relation with d other atoms by the clinamen, and he thus constitutes an individual, viable or not, through infinite emptiness and endless becoming. Matter can receive a form, and in this matter-form relation lies ontogenesis. If there was not one

Certain inherence of ecstasy in the atom, in matter, or in form, there would be no possibility of finding in these invoked realities a principle of individuation. To look for the principle of individuation in a reality that precedes individuation itself is to consider individuation as only ontogenesis. The principle of individuation is then a source of ecstasy. In fact, both atomist and the hylemorphic doctrine avoid the direct description of ontogeny itself; atomism describes the genesis of the compound, as the living body, which has only a precarious and perishable unity, which comes out of a chance encounter and will dissolve back into its elements when a force greater than the cohesive force atoms will attack it in its compound unit. The forces of cohesion themselves, which could be considered as the principle of individuation of the composite individual, are rejected in the structure of the elementary particles which exist from all eternity and are the real individuals; the principle of individuation, in atomism, is the very existence of the infinity of atoms: it is always already there at the moment when thought wants to become aware of its nature: individuation is a fact, it is for each atom, its own given existence, and, for the compound, the fact that he is what he is by virtue of a chance encounter. according tothe hylémorphique schema, on the contrary, the individuated being is not already given when one considers the matter and the form which will become the ouvoÀov: one does not attend the ontogenesis because one is always placed before this taking shape which is ontogenesis; the principle of individuation is thus not grasped in individuation itself as an operation, but in what this operation needs in order to be able to exist, namely a matter and a form: the principle is supposed to be contained either in matter or in the form, because the operation of individuation is not supposed to be able to bring the principle itself, but only to implement it. The search for the principle of individuation is accomplished either after individuation or before individuation, depending on whether the model of the individual is physical (for substantialist atomism) or technological and vital (for the hylemorphic schema). But in both cases there is a dark zone which covers the operation of individuation. This operation is considered as something to be explained and not as what the explanation must be found from: hence the notion of the principle of individuation. And the operation is considered as something to be explained because the thought is stretched towards the accomplished individuated being which must be accounted for, by going through the stage of individuation to reach the individual after this operation. There is therefore a supposition of the existence of a temporal succession: first, there exists the principle of individuation; then this principle operates in an operation of individuation; finally, the constituted individual appears. If, on the contrary, it is supposed that individuation does not only produce the individual,to know the individual through individuation rather than individuation from the individual.

We would like to show that we must reverse the search for the principle of individuation, considering as primordial the operation of individuation from which the individual comes to exist and of which he reflects the unfolding, the regime, and lastly, the modalities, in its characters. The individual would then be seized as a relative reality, a certain phase of being which presupposes a pre-individual reality before it, and which, even after individuation, does not exist alone, because the individual

duation does not exhaust one stroke potential of preindividual reality, and secondly, that individuation shows not only the individual but the individual mid-torque 1 · The individual is thus relative in two senses: because it is not all being, and because it results from a state of being in which it existed neither as an individual nor as a principle of individuation.

Individuation is thus considered as the only ontogenetic, as an operation of the complete being. Individuation must then be considered as partial and relative resolution manifested in a system concealing potentials and containing a certain incompatibility with respect to itself, incompatibility made of forces of tension as well as impossibility of an interaction between extreme terms of the dimensions.

The word ontogenesis takes all its meaning if, instead of giving it the restricted and derived meaning of the genesis of the individual (as opposed to a larger genesis, for example that of the species), it is made to designate the character of becoming of being, by which being becomes as it is, as being. The opposition of being and of becoming can only be valid within a certain doctrine supposing that the very model of being is substance. But it is also possible to suppose that becoming is a dimension of being, corresponds to an ability that being has to be out of step with itself, to resolve itself by being out of step; To be preindividual is the being in which there is no phase ; Being in which an individuation is accomplished is that in which a resolution appears through the division of being into phases, which is becoming; becoming is not a framework in which being exists; it is dimension of the being, mode of resolution of an initial incompatibility rich in potential. Individuation corresponds to the appearance of phases in being which are the phases of being ; it is not a consequence deposited at the edge of becoming and isolated, but this operation even being fulfilled; it can only be understood from this initial supersaturation of the being without becoming and homogeneous which then becomes structured and becomes, revealing the individual and the medium, according to the becoming which is a resolution of the first tensions and a conservation of these tensions in the form of structure; one could say in a sense that the only principle on which one can be guided is that of the preservation of being through becoming ; this conservation exists through exchanges between structure and operation, proceeding by quantum leaps through successive equilibria. To think individuation we must consider being not as substance, or matter, or form, but as a tense, supersaturated system, above the level of unity, consisting not only in itself, and not may not be adequately thought through the excluded third principle; the concrete being, or being complete, that is, the preindividual being, is a being that is more than a unit. The unit, characteristic of the individuated being, and the identity, authorizing the use of the principle of the excluded third, do not apply to the preindividual being, which explains why we can not recompose the world with monads, even by adding other principles, such as that of sufficient reason, to order them in universes; unity and identity only apply to one of the phases of being, post-opera-35 36

ration of individuation; these notions can not help to discover the principle of individuation; they do not apply to ontogenesis understood in the full sense of the term, that is, to the becoming of being as a being that splits and extraves itself by self-dividing.

Individuation could not be adequately thought and described because we knew only one form of equilibrium, stable equilibrium; the metastable equilibrium was unknown; the being was implicitly assumed in a state of stable equilibrium; however, stable equilibrium excludes becoming, because it corresponds to the lowest possible level of potential energy; it is the equilibrium that is reached in a system when all possible transformations have been realized and no longer any force exists; all potentials have been actualized, and the system that has reached its lowest energy level can not be transformed again. The ancients knew only instability and stability, movement and rest, they did not know clearly and objectively the metastability. To define metastability,37 ; it is thus possible to define this metastable state of being, very different from the stable equilibrium and. of rest, that the ancients could not bring in the search for the principle of individuation, because no clear physical paradigm could for them to enlighten the employment38 . We will therefore first try to presentphysical individuation as the case of solving a metastable system,from asystem state like that of supercooling or supersaturation, which governs the genesis of crystals. Crystallization is rich in well-studied notions that can be used as paradigms in other fields; but it does not exhaust the reality of physical individuation. Thus we will have to ask ourselves if we can not interpret by means of this notion of becoming metastable being certain aspects of microphysics, and in particular the complementarity character of the concepts that we use in the form of couples. (wave-particle, matter-energy). Perhaps this duality derives from the fact that scientific conceptualism supposes the existence of a real fact of terms between which relations exist, the terms not being modified by relations in their internal structure39 .

Now, one can also suppose that reality is primitively, in itself, like the supersaturated solution and more completely still in the preindividual regime, more than unity and more than identity, capable of manifesting itself as a wave or a corpuscle, matter or energy, because every operation, and every relation within an operation, is an individuation that splits, shifts the preindividual being, while correlating extreme values, orders of magnitude, primitively without mediation. Complementarity would then be the epistemological repercussion of the metastability

mitive and original of the real. Neither mechanism nor energy, theories of identity, fully account for reality. The field theory, added to that of the corpuscles, and the theory of the interaction between fields and corpuscles, are still partially dualistic, but are moving towards a theory of the preindividual. By another way, the quantum theory captures this regime of the preindividual which goes beyond unity: an exchange of energy is done by elementary quantities, as if there were an individuation of energy in the relation between the particles, which can in a sense be considered as physical individuals. It would perhaps be in this sense that we could see the two new theories, which until now remain impenetrable to each other, that of quanta and that of wave mechanics: they could be considered as two ways of expressing the individual through the various events where he acts as a pre-individual. Below the continuous and the discontinuous, there is the quantum and the metastable complement (the most unit), which is the true preindividual. The need to correct and combine basic concepts in physics may reflect the fact that concepts are adequate to individual reality only, and not to preindividual reality.

We would then understand the paradigmatic value of the study of the genesis of crystals as a process of individuation: it would make it possible to grasp on a macroscopic scale a phenomenon that relies on system states belonging to the microphysical, molecular and non-molar domain; she would seize the activity which is at the limit of the crystal being formed. Such an individuation is not the meeting of a form and a prior material existing as separate terms previously constituted, but a resolution arising within a meta-stable system rich in potential form, matter, and energy preexist in the system. Neither form nor matter is enough. The true principle of individuation is mediated, generally assuming original duality of orders of magnitude and initial absence of interactive communication between them, then communication between orders of magnitude and stabilization.

At the same time as a potential energy ( higher order of magnitude ) is actualized, a matter is ordered and distributed ( lower order of magnitude ) in structured individuals at an order of magnitude , developing through a mediated process of amplification.

It is the energy regime of the metastable system that leads to crystallization and underlies it, but the crystal form expresses certain molecular or atomic characters of the constituent chemical species.

In the field of life, the same notion of metastability can be used to characterize individuation; but individuation no longer occurs, as in the physical realm, in a way that is only instantaneous, quantum, abrupt and definitive, leaving after it a duality of the medium and the individual, the medium being impoverished by the individual who it is not and the individual no longer has the dimension of the medium. Such individuation undoubtedly exists also for the living as an absolute origin; but it is coupled with a perpetual individuation, which is life itself, according to the fundamental mode of becoming: the living retains in itself an activity of permanent individuation ; it is not only the result of individuation, like the crystal or the molecule, but the theater of individuation. So all the activity of the living is not, like that of the physical individual, concentrated at its limit; there exists in him a more complete regime of internal resonance demanding permanent communication, and now

metastability which is a condition of life. This is not the only character of the living, and we can not equate the living with an automaton that maintains a certain number of equilibria or that seeks compatibilities between several requirements, according to a complex equilibrium equilibrium formula. simpler; the living being is also the being which results from an initial individuation and which amplifies this individuation, which does not do the technical object to which the cybernetic mechanism would like to assimilate it functionally. There is in the living an individuation by the individual and not only an operation resulting from an individuation once accomplished, comparable to a fabrication; the living solves problems, not only by adapting, that is to say by modifying its relation to the environment (as a machine can do), but by modifying itself, by inventing new internal structures, by introducing himself completely into the axiomatic of vital problems40 . The living individual is an individuation system, an individuating system and an individual system; the internal resonance and the translation of the relation to oneself in information are in this system of the living. In the physical realm, the internal resonance characterizes the limit of the individual beingindividuated ; in the living domain, it becomes the criterion of the whole individual as an individual; it exists in the system of the individual and not only in that which the individual forms with his environment; the internal structure of the organism is no longer the result (like that of the crystal) of the activity that is accomplished and of the modulation that takes place at the boundary between the domain of interiority and the domain of externality; the physical individual, perpetually eccentric, perpetually peripheral in relation to himself, active at the limit of his domain, has no true interiority; the living individual, on the contrary, has a true interiority, because individuation is accomplished within; the interior also is constituent, in the living individual, whereas the limit alone is constitutive in the physical individual, and that which is topologically interior is genetically anterior. The living individual is contemporary with himself in all his elements, which is not the physical individual, which has a radically past past, even when he is still growing. The living is within itself an informative communication node; it is system in a system, comprising in itself mediating between two orders of magnitude 41 .

Finally, one can make a hypothesis, analogous to that of quanta in physics, analogous also to that of the relativity of potential energy levels: it can be supposed that individuation does not exhaust the whole preindividual reality, and that The regime of metastability is not only maintained by the individual, but carried by him, so that the constituted individual carries with him a certain associated load of preindividual reality, animated by all the potentials that characterize it; an individuation is relative as a change of structure in a physical system; a certain level of potential remains, and individuations are still possible. This preindividual nature remaining associated with the individual is a source of future metastable states from which new individuations can emerge. According to this hypothesis,

sible to consider any true relation as having a rank of being, and as developing within a new individuation ; the relationship does not spring between two terms that are already individuals; it is an aspect of the internal resonance of a system of individuation ; it is part of a system state. This living being, which is at the same time more and less than unity, has an inner problematic and can enter as an element into a larger problem than its own being. Participation for the individual is the fact of being part of a larger individuation  through the preindividual reality charge that the individual contains,  that is to say thanks to the potentials that he conceals.

It then becomes possible to think of the inner and outer relation to the individual as participation without resorting to new substances. The psyche and the collective are constituted by individuations coming after the vital individuation. Psyche is the pursuit of vital individuation in a being who, in order to solve his own problematic, is obliged to intervene himself as an element of the problem by his action, as a subject. ; the subject can be conceived as the unity of being as an individuated living being and as a being who represents his action throughout the world as the element and dimension of the world; vital problems are not closed on themselves; their open axiomatic can be saturated only by an indefinite succession of successive individuations which always engage more preindividual reality and incorporate it into the relation in the middle; affectivity and perception fit into emotion and science that involve the use of dimensions new. However, the psychic being can not solve in itself its own problem; its charge of preindividual reality, at the same time that it is individuated as a psychic being that goes beyond the limits of the individuated life and incorporates the living into a system of the world and the subject, allows participation as a condition of individuation of the collective. ; Individuation in the form of a collective makes the individual a group individual, associated with the group by the preindividual reality which he carries within himself and which, united with that of other individuals, is individuated in collective unity. The two individuations, psychic and collective, are reciprocal with respect to each other; they make it possible to define a category of the transindividual that tends to account for the systematic unity of the inner (psychic) individuation, and the external (collective) individuation. The psycho-social world of the transindividual is neither the gross social nor the interindividual; it supposes a real operation of individuation starting from a preindividual reality, associated with individuals and capable of constituting a new problematic having its own metastability; it expresses a quantum condition, correlative of a plurality of orders of magnitude. The living is presented as being problematic, higher and lower at once to unity. To say that the living is problematic is to consider becoming as a dimension of the living: the living is according to the becoming, which operates a mediation. The living is agent and theater of individuation; its becoming is a permanent individuation or rather a succession of individuation access  advancing metastability into metastability; the individual is thus neither substance nor mere part of the collective: the collective intervenes as a resolution of the individual problematic, which means that the basis of the collective reality is already partially contained in the individual, in the form of reality pre-individual that remains associated with the individual reality; what we generally consider as a relationship, because of the substantialization of the individual reality, is in fact a dimension of individuation through which the individual becomes: the relation, to the world and to the col-

lectif, is a dimension of individuation in which the individual participates from the individual pre- individual reality that is indivisible step by step.

Also, psychology and theory of the collective are linked: it is the ontogenesis which indicates what is the participation in the collective and which also indicates what the psychic operation conceived as the resolution of a problematic. The individuation of life is conceived as a discovery, in a conflictual situation, of a new axiomatic incorporating and unifying into a system containing the individual all the elements of this situation. To understand what psychic activity is within the theory of individuation as a resolution of the conflicting character of a metastable state, we must discover the true paths of institution of metastable systems in life; in this sense, the notion of the adaptive relation of the individual to the environment * as well as the critical notion ofrelation of the knowing subject to the known object must be modified; knowledge is not constructed in an abstract way from sensation, but in a problematic way from a first tropistic unit, a pair of sensation and tropism, orientation of the living being in a polarized world ; here again we must detach ourselves from the hylemorphic schema; there is not a sensation which would be a material constituting a given a posteriori for the forms a priori of the sensibility; the a priori forms are a first resolution by axiomatic discovery of the tensions resulting from the clash of primitive tropistic units; the forms a priori of sensitivity are neither a priori nor a posteriori obtained by abstraction, but the structures of an axiomatic that appears in an individuation operation. In the tropistic unit there is already the world and the living, but the world only appears in it as a direction, as a polarity of a gradient which places the individuated being in an indefinite dyade of which it occupies the midpoint, and which spreads from him. Perception and then science continue to solve this problem, not only by the invention of spatio-temporal frames, but by the constitution of the notion of object, which becomes the source of primitive gradients and orders them to world. The distinction between a priori and a posteriori, the resonance of the hylemorphic schema in the theory of knowledge, the veil of its central dark zone, is the true operation of individuation which is the center of knowledge. The very notion of a qualitative or intensive series deserves to be thought according to the theory of the phases of being: it is not relational and supported by a preexistence of extreme terms, but it develops from a primitive average state that locates the living and inserts it into the gradient that gives meaning to tropistic unity: the series is an abstract vision of meaning according to which the tropical unit is oriented. It is necessary to start from individuation, from the being seized in its center according to the spatiality and the becoming, not of a substantial individual in front of a world foreign to him. 42 43 .

The same method can be used to explore affectivity and emotivity, which constitute the resonance of being in relation to itself, and relate indi- vidual being to the preindividual reality that is associated with it, such as Tropistic unity and perception link it to the environment. The psyche is made of successive individualizations allowing the being to solve the problematic states corresponding to the permanent setting in communication of the biggest and the smallest one.

But the psyche can not be solved at the level of the individuated being alone; it is the foundation of participation in a larger individuation, that of the collective; the individual being alone, putting himself in question, can not go beyond the limits of anxiety, an operation without action, a permanent emotion which can not resolve affectivity, a test by which the individuated being explores its dimensions of being without being able to go beyond them. To the collective taken as axiomatic solving the psychological problem corresponds the notion of transindividual.

Such a set of reforms of the notions is supported by the assumption that information is never relative to a single and homogeneous reality, but to two orders in a state of disappearance : information, whether at the level of the tropistic unit or at the level of the transindividual, is never deposited in a form that can be given; it is the tension between two real disparities, it is the meaning that will arise when an operation of individuation will discover the dimension according to which two real disparities can become system ; information is therefore a beggining of individuation, a requirement of individuation, it is never given thing; there is no unity and identity of the information because the information is not a  term; it supposes the tension of a system of being; it can only be innate to a problem; the information is that by which the incompatibility of the unresolved system becomes organizing dimension in the resolution ; the information supposes a phase change of a system because it supposes a first preindividual state which is indivisible according to the organization discovered; information is the formula of individuation, a formula that can not exist before this individuation; you could say that information is still present today, because it is the sense that a system individue 10 .

The conception of the being on which this study is based is as follows: the being does not possess a unity of identity, which is that of the stable state in which no transformation is possible; the being possesses a transductive imitation ; that is to say, it can be out of phase with itself, overflowing itself on both sides of its center. What we take for relationship or duality of principles is in fact staggering of being, which is more than unity and more than identity; becoming is a dimension of being, not what happens to it according to a succession that would be suffered by a primitively given and substantial being. Individuation must be grasped as becoming of being, and not as a model of being that would exhaust its meaning. The individuated being is not all being nor the first being; instead of grasping individuation from the indi-44

emptied, we must grasp the individuated being from individuation, and individuation, from preindividual being, distributed according to several orders of magnitude.

The intention of this study is therefore to study the forms, modes and degrees of individuation in order to place the individual in the being, according to the three levels: physical, vital, psycho-social. Instead of assuming substances to account for individuation, we take the different regimes of individuation as the foundation of domains such as matter, life, spirit, society. The separation, the staging, the relations of these domains appear as aspects of individuation according to its different modalities; to the notions of substance, form, matter, substitute the more fundamental notions of first information, internal resonance, energy potential, orders of magnitude.

But for this modification of notions to be possible, it is necessary to involve at the same time a new method and a new notion. The method is not to try to compose the essence of a reality through a conceptual relationship between two extreme terms, and to consider any true relation as having a rank of being. The relationship is a modality of being; it is simultaneous with the terms of which it ensures existence. A relation must be grasped as a relation in being, a relation of being, a way of being and not a simple relation between two terms that one could adequately know by means of concepts because they would have an effectively separate existence. It is because the terms are conceived as substances that the relation is a relation of terms, and the being is separated in terms because the being is primitively, prior to any examination of individuation, conceived as substance. On the other hand, if the substance ceases to be the model of being, it is possible to conceive of the relation as non-identity of being in relation to itself,45 . Such a method supposes an ontological postulate: at the level of the being grasped before any individuation, the principle of the excluded third and the principle of identity do not apply; these principles only apply to being already individuated, and they define an impoverished being, separated in the middle and the individual; they do not then apply to the whole of being, that is, to the whole subsequently formed by the individual and the medium, but only to that which, from the preindividual being, has become an individual. . In this sense, classical logic can not be used to think individuation, because it forces to think the operation of individuation with concepts and relations between concepts that only apply to the results of the operation of individuation. individuation, considered in a partial way.

The use of this method considering the principle of identity and the principle of the excluded third as too narrow emerges a concept with a multitude of aspects and areas of application: that of transduction. By transduction we mean an operation, physical, biological, mental, social, by which an activity is propagated step by step within a domain, basing this propagation on a structuring of the domain operated from place to place: each The region of structure formed serves the next region of the constitution principle, so that a modification progressively extends at the same time as this structuring operation. A crystal which, from a very small germ, grows and spreads in all directions in its mother water

provides the simplest image of the transductive operation: each molecular layer already formed serves as a structuring base for the layer being formed; the result is an amplifying reticular structure. The transductive operation is an individuation in progress; it can, in the physical domain, be carried out in the simplest way in the form of progressive iteration; but it can, in more complex domains, such as the domains of vital metastability or psychic problematics, move forward with a constantly variable step, and extend into a domain of heterogeneity; there is transduction when there is activity starting from a center of being, structural and functional, and extending in various directions from this center, as if multiple dimensions of being were appearing around this center; transduction is the correlative appearance of dimensions and structures in a being in a state of preindividual tension, that is to say in a being that is more than one and more than identity, and that has not yet been out of phase in relation to itself in multiple dimensions. The extreme terms reached by the transductive operation do not pre-exist in this operation; its dynamism comes from the primitive tension of the system of the heterogeneous being, which expands and develops dimensions according to which it is structured; it does not come from a tension between the terms that will be reached and deposited at the extreme limits of transduction. Transduction can be a vital operation; it expresses in particular the sense of organic individuation; it can be a psychic operation and an effective logical process, although it is by no means limited to logical thought. In the field of knowledge, it defines the true process of invention, which is neither inductive nor deductive, but transductive, that is to say that corresponds to a discovery of the dimensions according to which a problem can be defined; it is the analog operation in that it has valid. This notion can be used to think the different domains of individuation: it applies to all cases where an individuation is realized, manifesting the genesis of a tissue of reports based on being. The possibility of using analog transduction to think of a realm of reality indicates that this domain is indeed the seat of a transductive structuring. The transduction corresponds to this existence of relations starting when the preindividual being is individuated; it expresses individuation and makes it possible to think it; it is therefore a notion at once metaphysical and logical;it applies to ontogenesis and is ontogenesis itself. Objectively, it makes it possible to understand the systematic conditions of individuation, the internal resonance46 47 , the psychic problematic. Logically, it can be used as the foundation of a new kind of analogical paradigmatism, to move from physical individuation to organic individuation, from organic individuation to psychic individuation, and from psychic individuation to subjective transindividual. and objective, which defines the plan for this research.

It could undoubtedly be said that transduction can not be presented as a logical process of proof; as well, we do not want to say

that transduction is a logical process in the ordinary sense of the word; it is a mental process, and even more than a process, a process of the mind which discovers. This step consists in following the being in its genesis, in accomplishing the genesis of thought at the same time as the genesis of the object is accomplished. In this research, it is called to play a role that the dialectic could not play, because the study of the operation of individuation does not seem to correspond to the appearance of the negative as a second stage, but to an immanence of the negative in the first condition in ambivalent form of tension and incompatibility; it is what is most positive in the state of the preindividual being, namely the existence of potentials, which is also the cause of the incompatibility and the non-stability of this state; the negative is primary as ontogenetic-tick incompatibility, but it is the other side of the wealth in potentials; it is therefore not a substantial negative; it is never stage or phase, and individuation is not a synthesis, a return to unity, but a dephasing of being from its preindividual center of potentiated incompatibility. Time itself, in this ontogenetic perspective, is considered as the expression of the dimensionality of the individual being.

Transduction is not only the approach of the mind; it is also intuition, since it is what a structure appears in an area of problematic as providing the resolution of the problems posed. But unlike deduction, transduction is not going to look elsewhere for a principle to solve the problem of a domain: it draws the resolving structure from the very tensions of this domain, as the supersaturated solution crystallizes thanks to its own potentials. and according to the chemical species which it contains, not by contribution of some foreign form. Nor is it comparable to induction,because induction retains the characters of the terms of reality understood in the field studied, drawing the structures of the analysis of these terms themselves, but it retains only what is positive, that is, to say what is common to all terms, eliminating what they have of singular; transduction is, on the contrary, a discovery of dimensions, the system of which communicates those of each of the terms, and such that the complete reality of each of the terms of the domain can be ordered without loss, without reduction, in the new structures discovered. ; the resolving transduction operates the inversion of the negative into positive: by which the terms are not identical to each other, by which they are disparate (in the sense that this term takes in the theory of vision) is integrated in the system of resolution and becomes a condition of signification; there is no impoverishment of the information contained in the terms; transduction is characterized by the fact that the result of this operation is a concrete tissue comprising all the initial terms; the resulting system is made of concrete, and includes all the concrete; the transductive order retains all the concrete and is characterized by the conservation of information, while induction requires a loss of information; as well as the dialectical approach, transduction preserves and integrates the opposite aspects; Unlike the dialectical approach, transduction does not presuppose the existence of a prior time as a framework in which the genesis takes place, time itself being a solution, dimension of the systematics discovered : time leaves the preindividual as the other dimensions according to which individuation is effected.48

Now, to think of the transductive operation, which is the foundation of individuation at its various levels, the notion of form is insufficient. The notion of form is part of the same system of thought as that of substance, or that of relation as a relation posterior to the existence of terms: these notions have been elaborated on the basis of the results of individuation; they can only grasp an impoverished real, without potential, and consequently incapable of individualization.

The notion of form must be replaced by that of ' information which supposes the existence of a system in a state of metastable equilibrium which can be individuated; information, unlike form, is never a single term, but the meaning that arises from a disappearance. The old notion of form, such as the hylemorphic schema, is too independent of any concept of system and metastability. The one that the Theory of Form has given, on the contrary, has the notion of system, and is defined as the state towards which the system tends when it finds its equilibrium: it is a resolution of tension. Unfortunately, a too crude physical paradigmatism has led the Theory of Form to consider as a state of equilibrium a system capable of resolving tensions only the state of stable equilibrium: The Theory of Form has ignored metastability. We would like to take up the Theory of Form, and, through the introduction of a quantum condition, show that the problems posed by the Theory of Form can not be directly solved by means of the notion of stable equilibrium, but only by means of that of metastable equilibrium; the Good Form is no longer then the simple form, the geometric form, butthe significant form , that is, the one that establishes a transductive order within a reality system with potentials. This good form is the one that maintains the energy level of the system, preserves its potentials by compatibilizing them: it is the compatibility and viability structure, it is the invented dimensionality according to which there is compatibility without degradation i 5 . The notion of Form deserves to be replaced by that of information. During this replacement, the notion of information should never be reduced to signals or media or information vehicles, as tends to do the theory of information technology, first drawn by abstraction of the technology of transmissions. The pure notion of form must therefore be saved twice from a technological paradigmatism too summary: a first time, relative to the ancient culture, because of the reductive use that is made of this notion in the hylemorphic schema ; a second time, in the state of the notion of information, to save information as the meaning of the technological theory of information, in modern culture. For it is in the successive theories of hylomorphism, good form, then information, the same aim that we find: that which seeks to discover the inherent meaning of being ; this inherence we would like to discover in the operation of individuation.

Thus, a study of individuation may tend towards a reform of fundamental philosophical notions, for it is possible to consider individuation as that which, of being, must be known first. Before even wondering how it is in the ground and in the atmosphere by means of the luminous energy received in photosynthesis. It is an inter-elemental knot, and it develops as internal resonance of this preindividual system made of two layers of reality originally without communication. The inter-elementary node does an intra-elementary work.

15. The form thus appears as the active communication, the internal resonance which operates individuation: it appears with the individual.

legitimate or not legitimate to bear judgments on beings, we can consider that being is said in two senses: in a first, fundamental sense, being is as it is; but in a second sense, always superimposed on the first in logical theory, being is being in so far as it is individuated. If it were true that logic relates to the utterances relating to being only after individuation, a theory of being prior to all logic should be instituted; this theory could serve as a foundation for logic, for nothing proves in advance that being is individuated in one possible way; if several types of individuation existed, several logics should also exist, each corresponding to a defined type of individuation. The classification of ontogenesis wouldto pluralize logic with a valid foundation of plurality. As for the axiomatization of the knowledge of the preindividual being, it can not be contained in a previous logic, because no norm, no system detached from its content can be defined: only the individuation of the thought can, in fulfilling, accompanying the individuation of beings other than thought; it is not therefore an immediate knowledge or a mediate knowledge that we can have of individuation, but a knowledge which is an operation parallel to the known operation; we can not, in the usual sense of the term, know individuation ; we can only individuate, individuate, and individuate in ourselves; this seizure is therefore, in the margin of the knowledge itself, an analogy between two operations, which is a certain mode of communication. The individuation of the real external to the subject is grasped by the subject thanks to the analogical individuation of the knowledge in the subject; but it is by the individuation of knowledge and not by knowledge alone that the individuation of non-subject beings is grasped. The beings can be known by the knowledge of the subject, but the individuation of the beings can only be grasped by the individuation of the knowledge of the subject.

Physical individuation

First chapter

Form and material

I. - FOUNDATIONS OF THE HYLEMORPHIC SCHEMA.

TECHNOLOGY OF FITNESS

1. The conditions of individuation

The notions of form and matter can only help to solve the problem of individuation if they are first in relation to its position. If, on the other hand, it is discovered that the hylemorphic system expresses and contains the problem of individuation, it would be necessary, on pain of confining itself in a petition of principle, to consider the search for the principle of individuation as logically prior to the definition of the matter and form.

It is difficult to consider the notions of form and matter as innate ideas. However, at the moment when one would be tempted to assign them a technological origin, one is stopped by the remarkable ability of generalization that these notions possess. It is not only clay and brick, marble and the statue that can be thought according to the hylemorphic schema, but also a large number of facts of formation, genesis, and composition, in the living world and the psychic domain. The logical force of this schema is such that Aristotle was able to use it to support a universal system of classification that applies to the real as well in the logical way as in the physical way, assuring the agreement of the order logical and physical order, and allowing inductive knowledge.

A base as narrow as that of the technological operation seems difficult to support a paradigm having such a force of universality. It is therefore necessary, in order to examine the foundation of the hylemorphic schema, to appreciate the meaning and scope of the role played in its genesis by technical experience.

The technological character of the origin of a schema does not invalidate this schema, provided, however, that the operation which serves as a basis for the formation of the concepts used passes entirely and is expressed without alteration in the abstract schema. If, on the contrary, abstraction takes place in an unfaithful and summary way, by masking one of the fundamental dynamisms of the technical operation, the schema is false. Instead of having a true paradigmatic value, it is no more than a comparison, a more or less rigorous approximation depending on the case.

However, in the technical operation that gives rise to an object having shape and material, like a clay brick, the real dynamism of the operation is far removed

to be represented by the couple form-matter. The form and the material of the hylemorphic schema are abstract form and matter. The definite being that can be shown, this brick drying on this board, does not result from the union of any material and of any form. That we take fine sand, that we wet it and put it in a mold with bricks: at demolding, we will get a pile of sand, and not a brick. Whether you take clay and pass it to the rolling mill or the die: you will not get a plate or wire, but a pile of broken sheets and short cylindrical segments. Clay, conceived as the support of an indefinite plasticity, is abstract matter. The rectangular parallelepiped, conceived as the shape of the brick, is an abstract form. The concrete brick does not result from the union of the plasticity of the clay and the parallelepiped. For there to bea parallelepipedal brick, a truly existing individual, it is necessary that an effective technical operation institutes a mediation between a determined mass of clay and this notion of parallelepiped. However, the technical molding operation is not enough on its own; moreover, it does not establish a direct mediation between a specific mass of clay and the abstract form of the parallelepiped49 ; mediation is prepared by two chains of prior operations that converge matter and form towards a common operation. To give a form to clay is not to impose the parallelepipedal form on raw clay: it is to pack clay prepared in a mold made. If one starts from the two ends of the technological chain, the parallelepiped and the clay in the quarry, one feels the impression to realize, in the technical operation, a meeting between two realities of heterogeneous domains, and to establish a mediation by communication, between an inter-elemental, macrophysical order, larger than the individual, and an intra-elemental, microphysical order, smaller than the individual.

Precisely, in the technical operation, it is the mediation itself that must be considered: it consists, in the case chosen, in making a block of prepared clay fill without a mold and, after demolding, dry, preserving this defined contour without cracks or powderiness. Now, the preparation of the clay and the construction of the mold are already an active mediation between the raw clay and the taxable geometrical form. The mold is constructed so that it can be opened and closed without damaging its contents. Certain forms of geometrically conceivable solids have become feasible only with very complex and subtle artifices. The art of building mussels is, even today, one of the most delicate aspects of the foundry. The mold, moreover, is not only constructed; he is also prepared: a defined coating, a dry dusting will prevent wet clay from adhering to the walls at the time of demolding, breaking up or forming cracks. To give a shape, you have to buildsuch defined mold , prepared in such a  way, with such species of matter. There is therefore a first path that goes from the geometric form to the concrete mold, material, parallel to the clay, existing in the same way as it, placed next to it, in the order of magnitude of the manipulable. As for clay, it is also subject to a preparation; as raw material, it is what the shovel raises from the deposit at the edge of the swamp, with

rush roots, gravel grains. Dried, milled, sieved, wet, long kneaded, it becomes this homogeneous and consistent dough having a great plasticity to marry the contours of the mold in which it is pressed, and firm enough to keep this contour for the time necessary for the plasticity disappears. In addition to purification, the preparation of the clay is intended to obtain the homogeneity and the degree of moisture best chosen to reconcile plasticity and consistency. There is in the raw clay an ability to become plastic mass in the size of the future brick because of the colloidal properties of alumina hydrosilicates: it is these colloidal properties that make effective the gestures of the technical half-chain resulting in prepared clay; the molecular reality of the clay and the water it absorbs is ordered by the preparation so as to be able to conduct itself during the individuation as a homogeneous totality at the level of the brick in the process of appearing . The clay prepared is that in which each molecule will actually be placed in communication, regardless of its position relative to the walls of the mold, with all the thrusts exerted by these walls. Each molecule intervenes at the level of the future individual, and thus enters interactive communication with the order of magnitude higher than the individual. For its part, the other half technical chain goes down to the future individual; the parallelepipedic form is not any form; it already contains a certain schematism that can direct the construction of the mold, which is a set of consistent operations contained in the implied state; clay is not only passively deformable; it is actively plastic because it is colloidal; its faculty of receiving a form is not distinguished from that of keeping it, because to receive and to keep are only one: to undergo a deformation without fissure and with coherence of the molecular chains. The preparation of clay is the constitution of this state of equal distribution of molecules, of this arrangement in chains; the shaping is already started when the artisan brews the dough before introducing it into the mold. For the form is not only the fact of being parallelepipedic; it is also the fact of being without crack in the parallelepiped, without bubble of air, without crack: the fine cohesion is the result of a shaping; and this shaping is only the exploitation of the colloidal characters of the clay. Before any elaboration, the clay in the marsh is already shaped because it is already colloidal. The work of the craftsman uses this elementary form, without which nothing would be possible, and which is homogeneous with respect to the shape of the mold: there is only, in the two half-technical chains, a change of scale. In the swamp, the clay has its colloidal properties, but they are there molecule by molecule, or grain by grain; it's already in shape, and that's what will keep the brick homogeneous and well molded later on. The quality of the material is source of form, element of form that the technical operation makes change of scale. In the other technical half-chain, the geometric shape becomes concrete, becomes dimension of the mold, assembled wood, sprinkled wood or wet wood2. The technical operation prepares two half-chains of transformations which meet at a certain point, when the two objects produced have compatible characters, are at the same point.50

ladder ; this relationship is not unique and unconditional; it can be done in stages; what we consider as the unique shaping is often only the last episode of a series of transformations; when the clay block receives the final deformation that allows it to fill the mold, its molecules do not reorganize completely and in one fell swoop; they move little relative to each other; their topology is maintained, it is only a final global deformation. However, this global deformation is not only an implementation of the clay by its outline. Clay gives a brick because this deformation operates on masses in which the molecules are already arranged with respect to each other, without air, without grain of sand, with a good colloidal equilibrium; if the mold did not govern in a last deformation all this former arrangement already constituted, it would give no form; it can be said that the form of the mold operates only on the shape of the clay, not on the clay material. The mold limits and stabilizes rather than imposes a form: it gives the end of the deformation, completes it by interrupting it according to a definite outline: itmodulates the set of nets already formed: the worker's gesture that fills the mold and cups the earth continues the previous gesture of kneading, stretching, kneading: the mold plays the role of a fixed set of modeling hands acting like kneading hands stopped. One could make a brick without mold, with the hands, by prolonging the kneading by a shaping that would continue without breaking. Matter is matter because it has a positive property that allows it to be modeled. To be modeled is not to undergo arbitrary displacements, but to order its plasticity according to definite forces which stabilize the deformation. The technical operation is mediatedbetween an inter-elementary set and an intra-elemental set. The pure form already contains gestures, and the raw material is capacity to become; the gestures contained in the form meet the becoming of matter and modulate it. For matter to be modulated in its future, it must be, like clay when the worker presses it into the mold, deformable reality, that is to say, the reality that does not have a definite form, but all forms indefinitely, dynamically, because this reality, at the same time that it possesses inertia and consistency, is a depository of force, at least for a moment, and identifies itself point by point to this force; in order for the clay to fill the mold, it is not enough for it to be plastic: it must transmit the pressure that the worker prints to him, and that each point of its mass is a center of forces; the clay is pushed into the mold which it fills; it spreads with it in its mass the energy of the worker. During the filling time, a potential energy is updated51 . The energy that grows the clay must exist, in the mold-hand-clay system, in potential form, so that the clay fills all the empty space, developing in any direction, stopped only by the edges of the mold. The walls of the mold then intervene not at all as materialized geometric structures, but point by point as fixed places that do not allow the expanding clay to advance and oppose to the pressure that it develops an equal force and of opposite directions (principle of the reaction), without doing any work, since they do not move. The walls of the mold play with respect to an element

the same role as an element of this clay compared to another neighboring element: the pressure of one element with respect to another within the mass is almost as strong as that of a wall element by relation to an element of the mass; the only difference lies in the fact that the wall does not move, while the elements of the clay can move relative to each other and to the walls52 . Potential energy is reflected in the clay by pressure forces during refilling. The matter carries with it the potential energy that is actualizing itself; the shape, represented here by the mold, plays an infomiant role by exerting forces without work, forces which limit the actualization of the potential energy whose matter is momentarily carrier. This energy can, in fact, be actualized according to this or that direction, with this or that speed: the limit form. The relation between matter and form is therefore not between inert matter and form coming from outside: there is a common operation and at the same level of existence between matter and form; this common level of existence is that offorce, coming from an energy momentarily conveyed by matter, but drawn from a state of the total inter-elemental system of higher dimension, and expressing the individual limitations. The technical operation constitutes two half-chains which, starting from the raw material and the pure form, move towards one another and meet. This meeting is made possible by the dimensional congruence of the two ends of the chain; the successive links of development transfer characters without creating new ones: they only establish changes of order of magnitude, of levels, and of state (for example the transition from the molecular state to the molar state, from dry state when wet); what is at the end of the material half-chain, it is the aptitude of matter to convey point by point a potential energy which can provoke a movement in an indeterminate sense; what is at the end of the formal half-chain is the aptitude of a structure to condition a movement without performing a work, by a play of forces which do not displace their point of application. This statement is not strictly true, however; in order for the mold to be able to limit the expansion of the plastic earth and to statically direct this expansion, the walls of the mold must develop a reaction force equal to the thrust of the earth; the earth flows back and crushes, filling the voids, when the reaction of the walls of the mold is slightly higher than the forces exerted in other directions inside the mass of earth; when the mold is completely filled, on the contrary, the internal pressures are everywhere equal to the reaction forces of the walls, so that no movement can no longer take place. The reaction of the walls is therefore the static force that directs the clay during filling, prohibiting expansion in certain directions. However, the reaction forces can only exist as a result of a very small elastic bending of the walls; it may be said that, from the point of view of matter, the formal wall is the limit from which a displacement in a given direction is possible only at the cost of a very large increase of work; but for this condition of the increase of work to be effective, it must begin to be realized, before the equilibrium breaks and the matter takes other directions in which it is not limited. , pushed by the energy that it carries with it and actualizes while advancing; so there must be a

slight work of the walls of the mold, that which corresponds to the small displacement of the point of application of the reaction forces. But this work does not add to that produced by the actualization of the energy conveyed by the clay; he does not withdraw from it either; he does not interfere with him; it can be as small as you want; a thin wooden mold deforms noticeably under the abrupt pressure of the clay, and then gradually returns in place; a thick wooden mold moves less; a flint or cast iron mold moves extremely little. In addition, the positive work of refitting largely offsets the negative work of deformation. The mold may have some elasticity; it only needs to be plastic. It's as forcesthat matter and form are brought together. The only difference between the regime of these forces for matter and form lies in the fact that the forces of matter come from an energy conveyed by matter and always available, while the forces of form are forces which are not produce only a very small amount of work, and intervene as the limits of the actualization of the energy of matter. It is not in the instant infinitely short, but in becoming, that form and matter differ; the form is not a vehicle of potential energy; Matter is informable matter only because it can be point by point the vehicle of an energy which is actualized53; the prior treatment of the raw material has the function of making the homogeneous support material of a definite potential energy; it is through this potential energy that matter becomes; the form does not become. In instantaneous operation, the forces which are those of matter and the forces which come from form do not differ; they are homogeneous in relation to each other and form part of the same instantaneous physical system; but they are not part of the same temporal ensemble. The work exerted by the elastic deformation forces of the mold are nothing after molding; they have been annulled, or have been degraded in heat, and produced nothing in the order of magnitude of the mold. On the contrary, the potential energy of the material has been updated to the order of magnitude of the mass of clay, giving a distribution of the elementary masses. This is why the preliminary treatment of the clay prepares this actualization: it makes the molecule integral with the other molecules, and the deformable whole, so that each parcel also participates in the potential energy whose actualization is the molding; it is essential that all parcels, without discontinuity or privilege, have the same chances of deforming in any sense; a grumeau, a stone, are areas of non-participation in this potentiality which is actualized by localising its support: they are parasitic singularities. it makes the molecule integral with the other molecules, and the deformable set, so that each parcel also participates in the potential energy whose actualization is molding; it is essential that all parcels, without discontinuity or privilege, have the same chances of deforming in any sense; a grumeau, a stone, are areas of non-participation in this potentiality which is actualized by localising its support: they are parasitic singularities. it makes the molecule integral with the other molecules, and the deformable set, so that each parcel also participates in the potential energy whose actualization is molding; it is essential that all parcels, without discontinuity or privilege, have the same chances of deforming in any sense; a grumeau, a stone, are areas of non-participation in this potentiality which is actualized by localising its support: they are parasitic singularities.

The fact that there is a mold, that is to say, the limits of the actualization, creates in the matter a state of reciprocity of forces leading to equilibrium; the mold does not act from outside by imposing a form; its action reverberates throughout the mass by the action of molecule to molecule, from plot to plot; the clay at the end of the molding is the mass in which all the forces of deformation meet in all directions equal forces and opposite directions which make them balance. The mold reflects its existence

tence within matter by making it tend towards a condition of equilibrium. In order for this equilibrium to exist, it is necessary that at the end of the operation a certain amount of potential energy still existing, contained in the whole system, remain. It would not be correct to say that form plays a static role whereas matter plays a dynamic role; in fact, for there to be a unique system of forces, both matter and form must play a dynamic role; but this dynamic equality is true only in the moment. The form does not evolve, does not change, because it does not harbor any potentiality, while matter evolves. It carries potentials uniformly spread and distributed in it; the homogeneity of matter is the homogeneity of its possible becoming. Each point is as likely as all the others; the matter taking shape is in a state ofinternal resonance complete; what happens in one point resounds on all the others, the fate of each molecule resounds on the becoming of all the others in all points and in all directions; Matter is what elements are not isolated from each other or heterogeneous with respect to each other; any heterogeneity is a condition of non-transmission of forces, and therefore of internal non-resonance. The plasticity of clay is its ability to be in the state of internal resonance as soon as it is subjected to pressure in a chamber. The mold as a limit is what the state of internal resonance is caused by, but the mold is not what through which the internal resonance is realized; the mold is not what, within the plastic earth, uniformly transmits in all directions the pressures and displacements. We can not say that the mold gives shape; it is the earth that takes shape according to the mold, because it communicates with the worker. Thethe positivity of this acquisition belongs to the land and the workman; it is this internal resonance, the work of this internal resonance 54 . The mold intervenes as a condition of closure, limit, stop of expansion, direction of mediation. The technical operation establishes the internal resonance in the material taking shape, by means of energetic conditions and topological conditions; the topological conditions can be named form, and the energetic conditions express the whole system. Internal resonance is astate of systemthat requires this realization of energetic conditions, topological conditions, and material conditions: resonance is the exchange of energy and motion in a given enclosure, communication between a microphysical material and a macrophysical energy from of a singularity of average size, topologically defined.

2. Validity of the hylemorphic scheme;

the dark zone of the hylemorphic schema; generalization of the notion of fitness training; modeling, molding, modulation

The technical operation of fitness can therefore serve as a paradigm provided that we ask this operation to indicate the real relationships it institutes. But these relations are not established between the raw material and the pure form, but between the prepared matter and the materialized form: the operation of taking form does not suppose only raw material and form, but also energy; the materialized form is

a form that can act as a limit, as a topological boundary of a system. The prepared material is the one that can convey the energetic potentials whose load the technical manipulation. The pure form, to play a role in the technical operation, must become a system of points of application of the reaction forces, while the raw material becomes a homogeneous vehicle of potential energy. Form taking is the common operation of form and matter in a system: the energetic condition is essential, and it is not brought by form alone; the whole system is the seat of potential energy, precisely because fitness is an operation in depth and in all the mass, as a result of a state of energy reciprocity of matter in relation to it -even55 . It is the distribution of energy that is decisive in shaping, and the mutual appropriateness of matter and form is relative to the possibility of existence and to the characteristics of this energetic system. Matter is what transports this energy and the form which modulates the distribution of this same energy. The matter-form unit, at the moment of taking shape, is in the energy regime.

The hylemorphic schema retains only the extremities of these two half-chains which the technical operation elaborates; the schematism of the operation itself is veiled, ignored. There is a hole in the hylémorphic representation, making disappear the true mediation, the operation itself which connects the two half-chains to one another by instituting an energetic system, a state which evolves and must actually exist for an object to appear with its ecstasy. The hylemorphic schema corresponds to the knowledge of a man who remains outside the workshop and considers only what enters and what comes out of it; to know the true hylemorphic relationship, it is not enough even to enter the workshop and work with the craftsman:

Seizure itself, the shaping operation can be carried out in several ways, in different ways apparently very different from each other. The true technicality of the shaping operation goes well beyond the conventional limits separating trades and fields of work. Thus, by studying the energetic regime of the shaping, it becomes possible to bring the molding of a brick closer to the operation of an electronic relay. In a triode-type electron tube, the "material" (potential energy vehicle that actualizes itself) is the cloud of electrons leaving the cathode in the cathode-anode-effector-generator circuit. The "shape" is what limits this updating of the potential energy in reserve in the generator, that is to say the electric field created by the potential difference between the control gate and the cathode, which opposes the cathode-anode field, created by the generator itself; this counter-field is a limit to the actualization of the potential energy, as the walls of the mold are a limit for the actualization of the potential energy of the clay-mold system, conveyed by the clay in its displacement. The difference between the two cases lies in the fact that, for clay, the shaping operation is finished in time: it tends, rather slowly (in a few seconds) to a state of equilibrium, then the brick is removed from the mold the state of equilibrium is used by unmolding when it is reached. In the this counter-field is a limit to the actualization of the potential energy, as the walls of the mold are a limit for the actualization of the potential energy of the clay-mold system, conveyed by the clay in its displacement. The difference between the two cases lies in the fact that, for clay, the shaping operation is finished in time: it tends, rather slowly (in a few seconds) to a state of equilibrium, then the brick is removed from the mold the state of equilibrium is used by unmolding when it is reached. In the this counter-field is a limit to the actualization of the potential energy, as the walls of the mold are a limit for the actualization of the potential energy of the clay-mold system, conveyed by the clay in its displacement. The difference between the two cases lies in the fact that, for clay, the shaping operation is finished in time: it tends, rather slowly (in a few seconds) to a state of equilibrium, then the brick is removed from the mold the state of equilibrium is used by unmolding when it is reached. In the the shaping operation is finished in time: it tends, rather slowly (in a few seconds) to a state of equilibrium, then the brick is unmolded; the state of equilibrium is used by unmolding when it is reached. In the the shaping operation is finished in time: it tends, rather slowly (in a few seconds) to a state of equilibrium, then the brick is unmolded; the state of equilibrium is used by unmolding when it is reached. In the

electron tube, we use a support of energy (the cloud of electrons in a field) of a very weak inertia, so that the state of equilibrium (adequation between the distribution of the electrons and the gradient of the electric field) is obtained in an extremely short time compared to the previous one (a few billionths of a second in a large tube, a few tenths of a billionth of a second in the small tubes). Under these conditions, the potential of the control gate is used as a variable mold; the distribution of the energy carrier according to this mold is so rapid that it is carried out without appreciable delay for most applications: the variable mold then serves to vary in time the updating of the potential energy of a source; we do not stop when equilibrium is reached, we continue by modifying the mold, that is to say the gate voltage; the updating is almost instantaneous, there is never stop for demoulding, because the circulation of the energy support is equivalent to a permanent demolding; a modulator is a continuous time mold . "Matter" is almost solely a carrier of potential energy; it still retains a definite inertia, which prevents the modulator from being infinitely fast. In the case of the clay mold, which, on the contrary, is technically used is the equilibrium state that can be preserved by demolding: a fairly large viscosity of the clay is then accepted so that the shape is preserved. during demolding, although this viscosity slows down the shape. In a modulator, on the contrary, the viscosity of the energy carrier is reduced as much as possible, because it is not sought to maintain the equilibrium state after the equilibrium conditions have ceased: it is easier to modulate energy carried by compressed air only by pressurized water, even easier to modulate the energy carried by electrons in transit than by compressed air. The mold and the modulator are extreme cases, but the essential operation of taking shape is accomplished in the same way; it consists of establishing an energy regime, sustainable or not. To mold is to modulate definitively; to modulate is to mold in a continuous and perpetually variable way.

A large number of technical operations use a form taking which has intermediate characters between modulation and molding; thus, a die, a rolling mill, are continuous-regime molds, creating in successive stages (the passes) a definitive profile; demolding is continuous there, as in a modulator. One could conceive a rolling mill which would really modulate the material, and manufacture, for example, a crenellated or toothed bar; the rolling mills that produce the corrugated sheet modulate the material, while a rolling mill smooths the pattern only. Molding  and modulation are the two limiting cases whose modeling is the average case.

We would like to show that the technological paradigm is not devoid of value, and that it allows to a certain extent to think the genesis of the indivi-duced being, but with the express condition that we retain as schema the relationship of matter and form through the energetic system of fitness. Matter and shape must be entered during the training session at the moment when the unity of becoming of an energy system constitutes this relation at the level of the homogeneity of forces between matter and form. What is essential and central is the energy operation, assuming energy potentiality and the limit of the actualization. The initiative of the genesis of the substance does not return to the raw material as passive or to the form as pure: it is the complete system which generates and it generates because it is a system of actualization potential energy

tielle, bringing together in an active mediation two realities, of different orders of magnitude, in an intermediate order.

Individuation, in the classical sense of the term, can not have its principle in matter or in form; neither form nor matter is enough for fitness. The true principle of individuation is the genesis itself taking place, that is to say the system becoming, while the energy is actualizing itself. The true principle of individuation can not be sought in what exists before individuation occurs, nor in what remains after individuation is accomplished; it is the energetic system that is individuating insofar as it realizes in itself that internal resonance of matter taking shape, and a mediation between orders of magnitude. The principle of individuation is the unique way in which the internal resonance of this matter taking this form. The principle of individuation is an operation. What makes a being itself different from all others is not its matter or its form, but it is the operation by which its matter has taken shape in a certain system of internal resonance . The principle of individuation of the brick is not the clay, nor the mold: from this pile of clay and this mold will come out other bricks than this one, each having their ecceité, but it is the operation by which the clay, at a given moment, in an energetic system which included the smallest details of the mold like the smallest settlements of this wetland, took shape, under such a thrust, thus distributed, thus diffused, thus updated: there had a moment when the energy of the thrust was transmitted in all directions from each molecule to all the others, from clay to walls and walls to clay: the principle of individuation is the operation that achieves an energy exchange between matter and form, until the whole results in a state of equilibrium. One could say that the principle of individuation isthe common allagmatic operation of matter and form through the actualization of potential energy ■ This energy is the energy of a system; it can produce effects in all points of the system equally, it is available and communicates. This operation is based on the singularity or singularities of concrete hic et nunc  ; she envelops and amplifies them 56 .

3. Limitations of the hylemorphic schema

However, the technological paradigm can not be extended purely analogically to the genesis of all beings. The technical operation is complete in a limited time; after the actualization, it leaves a partially individuated being, more or less stable, which draws its ecstasy from this operation of individuation having constituted its genesis in a very short time; the brick, after a few years or a few thousand years, becomes dust again. Individuation is complete in one stroke; the individuated being is never more perfectly individuated than when it leaves the hands of the artisan. There is thus a certain externality of the individuation operation with respect to its result. On the contrary, in the living being, individuation is not produced by a single operation, limited in time; the living being is in itself partially its own principle of individuation; he continues his individuation, and the result

from a first operation of individuation, instead of being only a result which progressively deteriorates, becomes the principle of a subsequent individuation. The individuating operation and the individuated being are not in the same relation as within the product of the technical effort. The becoming of the living being, instead of being a becoming after individuation, is always a becoming between two individuations; the individuating and the individuated are in the living in a prolonged allagmatic relation. In the technical object, this allagmatic relation exists only for an instant, when the two half-chains are welded to each other, that is to say when the matter takes shape: at this instant, the individuated and the individuant coincide; when this operation is finished, they separate; the brick does not take its mold57and she breaks away from the worker or the machine that pressed her. The living being, after having been initiated, continues to indivi- duce itself; it is at once an individuating system and a partial result of individuation. A new regime of internal resonance is instituted in the living whose technology does not provide the paradigm: a resonance through time, created by the recurrence of the result going back to the principle and becoming principle in turn. As in technical individuation, a permanent internal resonance constitutes the organismic unit. But, moreover, to this resonance of the simultaneous superimposes a resonance of the successive, a temporal allagmatic. The principle of individuation of the living is always an operation, like the taking of Technical Form, but this operation is two-dimensional, that of simultaneity,

One can then wonder if the true principle of individuation is not better indicated by the living than by the technical operation, and if the technical operation could be known as an individual without the implicit paradigm of the life that exists in us. who know the technical operation and practice it with our body diagram, our habits, our memory. This question is of great philosophical significance because it leads one to wonder whether a true individuation can exist outside of life. To know it, it is not the technical operation, anthropomorphic and therefore zoomorphic, that must be studied, but the processes of natural formation of the elementary units that nature presents outside the reign defined as alive.

Thus, the hylemorphic scheme, out of the technology, is insufficient under its usual species, because it ignores the very center of the technical operation of fitness, and leads in this sense to ignore the role played by the energetic conditions in the fitness. Moreover, even if restored and completed in the form of a matter-form-energy triad, the hylemorphic schema risks misrepresenting a contribution of the living in the technical operation; it is the manufacturing intention which constitutes the system by which the energy exchange is established between matter and energy in the taking of form; this system is not part of the individuated object; Now, the individuated object is thought by man to have an individuality as a manufactured object, by reference to the fabrication. The effectiveness of this brick as brick is not an absolute ecstasy, it is not the ecstasy of this preexisting object to the fact that it is a brick. It is the ecstasy of the object as a brick: it includes a reference to the intention of use and, through it, to the manufacturing intention, therefore to the human gesture that

formed the two half-chains together into a system for the shaping operation 10· In this sense, the hylemorphic schema is perhaps only apparently technological: it is the reflection of the vital processes in an operation abstractly known and drawing its consistency from what it is made by a living being for living beings . This would explain the very great paradigmatic power of the hylemorphic schema: coming from life, it returns and applies to it, but with a deficit that comes from the fact that the awareness that has explained it has seized it through the particularly simplified case of technical take-off; he grasps types more than individuals, copies of a model more than realities. The dualism of matter-form, grasping only the extreme terms of the largest and the smallest that the individual,

However, it is not enough to criticize the hylemorphic schema and to restore a more exact relationship in the course of the technical form to discover the true principle of individuation. Nor is it enough to assume in the knowledge that one takes from the technical operation a paradigm in the first place biological: even if the relation matter-form in the taking of technical form is easily known (adequately or inadequately) thanks the fact that we are living beings, the fact remains that the reference to the technical field is necessary for us to clarify, to explain, to objectify this implicit notion that the subject carries with it. If the tested vital is the condition of the represented technique, the represented technique becomes in turn a condition of the knowledge of the vital. One is thus returned from one order to the other, so that the hymemor-phic schema seems to owe its universality mainly to the fact that it institutes a certain reciprocity between the vital domain and the technical domain. This scheme is not the only example of such a correlation: automatism in its various forms has been used with varying degrees of success to penetrate the functions of the living through representations derived from technology, since Descartes to the current cybernetics. However, an important difficulty arises in the use of the hylemorphic schema: it does not indicate what is the principle of individuation of the living, precisely because it gives the two terms an existence prior to the relation that unites them, or at least because it can not allow to think clearly this relation; it can only represent the mixture, or the attachment part by part;the manner in which the form informs matter is not sufficiently specified by the hylemorphic schema. To use the hylemorphic schema is to suppose that the principle of individuation is in form or in matter, but not in the relation of the two. The dualism of substances - soul and body - is in germ in the hylemorphic schema, and one can wonder if this dualism is well out of the techniques.

To deepen this examination, it is necessary to consider all the conditions surrounding a notional awareness. If there was only being58

living individual and the technical operation, the hylemorphic schema may not be able to be constituted. In fact, it seems that the medium term between the living domain and the technical domain was, at the origin of the hylemorphic schema, social life. What the hylemorphic schema reflects in the first place is a socialized representation of work and an equally socialized representation of the individual living being; the coincidence between these two representations is the common foundation for the extension of the schema from one domain to another, and the guarantor of its validity in a given culture. The technical operation that imposes a form on a passive and indeterminate matter is not only an operation abstractly considered by the spectator who sees what enters the workshop and what comes out without knowing the actual development. It is essentially the operation commanded by the free man and executed by the slave; the free man chooses matter, indeterminate because it is enough to designate it generically by the name of substance, without seeing it, without handling it, without preparing it: the object will be made of wood or iron, or in the ground. The true passivity of matter is its abstract availability behind the given order that others will perform. Passivity is that of the human mediation that will procure the material. The form corresponds to what the man who commands has thought in himself and must express positively when he gives his orders: the form is thereforeof the order of the expressible; it is eminently active because it is what is imposed on those who will manipulate matter; it is the very content of the order, by which it governs. The active character of the form, the passive nature of the material, correspond to the conditions of the transmission of the order which presupposes social hierarchy: it is in the content of the order that the indication of the matter is an indeterminate then that form is determination, expressible and logical. It is also through social conditioning that the soul opposes the body; it is not through the body that the individual is a citizen, participates in collective judgments, in common beliefs, survives in the memory of his fellow citizens: the soul is distinguished from the body as the citizen of the living human being. The distinction between form and matter, between the soul and the body, reflects a city that contains citizens as opposed to slaves. It should be noted, however, that the two schemes, technological and civic, if they agree to distinguish the two terms, do not assign them the same role in the two couples: the soul is not pure activity, full determination , while the body would be passivity and indeterminacy. The citizen is individuated as a body, but he is also individuated as a soul.

The vicissitudes of the hylemorphic schema come from the fact that it is neither directly technological nor directly vital: it is the technological operation and the vital reality mediated by the social, that is to say by the conditions already given - in interindividual communication - effective receipt of information, in this case the production order. This communication between two social realities, this reception operation which is the condition of the technical operation, masks what, within the technical operation, allows the extreme terms - form and matter - to enter into interactive communication: information, the singularity of the " hic et nunc" of the operation, pure event to the dimension of the individual appearing.

II. - PHYSICAL MEANING OF TECHNICAL SHAPING

1. Physical conditions of technical shaping

However, the psycho-social conditioning of thought, while capable of explaining the vicissitudes of the hylemorphic schema, can hardly explain its permanence and universality in reflection. This permanence through successive aspects, this universality which covers infinitely diverse domains, seems to require a foundation less easily modifiable than social life. The discovery of this unconditional foundation is the physical analysis of the conditions of possibility of fitness that must be asked. The fitness itself requires matter, shape and energy, singularity. But so that a raw material and a pure form can leave two half-technical strings that the singular information gathering will bring together, it is necessary that the raw material already contains, before any elaboration, something which can form a system suitable to the point of completion of the half-chain whose origin is the pure form. It isin the natural world,before any human elaboration, that this condition must be sought. It is necessary that the matter is structured in a certain way, that it already has properties which are the condition of the taking of form. In a sense, we could say that matter contains the coherence of form before taking shape; however, this coherence is already a configuration having a function of form. The technical form-taking uses catches of natural forms before it, which created what could be called an ecceité of the raw material. A tree trunk on the construction site is abstract raw material as long as it is considered as a volume of wood to be used; only the essence to which it belongs approaches the concrete, indicating that one will meet in a probable way such behavior of the matter at the time of the taking of form: a pine trunk is not a fir tree trunk. But this tree, this trunk, has an ecstasy in its totality and in each of its parts, up to a definite level of smallness; it has an ecceity in its totality in the sense that it is straight or curved, almost cylindrical or regularly conical, of more or less round section or strongly flattened. This ecstasy of the whole is what this trunk is different from all others; it is not only what we can recognize perceptually, but what is technically the principle of choice when the tree is used in its entirety, for example to make a beam; such trunk is better suited than any other for such a place, by virtue of its particular characters which are already characters of form, and of a form valid for the technique of carpentry, although this form is presented by the raw and natural material. A tree in the forest can be recognized by a trained look that looks for the bole best suited for a particular purpose: the carpenter went into the forest. In the second place, the existence of implicit forms is manifested at the moment when the craftsman elaborates the raw material: a second level of ecstasy manifests itself there. A trunk split with a circular saw or ribbon gives two beams more regular but less solid than those which gives the same trunk split by bursting, by means of wedges; however, the four masses of wood thus produced are substantially equal, whatever the method used for splitting. But the difference is that the hacksaw cuts A tree in the forest can be recognized by a trained look that looks for the bole best suited for a particular purpose: the carpenter went into the forest. In the second place, the existence of implicit forms is manifested at the moment when the craftsman elaborates the raw material: a second level of ecstasy manifests itself there. A trunk split with a circular saw or ribbon gives two beams more regular but less solid than those which gives the same trunk split by bursting, by means of wedges; however, the four masses of wood thus produced are substantially equal, whatever the method used for splitting. But the difference is that the hacksaw cuts A tree in the forest can be recognized by a trained look that looks for the bole best suited for a particular purpose: the carpenter went into the forest. In the second place, the existence of implicit forms is manifested at the moment when the craftsman elaborates the raw material: a second level of ecstasy manifests itself there. A trunk split with a circular saw or ribbon gives two beams more regular but less solid than those which gives the same trunk split by bursting, by means of wedges; however, the four masses of wood thus produced are substantially equal, whatever the method used for splitting. But the difference is that the hacksaw cuts the existence of implicit forms is manifested at the moment when the craftsman elaborates the raw material: a second level of ecstasy manifests itself there. A trunk split with a circular saw or ribbon gives two beams more regular but less solid than those which gives the same trunk split by bursting, by means of wedges; however, the four masses of wood thus produced are substantially equal, whatever the method used for splitting. But the difference is that the hacksaw cuts the existence of implicit forms is manifested at the moment when the craftsman elaborates the raw material: a second level of ecstasy manifests itself there. A trunk split with a circular saw or ribbon gives two beams more regular but less solid than those which gives the same trunk split by bursting, by means of wedges; however, the four masses of wood thus produced are substantially equal, whatever the method used for splitting. But the difference is that the hacksaw cuts whatever the process used for splitting. But the difference is that the hacksaw cuts whatever the process used for splitting. But the difference is that the hacksaw cutsabstractly the wood according to a geometric plane, without respecting the slow undulations of the fibers or their twist in helix with not very lengthened pitch: the saw cuts the

fibers, whereas the wedge separates them only in two half-trunks: the crack travels in respecting the continuity of the fibers, curving around a node, following the heart of the tree, guided by the implicit form that the effort of the corners reveals n. In the same way, a piece of turned wood gains in this operation a geometrical form of revolution; but the turning cuts a certain number of fibers, so that the geometric envelope of the figure obtained by revolution may not coincide with the profile of the fibers; the true implicit forms are not geometric, but topological; the technical gesture must respect these topological forms which constitute a parcelial ecstasy, a possible information not lacking in any respect. The extreme fragility of the unwrapped woods, prohibiting their use in a single unglued layer, comes from the fact that this process, combining linear sawing and turning, gives a wooden sheet, but without respecting the direction of the fibers over a sufficient length: the explicit form produced by the technical operation does not respect, in this case, the implicit form. To know how to use a tool is not only to have acquired the practice of the necessary gestures; it is also knowing how to recognize, through the signals that come to the man by the tool, the implicit form of the material that is elaborated, at the precise place that the tool attacks. The plane is not only what raises a chip more or less thick; it is also what makes it possible to feel if the chip rises finely, without splinters, or if it begins to be rough, which means that the direction of the lines of the wood is thwarted by the movement of the hand. What makes some very simple tools like the plane makes it possible to do an excellent work is that because of their non-automaticity, of the non-geometric character of their movement, entirely supported by the hand and not by an external reference system (such as the lathe carriage), these tools allow a continuous and precise signaling which invites to follow the implicit forms of the workable material. The mechanical saw and the turn violate the wood, do not know it: this last character of the technical operation (that one could name the conflict of the levels of forms) reduces the number possible of the raw materials which one can use to produce an object ; all woods can be worked flat; some are already difficult to plan; but very little wood is suitable for the lathe, a machine that takes a chip in a direction that does not take into account the implicit form of the wood, the particular eccity of each part; wood that would be excellent for tools with adjustable and editable cutting during work become unusable lathe, which attacks them irregularly and gives a rough, spongy surface, by pulling fiber bundles. Only fine-grained, almost homogeneous woods are suitable, and in which the fiber system is doubled by a system of transversal or oblique connections between bundles; however, these non-oriented structure woods are not necessarily the ones that offer the greatest strength and elasticity in a bending effort. Turned wood loses the benefit of its implicit information; it has no advantage over a homogeneous material such as a molded plastic; on the contrary, its implicit form may enter which attacks them irregularly and gives a rough, spongy surface, by tearing of bundles of fibers. Only fine-grained, almost homogeneous woods are suitable, and in which the fiber system is doubled by a system of transverse or oblique connections between bundles; however, these non-oriented structure woods are not necessarily the ones that offer the greatest strength and elasticity in a bending effort. Turned wood loses the benefit of its implicit information; it has no advantage over a homogeneous material such as a molded plastic; on the contrary, its implicit form may enter which attacks them irregularly and gives a rough, spongy surface, by tearing of bundles of fibers. Only fine-grained, almost homogeneous woods are suitable, and in which the fiber system is doubled by a system of transversal or oblique connections between bundles; however, these non-oriented structure woods are not necessarily the ones that offer the greatest strength and elasticity in a bending effort. Turned wood loses the benefit of its implicit information; it has no advantage over a homogeneous material such as a molded plastic; on the contrary, its implicit form may enter and in which the fiber system is doubled with a system of cross-links or oblique between beams; however, these non-oriented structure woods are not necessarily the ones that offer the greatest strength and elasticity in a bending effort. Turned wood loses the benefit of its implicit information; it has no advantage over a homogeneous material such as a molded plastic; on the contrary, its implicit form may enter and in which the fiber system is doubled with a system of cross-links or oblique between beams; however, these non-oriented structure woods are not necessarily the ones that offer the greatest strength and elasticity in a bending effort. Turned wood loses the benefit of its implicit information; it has no advantage over a homogeneous material such as a molded plastic; on the contrary, its implicit form may enter it has no advantage over a homogeneous material such as a molded plastic; on the contrary, its implicit form may enter it has no advantage over a homogeneous material such as a molded plastic; on the contrary, its implicit form may enter59 60

in conflict with the explicit form that one wants to give him, which creates a discomfort at the agent of the technical operation. Finally, in the third degree, there exists an elementary ecstasy of the workable matter, which intervenes absolutely in the elaboration by imposing implicit forms which are limits that can not be exceeded; it is not matter as an inert reality, but the material carrying implicit forms which imposes preliminary limits to the technical operation. In wood, this elementary limit is the cell, or, sometimes, the differentiated cluster of cells, if the differentiation is sufficiently extensive; thus, a vessel, the result of a cellular differentiation, is a formal limit that can not be transgressed: a wooden object can not be made, the details of which are of an order of magnitude less than that of differentiated cells or sets of cells, when they exist. If, for example, we wanted to build a filter made of a thin piece of wood pierced with holes, we could not make holes smaller than the channels that are already naturally formed in the wood; the only forms that can be imposed by the technical operation are those which are of an order of magnitude higher than the implicit elementary forms of the material used.1 3. The discontinuity of the matter intervenes as a form, and it happens at the level of the element what happens at the level of the ecstasy of the sets: the carpenter seeks in the forest a tree having the desired shape, because he can not - even straighten or bend a tree, and must go to spontaneous forms. Similarly, the chemist or the bacteriologist who wants a filter of wood or earth will not be able to pierce a plate of wood or clay: he will choose the piece of wood or the plate of clay whose natural pores are of the dimension that 'he desires ; elementary ecstasy intervenes in this choice; there are not two porous wooden plates exactly alike, because each pore exists in itself; we can not be sure of the size of a filter until after testing, because the pores are the result of an elaborate taking before the technical operation; the latter, which is modeling, grinding, sawing, functionally adapts the support of these elementary implicit shapes, but does not create the elementary implicit forms: the wood must be cut perpendicular to the fibers to have porous wood, while it must be cut longitudinally (parallel to the fibers) to have elastic and resistant wood. These same implicit forms as the fibers can be used either as pores (through the cross-section) or as resilient elastic structures (through the longitudinal section). but does not create the implicit elementary forms: it is necessary to cut the wood perpendicular to the fibers to have porous wood, while it must be cut longitudinally (parallel to the fibers) to have elastic and resistant wood. These same implicit forms as the fibers can be used either as pores (through the cross-section) or as resilient elastic structures (through the longitudinal section). but does not create the implicit elementary forms: it is necessary to cut the wood perpendicularly to the fibers to have porous wood, whereas it must be cut longitudinally (parallel to the fibers) to have elastic and resistant wood. These same implicit forms as the fibers can be used either as pores (through the cross-section) or as resilient elastic structures (through the longitudinal section).

One could say that the technical examples are still tainted by a certain zoomorphic relativism, when the implicit forms are distinguished only in relation to the use that can be made of them. But it must be remarked that scientific instrumentation makes a very similar appeal to implicit forms. The discovery of the diffraction of X-rays and gamma-rays by crystals objectively found the existence of implicit forms of raw matter where sensory intuition only captures a homogeneous continuum. Molecular meshes act like a network traced by hand on a metal plate: but this natural network has a mesh much smaller than that of the finest networks that one61

can manufacture even with micro-tools; the physicist then acts, at the other end of the scale of magnitudes, like the carpenter who goes to find the suitable tree in the forest: the physicist chooses to analyze the X-rays of such or such wavelength the crystal which will constitute a network whose mesh is of the order of magnitude of the wavelength of the radiation to be studied; and the crystal will be cut along such an axis so that this natural network, which it forms, or attacked by the ray beam in the best direction, can best be used. Science and technology are no longer distinguished in the use of implicit forms; these forms are objective, and can be studied by science as they can be used by the technique; Furthermore, the only way that science has to study them inductively is to involve them in an operation that reveals them; given an unknown crystal, one can discover its mesh by sending on it beams of X-rays or gamma of known wavelength, to be able to observe the diffraction figures. The technical operation and the scientific operation come together in the mode of operation that they arouse.

2. Implicit physical forms and qualities

The hylemorphic schema is insufficient insofar as it does not take into account the implicit forms, distinguishing between the pure form (named form) and the implicit form, confused with other characters of the matter under the name of quality. Indeed, a very large number of qualities attributed to matter are in fact implicit forms; and this confusion does not only imply vagueness; it also conceals a mistake: the real qualities have no thisness while implicit forms have the utmost thisness u. Porosity is not an overall quality that a piece of wood or earth could acquire or lose without an inherent relation to the matter that constitutes it; porosity is the aspect under which the operation of all these implicit forms, which are the pores of wood as they actually exist, is presented to the order of magnitude of human manipulation; the variations in porosity are not changes in quality, but modifications of these implicit forms: the pores become narrower or dilate, become clogged or disengage. The implicit form is real and exists objectively; quality often results from the choice that technical elaboration makes implicit forms; the same wood will be permeable or impervious depending on how it was cut, perpendicular or parallel to the fibers.

Quality, used to describe or characterize a species of matter, only results in an approximate, statistical knowledge in some way: the porosity of a wood species is the greater or lesser chance that one has to meet such number of unobstructed vessels per square centimeter, and such number of vessels of such diameter. A very large number of qualities, especially those relating to surface conditions, such as smooth, granular, polished, rough, velvety, implicitly implicit forms statistically predictable: there is there in this qualification that an overall assessment of the order of magnitude of such implicit form generally presented by such material. Descartes made a great effort to bring back the qualities to62

elementary structures, because it has not dissociated matter and form, and it has considered matter as capable of carrying forms essentially at all levels of magnitude, both at the level of extreme smallness of the corpuscles of subtle level of primary eddies from which sidereal systems emerged. The vortices of subtle matter that constitute light or transmit magnetic forces are, on a small scale, what cosmic vortices are on a large scale. The form is not attached to a fixed order of magnitude, as the technical elaboration which arbitrarily summarizes in the form of the qualities of matter the forms which constitute it as being already structured before any elaboration would tend to lead us to believe.

It can be said, therefore, that the technical operation reveals and uses already existing natural forms, and moreover constitutes others on a larger scale which employ the implicit natural forms; the technical operation integrates the implicit forms rather than imposes a totally alien and new form on a matter that would remain passive before this form; technical fitness is not an absolute genesis of ecstasy; the ecstacy of the technical object is preceded and supported by several levels of natural ecstasy which it systematizes, reveals, explicit, and which commodifies the operation of taking shape. That is why it may be supposed that the first materials developed by man were not absolutely raw materials, but materials already structured on a scale close to the scale of human tools and human hands: plant and animal products, already structured and specialized by vital functions, such as skin, bone, bark, wood of the branch, flexible creepers, were probably used rather than absolutely raw material; these seemingly raw materials are the vestiges of a living ecstacy, and it is by this that they are already presented to the technical operation which has only to accommodate them. The Roman fur is a goat skin, sewn at the ends of the legs and neck, but still retaining the appearance of the body of the animal; such are also the tortoiseshell of the lyre, or the skull of ox still surmounted by the horns, supporting the bar where the strings of the primitive musical instrument are fixed. The tree could be modeled as it was alive, as it grew and developed according to a direction it was given; such is the bed of Ulysses, made of an olive-tree, of which Ulysses bent the branches at ground level, while the tree was still young; the tree, which had become great, perished, and Ulysses, without uprooting it, made the bed, building the room around the place where the tree had grown. Here, the technical operation welcomes the living form and partially deflects it to its advantage, leaving vital spontaneity to carry out the positive work of growth. Also, the distinction of form and matter probably does not result from pastoral or agricultural techniques, but rather from certain limited artisanal operations, like those of ceramics and the manufacture of clay bricks. Metallurgy can not be entirely thought of by means of the hylemorphic schema, because the raw material, rarely in the pure native state, must pass through a series of intermediate states before receiving the actual form; after having received a definite outline, it is still subjected to a series of transformations which add qualities to it (soaking, for example). In this case, the taking of form is not accomplished in a single moment in a visible manner, but in several successive operations; we can not strictly distinguish the taking of form from the qualitative transformation; the forging and soaking of a steel is one anterior, the other posterior to what might be called the actual form-fitting; forging and soaking are nevertheless constitutions of objects. Only the dominance of techniques applied to

materials made plastic by the preparation can assure to the hylemorphic schema an appearance of explanatory universality, because this plasticity suspends the action of the historical singularities brought by the matter. But this is a borderline case, which masks the action of singular information in the genesis of the individual.

3. The hylemorphic ambivalence

In these conditions, one may wonder what the attribution of the principle of individuation is to matter rather than form. The individuation by the matter, in the hylemorphic schema, corresponds to this character of obstacle, of limit, which is the matter in the technical operation; by which an object is different from another, it is the set of particular limits, varying from one case to another, which make this object possesses its ecstacy; it is the experience of the recommencement of the construction of the objects coming out of the technical operation which gives the idea of attributing to the matter the differences which make that an object is individually distinct from another. What is preserved in an object is matter; what makes it be itself is that the state in which its matter is summed up summarizes all the events that this object has undergone; the form which is only the intention of the fabricator, the will of disposition, can not grow old or become; it is always the same, from one manufacture to another; it is at least the same as an intention, for the consciousness of the one who thinks and gives the order of manufacture; it is the same abstractly, for the one who commands the manufacture of a thousand bricks: he wishes them all identical, of the same size and according to the same geometrical figure. From this results the fact that when the thinker is not the one who works, there is in reality in his thought only one form for all the objects of the same collection: the form is generic not logically neither physically nor socially: only one order is given for all bricks of the same type; it is therefore not this order that can differentiate the bricks actually molded after manufacture as separate individuals. It is quite different when one thinks of the operation from the point of view of the one who accomplishes it: one brick is different from another not only according to the matter that one takes to make it (if the material has been properly prepared, it can be homogeneous enough not to spontaneously introduce significant differences between successive casts), but also and especially according to the uniqueness of the unfolding of the molding operation: the actions of the worker do not are never exactly the same; the schema is perhaps a single schema, from the beginning of the work to the end, but each molding is governed by a set of psychic, perceptive, and somatic events, individuals; the true form, the one that directs the disposition of the mold, of the dough, the regime of successive gestures, changes from one copy to another as so many possible variations around the same theme; fatigue, the global state of perception and representation intervene in this particular operation and equivalent to a unique existence of a particular form of each act of manufacture, reflected in the reality of the object; the singularity, the principle of individuation, would then be in the information the global state of perception and representation intervenes in this particular operation and is equivalent to a unique existence of a particular form of each act of manufacture, reflected in the reality of the object; the singularity, the principle of individuation, would then be in the information the global state of perception and representation intervenes in this particular operation and is equivalent to a unique existence of a particular form of each act of manufacture, reflected in the reality of the object; the singularity, the principle of individuation, would then be in the information63 . We could say that in a civilization that divides

men in two groups, those who give orders and those who execute them, the principle of individuation, according to the technological example, is necessarily attributed either to form or matter, but never to both together. The man who gives orders of execution but does not accomplish them and controls that the result tends to find the principle of individuation in the matter, source of the quantity and the plurality, because this man does not experience not the rebirth of a new form peculiar to each manufacturing operation; Plato believes that when the weaver breaks a shuttle, he makes a new shuttle, not by having the eyes of the body fixed on the pieces of the broken shuttle, but by contemplating with those of the soul the shape of the ideal shuttle. that he finds in him. Archetypes are unique for each type of beings; there is one ideal shuttle for all sensitive, past, present and future shuttles. On the contrary, the man who performs the work does not see in the matter a sufficient principle of individuation because for him the matter is the prepared matter (whereas it is the raw material for the one who orders without working, since he does not prepare it himself); Now, the prepared material is precisely that which is by definition homogeneous, since it must be able to take shape. What, then, for the working man, introduces a difference between the objects successively prepared, is the necessity of renewing the effort of the work to each new unit; in the time series of the efforts of the day, each unit is a clean moment: brick is the fruit of this effort, of that trembling or firm gesture, hasty or full of weariness; it carries with it the imprint of a moment of existence of man, it concretizes this activity exercised on homogeneous matter, passive, waiting to be used; she comes out of this singularity.

However, a very great subjectivity exists in the point of view of the master as in that of the craftsman; the ecceity of the object thus defined reaches only partial aspects; that which the master perceives reaches the fact that the objects are multiple; their number is proportional to the quantity of material employed; it follows from the fact that this mass of matter has become this object, this mass of matter, this object; the master finds matter in the object, like that tyrant who, with the help of Archimedes, checked the fraud of the silversmith who mixed a certain mass of money with the gold which had been entrusted to him to make a parade seat: the seat, for the tyrant, is seat made of this gold, of this gold; its ecstasy is planned and expected even before the gesture of manufacture, because the craftsman, for the one who orders without work, is the man who possesses techniques to transform matter without modifying it, without changing the substance. What individualizes the siege for the tyrant is not the form that the goldsmith gives him, but the material having already a quiddity before its transformation: this gold, and not any metal or even any gold. Even today, the search for ecstasy in matter exists practically in the man who commands the craftsman. For a forest owner, donating lumber to a sawmill means that the wood will not be exchanged for wood from another, and that the lumber will be made from has been provided. However, this substitution of material would not be a fraud as in the case of the goldsmith who had mixed money with gold to be able to retain a certain quantity of fine gold. But the attachment of the owner to the conservation of his material is based on irrational motives, among which is probably the fact that the ecceité not only covers an objective character detached from the subject, but has the value of belonging and an origin. Only a commercially abstract thought could

not to attach a price to the ecstasy of matter, and not to seek there a principle of individuation. The man who gives material to elaborate values what he knows, what is attached to him, what he has watched and seen grow; for him, the primitive concrete is matter in so far as it belongs to it, belongs to it, and this matter must extend into objects; by its quantity, this matter is principle of the number of objects which will result from the taking of form. This tree will become such and such a board; it is all the trees taken individually one by one which will become this pile of planks; there is a passage from the ecstacy of the trees to the ecceité of the boards. What this passage expresses is the permanence of what the subject recognizes in objects; the expression of the ego is here the concrete relation of property, the membership link. By placing ecstasy in information, the artisan does not act otherwise; but as he does not own the material on which he works, he does not know this matter as a singular thing; it is foreign to it, it is not linked to its individual history, to its effort, as matter; she is only what he works on; it ignores the origin of matter and prepares it in a preparatory way until it no longer reflects its origin, until it is homogeneous, ready to take shape like any other be suitable for the same job; the artisanal operation in some way denies the historicity of matter in that it is human and subjective; this historicity, on the contrary, is known to the one who brought the matter, and valued because it is depository of something subjective, because it expresses human existence. The ecstasy sought in matter is based on an attachment to that particular subject which has been associated with human effort, and which has become a reflection of this effort. The ecstasy of matter is not purely material; it is also an ecstasy in relation to the subject. The artisan, on the other hand, expresses himself in his effort, and the workable material is only the support, the occasion of this effort; one could say that, from the point of view of the artisan, the ecstacy of the object begins to exist only with the effort of shaping; as this shaping effort coincides temporally with the onset of ecstasy, it is natural for the craftsman to attribute the foundation of ecstasy to information,and nunc of the complete operation. In the same way, the ecstasy begins to exist, for the owner of the matter, with the act of purchase or planting a tree. The fact that later this tree will be material for a technical operation does not exist yet; it is not as future matter, but as an object or goal of an operation that this tree has an ecstasy. Later, he will keep it for the owner, but not for the craftsman who did not plant the tree and did not buy it as a tree. The craftsman who signs his work and puts a date attaches to the ecstacy of this work the meaning of his definite effort; for him, the historicity of this effort is the source of this ecstasy; it is the first origin and the principle of individuation of this object. The form was source of information, by the work.

Now, if the question of the foundation of individuation can legitimately arise, and if this principle is sought sometimes in form, sometimes in matter, according to the type of individuation taken as a model of intelligibility, it is probable that Technological cases of individuation in which form and matter have a meaning are still very special cases, and there is no proof that the notions of form and matter are generalizable. On the other hand, what makes the criticism of the hylemorphic schema appear, the existence, between form and matter, of a zone of average and intermediate dimension - that

singularities which are the primer of the individual in the operation of individuation - must undoubtedly be considered as an essential character of the operation of individuation. It is at the level of these singularities that matter and form meet in technical individuation, and it is at this level of reality that the principle of individuation is found, in the form of the beginning of the operation of individuation: we can therefore wonder if individuation in general could not be understood from the technical paradigm obtained by a reworking of the hylemorphic schema leaving, between form and matter, a central place to the singularity, playing a role of information active.

III. - THE TWO ASPECTS OF INDIVIDUATION

1. Reality and relativity of the foundation of individuation

[The individuation of objects is not entirely independent of the existence of man; the individuated object is an individuated object for man: there is in man a need to individuate objects which is one of the aspects of the need to recognize oneself and to find oneself in things, and to to find oneself as having a definite identity, stabilized by a role and an activity. The individuation of objects is not absolute; it is an expression of the psycho-social existence of man. It can not, however, be arbitrary; it needs a support that justifies it and receives it. In spite of the relativity of the principle of individuation as it is invoked, individuation is not arbitrary; it attaches itself to an aspect of objects which it may perhaps wrongly consider to have a meaning alone; but this aspect is really recognized; what is not in conformity with the real is the exclusion of other points of view which one could place oneself in order to find other aspects of individuation. It is the unique and exclusive attribution of the principle of individuation to this or that type of reality that is subjective. But the very notion of individuation and the search for individuation, taken in itself as expressing a need, are not devoid of meaning. The subjectivity of individuation for man, the tendency to individuate objects must not lead to the conclusion that individuation does not exist and does not correspond to anything. A critique of individuation does not necessarily have to lead to the notion of individuation vanishing, it is to make an epistemological analysis which must lead to a genuine apprehension of individuation. it is the exclusion of other points of view which one might place oneself in order to find other aspects of individuation. It is the unique and exclusive attribution of the principle of individuation to this or that type of reality that is subjective. But the very notion of individuation and the search for individuation, taken in itself as expressing a need, are not devoid of meaning. The subjectivity of individuation for man, the tendency to individuate objects must not lead to the conclusion that individuation does not exist and does not correspond to anything. A critique of individuation does not necessarily have to lead to the notion of individuation vanishing, it is to make an epistemological analysis which must lead to a genuine apprehension of individuation. it is the exclusion of other points of view which one might place oneself in order to find other aspects of individuation. It is the unique and exclusive attribution of the principle of individuation to this or that type of reality that is subjective. But the very notion of individuation and the search for individuation, taken in itself as expressing a need, are not devoid of meaning. The subjectivity of individuation for man, the tendency to individuate objects must not lead to the conclusion that individuation does not exist and does not correspond to anything. A critique of individuation does not necessarily have to lead to the notion of individuation vanishing, it is to make an epistemological analysis which must lead to a genuine apprehension of individuation.6. ]

The epistemological and critical analysis can not be limited to indicating a possible relativity of the search for the principle of individuation, and its subjective, psycho-social meaning. The content of the notion of individuation must be submitted to study to see if it expresses something subjective, and if the duality between the conditions of attribution of this principle to form or matter is found in the very content of the notion. Without looking for the principle of individuation, one can ask this question: what is individuation? Here, however, there is an important divergence between two groups of notions. One may wonder why an individual is what he is. One can also wonder why an individual is different from all others and can not be confused with them. There is no evidence that the two aspects of individuation are identical. To confuse them is to assume that an individual is64

q u it is within itself, itself relative to itself, because by t rhave a definite relationship with other people, not with this or that, but with all others. In the first sense, individuation is a set of intrinsic characters; in the second sense, a set of extrinsic characters, of relations. But how can these two sets of characters be connected to each other? In what sense does the intrinsic and the extrinsic form a unity? Should the extrinsic and intrinsic aspects really be separated and considered as intrinsically intrinsic and extrinsic, or should they be regarded as indicating a deeper, more essential mode of existence, expressed in both aspects of life? individuation? But then, can we still say that the basic principle is the principle of individuation with its usual content, that is, assuming that there is reciprocity between the fact that a being is what he is and the fact that he is different from other beings? It seems that the true principle must be discovered in terms of the compatibility between the positive aspect and the negative aspect of the notion of individuation. Perhaps then the representation of the individual will have to be modified, like the hylemorphic schema incorporating the information.

How can an individual's own being linked to what this individual would be if he did not possess what he possesses? We must ask ourselves whether the singularity or singularities of an individual play a real role in individuation, or whether they are secondary aspects of individuation, added to it, but having no positive role.

Placing the principle of individuation in form or matter is to suppose that the individual can be individuated by something which pre-exists his genesis, and which contains in germ the individuation. The principle of individuation precedes the genesis of the individual. When one seeks a principle of individuation existing before the individual, one is forced to place it in matter or in form, since only form and matter preexist; as they are separated from one another and their meeting is contingent, the principle of individuation can not be made to reside in the system of form and matter as a system, since the latter is only constituted at the moment when the matter takes shape. Any theory which wishes to make the principle of individuation preexistent to individuation must necessarily attribute it to form or matter, and exclusively to one or the other. In this case, the individual is nothing more than the union of a form and a material, and he is a complete reality. However, the examination of a shaping operation as incomplete as that carried out by the technical operation shows that, even if implicit forms already exist, the shaping can only take place if the material and form are met. in a single system by an energetic condition of metastability. This condition, we have named it internal resonance of the system, instituting an allagmatic relation during the actualization of the potential energy The principle of individuation is in this case the state of the individuating system, this state of allagmatic relation within an energetic complex including all the singularities; the real individual exists only for a moment during the technical operation: it exists as long as the form takes65 . After this operation, what remains is a result that is going to degrade, not a real individual; it is an individuated being rather than a real individual, that is, an individuating individual, an individuating individual. The real individual is the one who preserves

with him his system of individuation, amplifying singularities. The principle of individuation is in this energetic system of internal resonance; the form is the form of the individual only if it is form for the individual, that is to say, if it suits the singularity of this constituent system; matter is matter of the individual only if it is matter for the individual, that is to say, if it is involved in this system, if it enters as a vehicle of energy and is distributed there according to the distribution of energy. Now, the appearance of this reality of the energy system no longer makes it possible to say that there is an extrinsic aspect and an intrinsic aspect of individuation; it is at the same time and by the same characters that the energy system is what it is and is different from the others. Form and matter, realities that predate the individual and are separate from each other, can be defined without regard to their relation to the rest of the world, because these are not realities that refer to energy. But the energetic system in which an individual is constituted is no more intrinsic in relation to this individual than it is extrinsic to him: he is associated with him, he is his associated milieu. The individual, by his energetic conditions of existence, is not only within his own limits; he is constituted at the limit of himself and exists at the limit of himself; he comes out of a singularity. The relationship, for the individual, has value to be; we can not distinguish the extrinsic from the intrinsic; what is really and essentially the individual is the active relation, the exchange between the extrinsic and the intrinsic; there is extrinsic and intrinsic in relation to what is first. What is primary is this system of the singular internal resonance of the allagmatic relationship between two orders of magnitude66. In relation to this relation, there is intrinsic and extrinsic, but what is really the individual is this relation, not the intrinsic one which is only one of the concomitant terms: the intrinsic, the interiority of the individual would not exist without the permanent relational operation that is permanent individuation. The individual is a reality of a constituting relation, not an interiority of a constituted term. It is only when one considers the result of individuation accomplished (or supposedly accomplished) that one can define the individual as being who has an interiority, and in relation to which there is an externality. The individual becomes indi- vidual and indi- vidual before any possible distinction between the extrinsic and the intrinsic. The third reality we call middle, or energetic system constituting,

The hylemorphic schema is not only inadequate for the knowledge of the principle of individuation; it leads moreover to a representation of the individual reality which is not right: it makes of the individual the possible term of a relation, whereas the individual is, on the contrary, theater and agent of a relation; it can only be an end of the term because it is theater or agent, essentially, of an interactive communication. Wanting to characterize the individual in himself or in relation to other realities, is to tarnish the relationship, a relationship with himself or a relationship with another reality; we must first find the point of view from which we can grasp the individual as an activity of the relation, not as a term of

this tt e re lati 0n ; the individual is strictly related with neither himself nor with of the t res realities; he is the being of the relation, and not to be in relation, because the relation is intense operation, active center.

C ' es t why the fact of whether the principle of individuation is what makes the i n di v id u is positively itself, or if it is so it is not the others,  not cor p o n not to the individual reality. The principle of the individual is the individual himself m ê me for years his activity, that is relational in itself, as the center and singular mediation

2. The energetic foundation of individuation: individual and environment

We would like to show that the principle of individuation is not an isolated reality, localized in itself, pre-existing to the individual as an already individualized gem of the individual; that the principle of individuation, in the strict sense of the term, is the complete system in which the genesis of the individual takes place; that, moreover, this system survives itself in the living individual, in the form of an environment associated with the individual, in which individuation continues to take place; that life is thus a perpetual individuation, an individuation continued through time, prolonging a singularity. What is missing from the hylemorphic schema is the indication of the condition of communication and metastable equilibrium, that is to say of the condition of internal resonance in a determined medium, which can be designated by the physical term of system. The notion of system is necessary to define the energetic condition, because there is potential energy only in relation to possible transformations in a defined system. The limits of this system are not arbitrarily broken down by the knowledge of the subject; they exist in relation to the system itself.

According to this line of inquiry, the constituted individual could not appear as an absolute being, entirely detached, conformable to the model of the substance, like the pure opov. Individuation would only be one of the possible becomeings of a system, which can, moreover, exist on several levels and more or less completely; the individual as being defined, isolated, consistent, would be only one of the two parts of the complete reality; instead of being the newcomer it would be the result of a certain organizing event that occurred within the ovoA.ov and dividing it into two complementary realities: the individual and the associated milieu after individuation; the associated medium is the complement of the individual in relation to the original whole. L 'individual alone is not therefore the very type of being; it can not for this reason support relationship as a term with another symmetric term. The separated individual is a partial, incomplete being, which can only be adequately known if it is put back into the open source from which it originates. The model of being is the open source before the genesis of the individual, or the associated individual-medium pair after the genesis of the individual. Instead of conceiving individuation as a synthesis of form and matter, or of body and soul, we will represent it as a duplication, a resolution, a non-symmetrical sharing occurring in a totality, starting from a singularity. For this reason, the individual is not a concrete, a complete being, insofar as he is only a part of being after the resolving individuation. The individual can not account for himself from himself, for it is not the whole thing to be, inasmuch as he is the expression of a resolution.

Individuation will thus be presented as one of the possibilities of the becoming of being, responding to certain defined conditions. The method employed is not to give oneself at first to the realized individual that it is a question of explaining, but to take the complete reality before individuation. In fact, if we take the individual after individuation, we are led to the hylemorphic schema, because there remains in the individuated individual only these two visible aspects of form and matter; but the indi- vidual individual is not a complete reality, and individuation is not explicable by means of the only elements which can be discovered by the analysis of the individual after individuation. The play of the energetic condition (state condition of the constituent system) can not be grasped in the constituted individual. It is for this reason that until now it has been ignored; indeed, the different studies of individuation wanted to grasp in the constituted individual an element capable of explaining the individuation of this individual: this would be possible only if the individual were to himself a complete system and the had always been. But we can not induce individuation from the individual: we can only follow step by step the genesis of the individual in a system; any regressive step aimed at going back to individuation on the basis of individual realities discovers to a certain point a different reality, an additional reality, which can be interpreted differently according to the presuppositions of the system of thought in which the research is carried out (for example by the use of the schema of creation,clinamen of the atoms and the force of the nature which pushes them to meet, with an implicit effort: conata is nequiquam, says Lucretia of the Nature).

The essential difference between the classical study of individuation and that which we present is this: individuation will not be considered solely in the perspective of the explanation of the individuated individual; it will be seized, or at least will be said to be seized, before and during the genesis of the separated individual; individuation is an event and an operation within a richer reality than the resulting individual ' 8. Moreover, the separation initiated by individuation within the system may not lead to isolation of the individual; individuation is then the structuring of a system without separation of the individual and its complement, so that individuation introduces a new regime of the system, but does not break the system. In this case, the individual must be known not abstractly, but by going back to individuation, that is to say by going back to the state from which it is pos-67

sible to grasp genetically the whole of reality including the individual and his complement of being. The principle of the method we propose consists in supposing that there is a conservation of being, and that one must think only from a complete reality. This is why we must consider the transformation of a complete domain of being, from the state that precedes individuation to the state that follows or extends it.

This method is not intended to vanish the consistency of the individual being, but only to grasp it in the system of being concrete where its genesis takes place. If the individual is not grasped in this complete systematic set of being, he is treated in two equally abusive divergent ways: either he becomes an absolute, and he is confused with the ovoAov or he is so much referred to the being in its totality that it loses its consistency and is treated like an illusion. In fact, the individual is not a complete reality; but it is not complementary to the whole of nature, before which it would become a minute reality; the individual has as a complement a reality of the same order as his own as the being of a couple in relation to the other being with whom he forms the couple; at least,

[Between Leibniz's monad and Spinoza's individual, there is in a certain sense a complete opposition, since the world of Leibniz is made of individuals while that of Spinoza does not properly include a single individual, nature ; but this opposition comes in fact from the lack of relativity of the individual in relation to a complementary reality of the same order as his own; Leibniz breaks up individuation to the extreme limits of littleness, granting individuality even to the smallest elements of a living body; Spinoza, on the contrary, grows individuation to the limits of the whole, by which God is natura natura being individuation itself. Neither in the one nor the other is there, in relation to the individual of the associated medium, system of the same order of magnitude within which the individual can receive a genesis. The individual is taken to be, he is considered coextensive to be. Under these conditions, the individual considered coextensive with being can not be located: all reality is both too small and too large to receive the status of individual. Everything can be individual, and nothing can be completely.68If, on the contrary, the individual is grasped not as a term of a relation, but as the result of an operation and as the theater of a relational activity which is perpetuated in him, he is defined in relation to the whole he constitutes with its complement, which is of the same order of magnitude as it and at the same level as it after individuation. Nature as a whole is not made up of individuals, nor is she herself an individual: she is made of areas of being that may or may not include individuation. There are in nature two modes of reality which are not of the individual: the domains which have not been the theater of an individuation, and what remains of a concrete domain after individuation, when we withdraw the individual. These two types of reality can not be confused,

If one accepts to know the individual in relation to the systematic whole in which his genesis takes place, one discovers that there exists a function of the individual in relation to the concrete system envisaged according to his becoming; individuation expresses a change

phase of being of this system, avoiding its degradation, incorporating in the form of structures the energetic potentials of this system, compatibilizing the antagonisms, solving the internal conflict of the system. Individuation perpetuates the system through a topological and energetic change; true identity is not the identity of the individual in relation to himself, but the identity of the concrete permanence of the system through its phases. True ecstasy is a functional ecstasy, and finality finds its origin in this substratum of ecstasy which it translates into oriented operation, in amplifying mediation between orders of magnitude, primitively without communication.

Thus, the inadequacy of the form-matter relation to provide an adequate knowledge of the conditions and process of physical individuation leads us to analyze the role played by potential energy in the individuation operation, this energy being a condition metastability.

Chapter II

Form and energy

1. - POTENTIAL ENERGY AND STRUCTURES

1. É potential energy and reality of the system;

equivalence of potential energies; dyssymmetry and energy exchanges

The notion of potential energy in physics is not absolutely clear and does not correspond to a rigorously defined extension; thus, it would be difficult to specify whether the thermal energy stored in a heated body should be considered as potential energy; its potential nature is linked to a possibility of transformation of the system by modification of its energy state. A body whose molecules all possess the same amount of energy in the form of thermal agitation would not possess any amount of potential thermal energy; indeed, the body would have reached its most stable state.On the other hand, a body that possesses the same total amount of heat, but in such a way that there are molecules in one region at a higher temperature and in another region molecules at a lower temperature would possess a certain amount of heat. thermal potential energy. This quantity of potential energy can not be considered as adding to the non-potential energy contained in the body; it is the fraction of the total energy of the body that can give rise to a transformation, reversible or not; this relativity of the potential character of the energy is clearly manifested if one supposes for example that a body heated in a homogeneous way - thus having no potential thermal energy if it is only one to constitute a system - can be used to make to appear a potential energy if it is put in the presence of another body of different temperature. The capacity for an energy to be potential is closely related to the presence of a relationship of heterogeneity, dyssymmetry relative to another energy support; we can indeed, by taking the preceding example, consider a particularly demonstrative limit case: if a body was heated in such a way that it contains molecules at a higher temperature and others at a lower temperature, no not grouped into two separate regions,

group of all the hot molecules and that of all the cold molecules; yet this sum of the potential energies of the molecular couples does not correspond to any physical reality, to any potential energy of the global system; for that it would be necessary to order the disorder by separating the hot molecules from the cold molecules; this is shown by Maxwell's very interesting hypothesis of the demon, which Norbert Wiener discusses and discusses in Cybernetics.Careful consideration of the type of reality represented by potential energy is extremely instructive for the determination of a method appropriate to the discovery of individuation. Indeed, the reflection on the potential energy teaches us that there is an order of reality that we can not grasp either by the consideration of a quantity or by the recourse to a simple formalism; potential energy is not a mere way of seeing, an arbitrary consideration of the mind; it corresponds to a capacity for real transformationsin a system, and the very nature of the system is more than an arbitrary grouping of beings operated by thought, since the fact, for an object, of being part of a system defines for this object the possibility of mutual actions by to the other objects constituting the system, so that the membership of a system is defined by a virtual reciprocity of actions between the terms of the system. But the reality of potential energy is not that of an object or substance consisting in itself and "needing no other thing to exist"; it needs, in fact, a system, that is to say at least one other term. No doubt we must accept to go against the habit which leads us to accord the highest degree of being to the substance conceived as absolute reality, that is to say without relation. The relation is not pure epiphenomenon; she isconvertible in substantial terms, and this conversion is reversible, like that of potential energy into current energy69 .

If a distinction of terms is useful for fixing the results of the analysis of meanings, we can name the relation of the arrangement of the elements of a system which has a scope beyond a mere arbitrary view of the mind, and reserve the term of report for an arbitrary, fortuitous, non-convertible relationship in substantial terms; the relation would be a relation as real and important as the terms themselves; one could say, therefore, that a true relation between two terms is in fact equivalent to a relation between three terms.

We will start from this postulate: individuation requires a real relation, which can only be given in a state of system

closing a potential. The consideration of potential energy is not only useful in that it teaches us to think about the reality of the relationship; it also offers us a possibility of measurement by the reciprocal convertibility method; consider for example a series of increasingly complicated clocks, and try to note the energy transformations of which they are the seat during a period of oscillation: we will see that we can affirm not only the convertibility of the 'Electricity supply epotential in kinetic energy, then in potential energy that is converted back into kinetic energy, but also the equivalence of two different forms of potential energy that convert into each other through a determined amount of kinetic energy. For example, firstly a simple pendulum OM oscillating in the field of gravity (Fig. I); if A is the point of the trajectory closest to the center of the Earth, and if B and C are the symmetrical extreme positions with respect to the axis OA, the potential energy is minimum, and the maximum kinetic energy, in AT ; on the contrary, the potential energy is maximum and the minimum kinetic energy in B and C. If we take as reference equipotential surface the horizontal plane passing through the point A,

of energy are thus completely transformed into one another, if we neglect the degradation of energy by friction. Let us take now the case of a pendulum like the one that Holweck and Lejay made to allow the establishment of the gravity network in France (fig II). It consists of an elastic élinvar blade embedded in its lower part and carrying in its upper part a mass of quartz. The whole is placed in a tube where one has evacuated to reduce the damping. The principle of operation is as follows: when the pendulum is moved away from its equilibrium position, the moments of elastic forces and gravity forces act in opposite directions, and it is possible, by a suitable adjustment, to bring these two moments to be very little different; as the period is determined by the difference of these moments, we can say that we realized a system allowing the conversion of one form of potential energy into another form of potential energy, through a certain amount of kinetic energy which is equivalent to the quantitative difference between these two potential energies; if the two potential energies (that which is expressed in moments of the elastic forces and that which is expressed in moments of the forces of gravity) were rigorously equal, the pendulum would have a period of infinite oscillation, that is to say would be in a state of indifferent balance. It is as if the potential energy that actually converts into kinetic energy and then reconverted to potential energy during an oscillation was an energy resulting from the difference of two other potential energies.

tial. The same pendulum, turned 180 °, would on the contrary realize a summation of the two potential energies in the form of kinetic energy at the lowest point of the trajectory traveled by the mass of quartz.

Finally, a system could be

more complex system of coupled pendulums without damping (gravity pendulums or torsion pendulums) (figs III and IV). In this case, beats would be observed on each clock, all the more apart as the coupling would be weaker. These beats are themselves in quadrature, that is to say that each of the clocks seems to stop when the other has its maximum amplitude; the energy of the oscillations is transferred alternately from one of the pendulums to the other. In such an experiment, can we still estimate that the period of the resulting oscillation (of the energy transfer) corresponds to a determined potential energy? - Yes, because, if we denote by K the coupling coefficient between the oscillators that are the two pendulums, and by which the pulsation of these pendulums, assumed the same for both, the period of beats on the two pendulums is given by the expression T = l-. The potential energy here lies in the fact that at the beginning one of the two pendulums is animated by one movement while the other is motionless; it is this dyssymmetry that causes the passage of energy from one pendulum to another. If pendulums of the same natural frequency, animated by synchronous oscillations and of the same phase, were coupled, the resulting eigen period would not be the same as the oscillation period of each of the separate pendulums, but no energy exchange would occur. would take place. There is a beating in case the dyssymmetry of the initial conditions of exciter and resonator can cancel each other out and turn into its inverse, then return to the initial state. lies in the fact that originally one of the two pendulums is animated by one movement while the other is motionless; it is this dyssymmetry that causes the passage of energy from one pendulum to another. If pendulums of the same natural frequency, animated by synchronous oscillations and of the same phase, were coupled, the resulting eigen period would not be the same as the oscillation period of each of the separate pendulums, but no energy exchange would occur. would take place. There is a beating in case the dyssymmetry of the initial conditions of exciter and resonator can cancel each other out and turn into its inverse, then return to the initial state. lies in the fact that originally one of the two pendulums is animated by one movement while the other is motionless; it is this dyssymmetry that causes the passage of energy from one pendulum to another. If pendulums of the same natural frequency, animated by synchronous oscillations and of the same phase, were coupled, the resulting eigen period would not be the same as the oscillation period of each of the separate pendulums, but no energy exchange would occur. would take place. There is a beating in case the dyssymmetry of the initial conditions of exciter and resonator can cancel each other out and turn into its inverse, then return to the initial state. If synchronous oscillations of the same phase were coupled, the resulting clean period would not be the same as the oscillation period of each of the separate clocks, but no exchange of energy would take place. There is a beating in case the dyssymmetry of the initial conditions of exciter and resonator can cancel each other out and turn into its inverse, then return to the initial state. If synchronous oscillations of the same phase were coupled, the resulting clean period would not be the same as the oscillation period of each of the separate clocks, but no exchange of energy would take place. There is a beating in case the dyssymmetry of the initial conditions of exciter and resonator can cancel each other out and turn into its inverse, then return to the initial state.

One could multiply the more and more complex cases of energy exchanges: one would find that the potential energy always appears as linked to the state of dyssymmetry of a system ; in this sense, a system contains potential energy when it is not in its state of greater stability. When this initial dyssymmetry produces an exchange of energy within the system, the modification produced may

to transform into another form of energy; in this case the system does not return immediately to its initial state: it must, for it to return, that the previous transformation is reversible; then, the system oscillates. This oscillation establishes the equality of two forms of potential energy. So we can already distinguish the identity of two energy states of the equality of two energy states in the case of e ner potential ogy: two potential energies are identical when they corresp itdent to the same physical state of the system, with only a difference in measurements that could be suppressed by proper displacement of the reference axes; thus, when the pendulum of figure 1 oscillates, it establishes the reciprocal convertibility of the potential energy corresponding to the position B and that which corresponds to the position C; as the measurement of the potential energy of the pendulum-Earth system depends only on the position of the mass M with respect to the equipotential surfaces which are in this case the horizontal planes, the determination of the position B or of the position C depends only on the direction chosen for measuring the elongation; the inversion of this direction makes it possible to identify the physical states corresponding to the states B and C for the measurement of the potential energy.

Consider, on the other hand, the example of the Holweck-Lejay pendulum; it is no longer possible to identify by simple displacement of the measurement conventions the states of potential energy corresponding to the couples of the gravitational forces and those which correspond to the elastic forces resulting from the bending of the élinvar blade. The oscillation nevertheless establishes the reciprocal convertibility of these two forms of energy, and this leads them to consider them as equal when the equilibrium indifferent state of the pendulum is realized: the potential energy defines the real formal conditions of the state of a system2.

2. Different orders of potential energy; notions of phase changes, stable equilibrium and metastable equilibrium of a state. Tammann's theory

The potential energies of the three physical systems that we have just considered can be said to be of the same order, not only because they are mutually convertible during a period of oscillation of the system, but also because this conversion is of a continuous way; it is even this continuity of the conversion which allows the latter to be an oscillation in the proper sense of the term, that is to say, to be carried out according to a sinusoidal law as a function of time. It is indeed important to distinguish carefully a true oscillation, during which there is conversion of one form of energy into another form of energy (which defines a period depending on the potentials involved and the inertia of the system) of a simply recurrent phenomenon, during which a non-recurring phenomenon by itself, like the discharge of a capacitor through a resistor, triggers by its accomplishment another phenomenon which brings back the system to its primitive state. This last case is that of the phenomena of relaxation, named, in a way perhaps abusive, oscillations of relaxation, and of which the most current examples are in electronics in the assemblies "oscillators" using the thyratrons, or70

in multivibrators, or in nature, in the form of intermittent fountains.

Now, if the existence of true oscillations in physical systems can make it possible to define as potential energies equivalent by their form energies which can be subjected to reversible transformations and are thus likely to be equal in their quantity, there are also systems in which the irreversibility of the transformations manifests a difference of order between the potential energies. The best known of the irreversibilities is that illustrated by the researches of Thermodynamics, and that the second principle of this science (Camot-Clausius principle) states for the successive transformations of a closed system. According to this principle, the entropy of a closed system increases during successive transformations71. The theory of the maximum theoretical efficiency of thermal engines is in conformity with this principle, and verifies it, insofar as a theory can be validated by the fruitfulness of the consequences that one draws from it. But this irreversibility of the transformations of mechanical energy into heat energy is perhaps not the only one that exists. Moreover, the apparently hierarchical aspect involved in this relationship from a noble form to a degraded form of energy risks obscuring the very nature of this irreversibility. Here we are dealing with a change in the order of magnitude and the number of systems in which this energy exists; in fact, energy may not change in nature, and yet change order; that's what happens when the kinetic energy of a moving body turns into heat, as in the example often used in physics of the lead bullet, meeting an indeformable plane and transforming all its energy into heat: the quantity of kinetic energy remains the same, but what was the energy of the ball as a whole, considered by relative to reference axes for which the indeformable plane is immobile, becomes energy of each moving molecule relative to other molecules inside the ball. It is the structure of the physical system that has changed; if this structure could be transformed in the opposite direction, the transformation of the energy would also become reversible. Irreversibility is the transition from a unified macroscopic structure to a fragmented and disordered microscopic structure72 ; the notion of disorder also expresses the microphysical fragmentation itself; indeed, if the molecular displacements were ordered, the system would in fact be unified; we can consider the macroscopic system formed by the ball moving relative to an indeformable plane and by this plane as an ordered set of molecules animated parallel movements; an ordered microscopic system is in fact of macroscopic structure.

However, if we consider the energy exchanges involved in state changes, such as melting, vaporization and crystallization, we will see particular cases of irreversibility linked to changes in the structure of the system. In the field of crystalline structure, for example, we see how the old notion of the elements must give way to a theory that is both structural and energetic: the continuity of the liquid and gaseous states makes it possible to unite these two states in the domain.

does not circulate fluid in the homogeneous state; by cons, this area of the homogeneous state es t does tt e ment separated by the border that is the saturation curve, non-homogeneous states.

It is evident between crystalline and amorphous states discontinuity we louse Vons closer to that between a macroscopic order of energy and energy equal in absolute value but of microscopic order, as thermal energy which has previous could deteriorate during a irregu transformation towards ibl e . According to the hypothesis of Tammann, the crystalline state is characterized by the ex i s t e nce in the preferred directions of crystallized substances. The properties of these substances have different values according to the direction considered; t e llesare the properties enlightened by the study of the geometrical form of the crystals and the various manifestations of crystalline anisotropy; the amorphous state, on the other hand, comprising the gaseous, liquid or amorphous (vitreous) states, is characterized by the absence of privileged directions; the properties of the amorphous substances have values that do not depend on the direction considered. A body in the amorphous state does not have a specific geometric shape, and is isotropic. Only an external action such as a non-uniform pressure, a pull, a torsion, the existence of an electric or magnetic field, can render an amorphous body, and especially a vitreous body, temporarily anisotropic. If one imagines an amorphous body as a body in which the constitutive particles are arranged in a disordered way, we can suppose that the crystal is, on the contrary, a body in which the elementary particles, atoms or groups of atoms, are arranged in ordered arrangements, called crystal lattices. Bravais admits a distribution of the various elements or chemical groups of a crystal according to a system of regular points, each of which represents the center of gravity of these various elements or chemical groups. (This simplified expression assumes the element or the stationary chemical group: if it is animated by a vibration, the regular point represents the average position around which the element vibrates, which is its equilibrium position). All these systems of regular points can be obtained by the juxtaposition of parallelepipedic lattices, each containing only elements or chemical groups of the same nature which rank, according to their symmetries, in the thirty-two classical groups of crystals. The anisotropy of the crystal is then understood, because these networks can be divided into plan systems passing through the various regular points of the considered network, each system consisting of a set of planes parallel to each other and equidistant from one another: Plan systems correspond to the preferred directions in which the limiting surfaces of the crystals can be arranged. Accepting the theory of Bravais, Tammann completes this representation of the differences between states of matter by assimilating the amorphous solids to liquids endowed with a very great viscosity and rigidity; it shows that true continuity exists between the solid and liquid states of a vitreous body; the glass for example, at the current temperature of use, has a high rigidity; when the glass-blower raises its temperature, the rigidity, then the viscosity of the glass, diminish progressively until, at high temperature, a real liquid is obtained. Pasty fusion, characteristic of amorphous solids, never shows two distinct phases. Tammann therefore considers the amorphous solid as a liquid whose rigidity and viscosity have reached as a result of a sufficient lowering of temperature, very large values.

Tammann is important: a liquid which undergoes a lowering of temperature without being able to pass in the crystalline state is transformed continuously into a vitreous body. It is therefore in a state of supercooling. Experiments on piperine, C 17 H 9 O 3 N, and betol, C | 0 H 7 C0 2 C 6 H 4 0H, substances which melt respectively at 128 ° and 95 °, and remain easily supercooled, confirmed this hypothesis. But the only consideration of the structures corresponding to the various states is incomplete and leaves indeterminacy; it must be complemented by the study of the different energy levelsrelated to each state and the energy exchanges that occur during the changes

state. It is because it leads to a study of the correlation between structural changes and energy exchanges that Tammann's theory has an exemplary value. It makes it possible to determine the conditions and the stability limits of the crystalline and amorphous states. There are many bodies that can occur in the crystalline state or in the amorphous state; Now, according to the conditions of temperature and pressure, it is sometimes the crystalline state which is stable and the metastable amorphous state, sometimes the metastable crystalline state and the stable amorphous state. The transition from the metastable state to the stable state gives rise to a determined thermal effect and volumetric effect. This important consequence of Tammann's theory can be represented by Fig. V. If we start from a liquid substance at steady state of equilibrium,

p ress ion P, and if we are lowering the temperature gradually maintaining this p ress constant ion, the representative points will move from right to left on the p ara llel F | P to the temperature axis. If the representative point enters the domai not d estability of the crystalline state, the liquid considered will be in the metastable state. In this state, the supercooled liquid can pass to the crystalline state, and this passage depends on two factors: the spontaneous crystallization power that this liquid presents, defined by the number of crystalline seeds which, in a given time, appear spontaneously at within a given volume of liquid, and secondly the rate of crystallization, that is to say the speed with which a crystal seed develops. The supercooling state is easy to achieve if the maxima of these two factors (depending on the temperature) are far enough apart that the maximum of one of the factors corresponds to a practically zero value of the other factor; so, as these two factors tend towards zero when the temperature continues to decrease, it is possible to pass fairly quickly region II, corresponding to a low but non-zero probability of crystallization, and to arrive at the region. III, for which the chances of crystallization are practically nil (Fig. VI). As long as the liquid is in the metastable state, crystallization can be initiated, which is carried out with a release of heat. This crystallization makes it possible to measure a latent heat of crystallization, which is the difference between the heat capacity of the mass considered in the amorphous state and that of the same mass considered in the crystallized state, multiplied by the temperature variation: dL = (C corresponding to a low but non-zero probability of crystallization, and to arrive at region III, for which the chances of crystallization are practically nil (Fig. VI). As long as the liquid is in the metastable state, crystallization can be initiated, which is carried out with a release of heat. This crystallization makes it possible to measure a latent heat of crystallization, which is the difference between the heat capacity of the mass considered in the amorphous state and that of the same mass considered in the crystallized state, multiplied by the temperature variation: dL = (C corresponding to a low but non-zero probability of crystallization, and to arrive at region III, for which the chances of crystallization are practically nil (Fig. VI). As long as the liquid is in the metastable state, crystallization can be initiated, which is carried out with a release of heat. This crystallization makes it possible to measure a latent heat of crystallization, which is the difference between the heat capacity of the mass considered in the amorphous state and that of the same mass considered in the crystallized state, multiplied by the temperature variation: dL = (C which is carried out with a release of heat. This crystallization makes it possible to measure a latent heat of crystallization, which is the difference between the heat capacity of the mass considered in the amorphous state and that of the same mass considered in the crystallized state, multiplied by the temperature variation: dL = (C which is carried out with a release of heat. This crystallization makes it possible to measure a latent heat of crystallization, which is the difference between the heat capacity of the mass considered in the amorphous state and that of the same mass considered in the crystallized state, multiplied by the temperature variation: dL = (Ca - C c ) df. Now, since the specific heat of a substance taken in the crystalline state is lower than the specific heat of this same substance taken in the liquid state, or amorphous, the latent heat of crystallization varies in the same

meaning that temperature. It decreases when the temperature drops; it may therefore happen that, for a sufficient lowering of the temperature, the latent heat of crystallization vanishes, then changes sign. The line MS of FIG. V represents the locus of the representative points for which the latent heat of crystallization is zero, according to the various values that the pressure, constant for the same experiment, can take. Let us now consider the same stable liquid substance of temperature T, in the stability domain of the liquid state; if the pressure increases, one enters the field of stability of the crystalline state. The liquid then being in the metastable state, the possible crystallization will correspond, for each pressure considered, to an AV variation of the volume accompanying this transformation. If Vc and V a , are the

respective volumes of the mass of the substance, either in the crystallized state or in the amorphous state, we have: d / 1V = e, N a - dV c. If one affects the volume variation in the direction of a contraction of the sign +, one will find that, as in the case of the latent heat of fusion, AV decreases when the pressure grows, because a substance taken in the state amorphous is more compressible than in the crystallized state. For a sufficient increase of the pressure, 11V can cancel itself then change of sign. The curve LN of figure V is the place of the representative points for which the variation of volume is null. Below this curve, 11V is positive (contraction); above this curve, AV is negative (dilation). Limits of variation of the latent heat of crystallization and the volume, we can deduce the shape of the melting-crystallization curve: according to this curve, there exist two triple points, A, and A 2, for which the crystal, the amorphous body, and the gas could coexist in mutual equilibrium. In A, the melt-crystallization curve meets both the sublimation curve A 2 SA, crystal and the vaporization curve A, B of the glass body; this vaporization curve prolongs the vaporization curve A, C of the liquid. Moreover, with each pressure correspond two fusion-crystallization points where the crystal could coexist either with the liquid or with the vitreous body (for the pressure P for example, these two points would be F, and F 2). At temperatures below this second crystallization point, the representative point of the substance would re-enter the stability domain of the amorphous state. Then the vitreous state would be a stable state, and the crystalline state a metastable state with respect to the vitreous body. Without doubt, at these low temperatures, the transformation speeds would be so low as to be practically nil; but this theoretical reversibility of stable and metastable states, however, retains all its importance; it has not been possible either to demonstrate by experience the maximum point L of the melting temperature, nor the maximum point M of the melting pressure, but experience has shown that all the curves fusion have their concavity turned towards decreasing temperatures and that,h in the portion of the ascending melting curve in the direction of decreasing temperatures.

The interest of Tammann's hypothesis for the study of individuation is to establish the existence of conditions of indifferent equilibrium between two physical states, one of which is amorphous and the other crystalline; that is to say, which are opposed by their structures, not ordered in the first, ordered in the second. The relationship between two structural states thus takes on an energetic meaning: it is, in fact, from the considerations relating to the latent heat of crystallization and to the variation of volume as a function of the pressure, that is to say to a work, that the existence and position of the triple points are determined. The limits of the stability domain of a structural type are determined by energetic considerations. It is for this reason that we wanted, to approach the study of physical individuation properly so called, define the energy aspect of the relationship between two physical structures. To any structure is linked an energetic character, but conversely, to any modification of the energetic conditions of a physical system can correspond a modification of the structural character of this system.

The fact, for a physical system, to have such or such structure, entails the possession of an energetic determination. This energetic determination can be

assimilated to a potential energy because it only manifests itself in a transformation of the system. But, unlike the potential energies studied above, which are susceptible of progressive and partial transformations according to a continuous process, the potential energies linked to a structure can not be transformed. and released only by a modification of the conditions of stability of the system which conceals them; they are therefore linked to the very existence of the structure of the system; for this reason, we will say that the potential energies corresponding to two different structures are of different order. The only point where they are continuous with each other is the point where they vanish, as in points A, and A 2 , F) and F 2In the case of a pendulum, on the other hand, where two potential energies realize a continuous mutual conversion, as in the Holweck-Lejay pendulum (Fig. II), the sum of these two energies and the energy kinetics remains constant during a transformation. The same is true of the more complex case of Figure III. On the contrary, the changes of state undergone by the system oblige us to consider a certain energy related to the structure, which is a potential energy, but which is not susceptible of a continuous transformation; for this reason, it can not be considered as returning in the cases of identity or equality defined above. It can only be measured in a change of state of the system; as long as the state remains, it is identical with the very conditions of stability of this state. For this reason, we will call structural potential energies the energies expressing the stability limits of a structural state, which constitute the real source of the formal conditions of possible genesis.73

juxtaposed editions5, which results in the observed opacity. Crystalline supercooling is the metastable state of prismatic sulfur. This relationship between prismatic and octahedral crystalline states exists for temperatures below 95.4 °, but reverses from 95.4 ° up to 115 °, melting temperature. In fact, in this last interval, it is the prismatic sulfur which is in stable equilibrium, and the octahedral sulfur in metastable equilibrium. Under atmospheric pressure, 95.4 ° is the equilibrium temperature between these two crystalline varieties.

One can therefore wonder in what consists the individuality of each of these two forms. What is the stability of these forms, that they can both exist at a certain temperature? When one or the other of these two forms is in a state of metastability, it needs, in order to transform itself into the other stable form, a germ, that is to say a point of starting for crystallization in the stable form. It is as if the metastable equilibrium could only be broken by the local contribution of a singularity contained in a crystalline germ and capable of breaking this metastable equilibrium; once initiated, the transformation spreads,74 75. Physicists usually use a word borrowed from the biological vocabulary to designate the action of bringing a seed: they say that the substance is seeded by means of a crystalline germ. A particularly demonstrative experiment consists in putting in a tube U of supercooled sulfur, then to seed each of the branches of the tube in U with a crystal germ which is, on one side, octahedral, and on the other, prismatic ; the sulfur contained in each branch of the tube then crystallizes according to the crystalline system determined by the deposited seed; in the middle part of the tube the two allotropic forms of crystalline sulfur are in perfect contact. Two cases are then possible depending on the temperature: if the temperature is lower than 95.4 °, the sulfur remains transparent in the branch containing the octahedral variety, while it becomes opaque in the branch containing the prismatic variety. The opacity begins to manifest itself in contact with these two allotropic varieties and it propagates step by step until it invades the whole branch containing the prismatic sulfur. If, on the other hand, the temperature is maintained between 95.4 ° and 115 °, the direction of the transformation is reversed: the branch containing the prismatic sulfur remains transparent, and the branch containing the octahedral sulfur becomes opaque, starting from the line of contact between the two crystalline varieties. Finally, at the temperature of 95.4 °, the propagation speed of these transformations is zero. There is therefore a temperature of equilibrium between these two crystalline varieties. This experiment consists in creating in some way a competition between two crystallization systems for a finite quantity of substance. For any temperature other than the equilibrium temperature (and below the melting temperature of

octahedral sulfur), one of the forms occupies all the crystallizable substance, and the other disappears entirely76 .

Here we touch the first and fundamental aspect of physical individuation. Individuation as an operation is not linked to the identity of a matter, but to a modification of state. Sulfur retains its crystalline system as long as a singularity does not occur to remove the less stable form. A substance retains its individuality when it is in the most stable state according to its energetic conditions. This stability of the state is manifested by the fact that, if the energy conditions remain the same, this state can not be modified by the introduction of a seed having a primer of different structure; in contrast to substances which are in a different state, this substance may, on the contrary, supply germs capable of causing a change in the state of these substances. Stable individuality is thus made of the meeting of two conditions: to a certain energetic state of the system must correspond a certain structure. But this structure is not directly produced by the energetic state alone, it is distinct from the latter; the initiation of structuring is critical; most often, in the crystallization, germs are brought from outside. There is thus a historical aspect of the advent of a structure in a substance, it is necessary that the structural germ appears. Pure energy determinism is not enough for a substance to reach its state of stability. The beginning of structuring individuation is an event for the system in a metastable state. In the simplest individuation thus comes, in general, a relation of the body considered with the temporal existence of beings external to it, which intervene as event conditions of its structuration. The constituted individual encloses in him the synthesis of energetic and material conditions and an informational condition, generally not immanent. If this meeting of the three conditions did not take place, the substance did not reach its stable state; it remains in a metastable state. Let us note, however, that this genetic definition of individuation by the encounter of three necessary conditions leads to the notion of hierarchical relativity of the states of individuation. Indeed, when a very large hiatus exists between the energetic state of a substance The constituted individual encloses in him the synthesis of energetic and material conditions and an informational condition, generally not immanent. If this meeting of the three conditions did not take place, the substance did not reach its stable state; it remains in a metastable state. Let us note, however, that this genetic definition of individuation by the encounter of three necessary conditions leads to the notion of hierarchical relativity of the states of individuation. Indeed, when a very large hiatus exists between the energetic state of a substance The constituted individual encloses in him the synthesis of energetic and material conditions and an informational condition, generally not immanent. If this meeting of the three conditions did not take place, the substance did not reach its stable state; it remains in a metastable state. Let us note, however, that this genetic definition of individuation by the encounter of three necessary conditions leads to the notion of hierarchical relativity of the states of individuation. Indeed, when a very large hiatus exists between the energetic state of a substance Let us note, however, that this genetic definition of individuation by the encounter of three necessary conditions leads to the notion of hierarchical relativity of the states of individuation. Indeed, when a very large hiatus exists between the energetic state of a substance Let us note, however, that this genetic definition of individuation by the encounter of three necessary conditions leads to the notion of hierarchical relativity of the states of individuation. Indeed, when a very large hiatus exists between the energetic state of a substance77and its structural state (sulfur in a state of supercooling, for example), if a structural germ occurs, it can cause a change in the structural state of the substance without, however, bringing it to its state of absolute stability. If supercooled sulfur, at a temperature of 90 °, receives a prismatic crystal seed, it changes its structural state and becomes crystallized sulfur in the prismatic system. He has passed from a first metastable state to a second metastable state; the second is more stable than the first. But, if a second structural germ occurs, namely an octahedral sulfur crystal, the structural state changes again and the whole mass becomes octahedral sulfur. It is thus clear why crystalline supercooling is a less precarious state than liquid supercooling: a structural seed has already been encountered,

Complete individuation is individuation, which corresponds to a total use of the energy contained in the system before structuring; it leads to a stable state; on the contrary, incomplete individuation is that which corresponds to a structuration which has not absorbed all the potential energy of the unstructured initial state; it ends in a state still metastable. The more types of structures that are possible for the same substance, the more hierarchical levels of metastability; for phosphorus for example, these levels are three in number. Moreover, it is important to note that the levels of individuation are perfectly discontinuous with respect to each other; the existence of energetic equilibrium conditions between two levels succeeding each other immediately in the hierarchical scale can not mask the not only structural but also energetic discontinuity of these two levels; Thus, to use the example of sulfur, when octahedral sulfur is brought to 95.4 °, under atmospheric pressure, it must be supplied 2.5 calories per gram so that it becomes prismatic sulfur; there is therefore a specific latent heat of transformation of octahedral sulfur into prismatic sulfur. This energy discontinuity is reflected in the fact that the melting point of the metastable variety is always lower than that of the more stable variety, for all chemical species. to take the example of sulfur, when octahedral sulfur is brought to 95.4 °, under atmospheric pressure, it must be supplied 2.5 calories per gram so that it becomes prismatic sulfur; there is therefore a specific latent heat of transformation of octahedral sulfur into prismatic sulfur. This energy discontinuity is reflected in the fact that the melting point of the metastable variety is always lower than that of the more stable variety, for all chemical species. to take the example of sulfur, when octahedral sulfur is brought to 95.4 °, under atmospheric pressure, it must be supplied 2.5 calories per gram so that it becomes prismatic sulfur; there is therefore a specific latent heat of transformation of octahedral sulfur into prismatic sulfur. This energy discontinuity is reflected in the fact that the melting point of the metastable variety is always lower than that of the more stable variety, for all chemical species.

Thus, the individuation in the change of the allotropic forms of an element appears as susceptible of several levels; only one of them corresponds to complete individuation; these states are in finite number, and discontinuous with respect to each other, both by their energetic conditions and their structural conditions. The actual existence of an individualized state results from the fact that two independent conditions were simultaneously fulfilled: an energetic and material condition resulting from a current state of the system, and an event condition, most often involving a relation to the series. events that come from other systems. In this sense, the individuation of an allotropic form starts from a singularity of historical nature. Two volcanic lava flows of the same chemical composition may be one at a point of crystallization, the other at another point: it is the local singularities of the eruption which, through the particular genesis of this crystallization, are translated in the individuation of the allotropic form encountered. As such, all the characters which, for a substance, result from this double conditioning, energetic and historical, are part of its individuality. The geologist, thanks to the studies of the physical chemistry, knows how to interpret according to the history of the rocks the relative size of the crystals which constitute them. A paste that is apparently amorphous but finely crystallized indicates a rapid cooling of the substance; large crystals of which only the external form remains, and of which all the material has divided into microscopic crystals of another system, indicate that there have been two successive crystallizations, the first form becoming metastable with respect to the second. From the simple point of view of the allotropic forms, an examination of the metamorphic rocks is as rich in lessons on the historical and energetic conditions of the geological phenomena as that of the magmas of eruptive origin: calcschists, quartzites, shales, gneisses, mica schists, correspond Fragment fragment to such particular modality of endomethamorphism or exometamorphism for a given pressure, temperature, moisture level. We thus see that the consideration of energetic conditions and singularities in the genesis of a physical individual leads in no way to recognize only species and not individuals; on the contrary, it explains how, within the limits of a

domain, the infinity of particular values that can take the quantities expressing these conditions leads to an infinity of different results (for example the dimension of the crystals) for the same structural type. Without making any borrowing in the field of biology, and without accepting the notions of common genus and specific difference, which would be too metaphorical here, it is possible to define, thanks to the discontinuities of the conditions, types corresponding to domains of stability or metastability; then, within these types, particular beings which differ from each other by what, within the limits of the type, are susceptible of a finer variation, in some cases continuous, like the speed of cooling. In this sense, the individuality of a particular being contains as rigorously the type as the characters likely to vary within a type. We must never consider this particular being as belonging to a type. It is the type which belongs to the particular being, as well as the details which singularize it the most, because the existence of the type in this particular being results from the same conditions as those which are at the origin of the details which singularize being. Because these conditions vary discontinuously by delimiting domains of stability, there are types; but because, within these domains of stability, certain magnitudes, being part of the conditions, vary more finely, each particular being is different from a certain number of others. The original peculiarity of a being is not different in nature from its typological reality. The particular being does notpossesses no more its most singular characters than its typological characters. Both are individual because they result from the meeting of energetic conditions and singularities, the latter being historical and local. If, within the same domain of stability, conditions that are still variable are not capable of an infinity of values, but only of a finite number, we must admit that the number of particular individuals actually different can appear is finished. In a certain quantity of substance, there may then be several identical beings, appearing as indistinguishable. Certainly, at the macrophysical level, one hardly encounters, even in crystallography, several indistinguishable individuals; on the other hand, a substance in crystalline supercooling eventually transforms into the stable form with respect to which it is metastable; but we must not forget that, if we find ourselves in the presence of a great number of elements, nothing can guarantee the absolute purity of an allotropic form. There may exist within a substance appearing from a single form a number of germs of the stable allotropic form. Special local conditions may be equivalent to this structural germ (trace of chemical impurity, for example). It is therefore from the microscopic point of view that one must place oneself in order to consider simple substances. At this level, it seems that there can be real indistinguishable. Special local conditions may be equivalent to this structural germ (trace of chemical impurity, for example). It is therefore from the microscopic point of view that one must place oneself in order to consider simple substances. At this level, it seems that there can be real indistinguishable. Special local conditions may be equivalent to this structural germ (trace of chemical impurity, for example). It is therefore from the microscopic point of view that one must place oneself in order to consider simple substances. At this level, it seems that there can be real indistinguishable.

At the level where the individuality appears as the least accentuated, in the allotropic forms of the same element, it is not bound only to the identity of a substance, to the singularity of a form, or to the action of a force. Substantialism pure, pure Theory of Form, or a pure dynamism, would also powerless over the need to account for the indivi d uation physicochemical. To seek the principle of individuation in matter, in form, or in force, is to condemn ourselves to being able to explain individuation only in particular cases which appear simple, as for example that of the molecule or the 'atom. It is, instead of making the genesis of the individual, to suppose this genesis already made in elements

formal, material, or energetic, and, thanks to these elements already carrying individuation, engender by composition an individuation which is in fact more simple. It is for this reason that we did not want to undertake the study of the individual starting with the elementary particle, in order not to risk taking for simple the complex case. We have chosen the most precarious aspect of individuation as the first term of the examination. And from the beginning, it appeared to us that this individuation was an operation resulting from the encounter and the compatibility of a singularity and energetic and material conditions. The name of allagmatic could be given to such a genetic method which aims at grasping individuated beings as the development of a singularity which unites the global energetic conditions and the material conditions with a moderate order of magnitude; we must indeed notice that this method does not involve a pure causal determinism by which a being would be explained when one could account for its genesis in the past. In fact, the being prolongs in time the meeting of the two groups of conditions that he expresses; he is not only a result, but also an agent, at the same time the middle of this encounter and the extension of this realized compatibility. In terms of time, the individual is not in the past but in the present, for he continues to preserve his individuality only to the extent that this constitutive meeting of conditions is prolonged and prolonged by the individual himself. The individual exists as long as the mixture of matter and energy that constitutes him is in the present78 79. This is what could be called the active consistency of the individual. It is for this reason that any individual can be a condition of becoming: a stable crystal can be germ for a metastable substance in a state of crystalline or liquid supercooling. Dynamism alone can not account for individuation, because dynamism wants to explain the individual by a single fundamental dynamism; now, the individual does not conceal only a hylemorphic encounter; it comes from a process of amplification triggered in a hylemorphic situation by a singularity, and it prolongs this singularity. In fact, one can, quite legitimately, call the hymemorphic situation that in which there exists a certain quantity of matter grouped into subsets of an isolated system with respect to one another, or a certain amount of material whose energy conditions and spatial distribution are such that the system is in a metastable state. The state containing forces of tension, a potential energy, can be named form of the system, because it is its dimensions, its topology, its internal isolations which maintain these forces of tension; form is the system as macrophysics, as a reality framing a possible individuation; matter is the system envisaged at the microphysical and molecular level. form is the system as macrophysics, as a reality framing a possible individuation; matter is the system envisaged at the microphysical and molecular level. form is the system as macrophysics, as a reality framing a possible individuation; matter is the system envisaged at the microphysical and molecular level.

A hylemorphic situation is a situation in which there is only form and matter, thus two levels of reality without communication. The institution of this communication between levels - with energy transformations - is the beginning of individuation; it supposes the appearance of a singularity, which can be called information, either from outside or underlying.

[Gold * 0 the individual conceals two fundamental dynamisms, one energetic, the other structural. The stability of the individual is the stability of their association. Right now

p had t beto ask the question of the degree of reality to which such an inquiry can claim: must it be considered as capable of attaining a real? On the contrary, is it subject to this relativity of knowledge that seems to characterize the experimental sciences? To respond to this critical concern, it is necessary to distinguish the knowledge from the phenomena of the knowledge of the relations between the states. Relativistic phenomenism is perfectly valid insofar as it indicates our inability to know absolutely a physical being, without redoing its genesis and the manner in which we know or believe we know the subject, in the isolation of self-awareness. But it remains in the depths of the critique of knowledge the postulate that being is fundamentally substance, that is, in itself and by itself. The critique of pure reason is essentially directed to the substantialism of Leibniz and Wolf; through them he reaches all the substantialisms, and particularly those of Descartes and Spinoza. The Kantian noumenon is not unrelated to the substance of rationalist and realistic theories. But if one refuses to admit that being is fundamentally substance, the analysis of the phenomenon can no longer lead to the same relativism; indeed, the conditions of sensory experience prohibit knowledge by intuition alone of physical reality. But we can not deduce as definitively as Kant does a relativism of the existence of the forms The Kantian noumenon is not unrelated to the substance of rationalist and realistic theories. But if one refuses to admit that being is fundamentally substance, the analysis of the phenomenon can no longer lead to the same relativism; indeed, the conditions of sensory experience prohibit knowledge by intuition alone of physical reality. But we can not deduce as definitively as Kant does a relativism of the existence of the forms The Kantian noumenon is not unrelated to the substance of rationalist and realistic theories. But if one refuses to admit that being is fundamentally substance, the analysis of the phenomenon can no longer lead to the same relativism; indeed, the conditions of sensory experience prohibit knowledge by intuition alone of physical reality. But we can not deduce as definitively as Kant does a relativism of the existence of the formsa priori of sensitivity. If indeed the noumenes are not pure substance, but also consist in relations (like exchanges of energy, or passages of structures from one domain of reality to another domain of reality), and if the relation has the same rank of reality than the terms themselves, as we have tried to show in the preceding examples, because the relation is not an accident with respect to a substance, but a constitutive, energetic and stnictural condition, which extends into the existence of constituted beings , then the a priori forms of sensibility that make it possible to grasp relationships because they are a power to order according to thesuccession or according to simultaneity do not create an irremediable relativity of knowledge. If indeed the relation has value of truth, the relation inside the subject,  and the relation between the subject and the object can have value of reality. True knowledge is a relation, not a mere formal relation, comparable to the relation of two figures to each other. True knowledge is that which corresponds to the greatest stability possible under the given conditions of the subject-object relation.There can be different levels of knowledge as there can be different degrees of stability of a relationship. There can be a type of knowledge that is as stable as possible for a subjective condition and an objective condition; if a subsequent modification of the subjective conditions (for example the discovery of new mathematical relations) or objective conditions occurs, the old type of knowledge can become metastable with respect to a new type of knowledge. The ratio of inadequate to adequate is actually that of metastable versus stable. Truth and error do not oppose each other as two substances, but as a relation locked up in a stable state to a relation locked up in a metastable state .Knowledge is not a relation between an object substance and a subject substance, but a relation between two relations , one of which is in the domain of the object and the other in the domain of the subject.

The epistemological postulate of this study is that the relation between two relations is itself a relation. We take here the word of relation in the sense that has been defined above, and which, opposing the relation to the simple relation, gives it value to be,

for the relation is prolonged in beings as a condition of stability, and defines their individuality as the result of an operation of individuation. If we accept this postulate of the method of study of constitutive relations, it becomes possible to understand the existence and the validity of an approximate knowledge. Approximate knowledge is not of a different nature than exact knowledge: it is only less stable. Any scientific doctrine can at one time become metastable in relation to a doctrine that has become possible through a change in the conditions of knowledge. This is not why the previous doctrine must be considered false; nor is it logically deniedby the new doctrine: his domain is only subject to a new structuring that brings him to stability. This doctrine is not a form of pragmatism nor of the new logical empiricism because it does not presuppose the use of any criterion external to this relation that is knowledge, such as intellectual utility or vital motivation; no convenience is required to validate the knowledge. It is neither  nominalist nor realistic,for nominalism or realism can be understood only in doctrines which suppose that the absolute is the highest form of being, and which try to conform all knowledge to the knowledge of the substantial absolute. This postulate that being is the absolute is at the very bottom of the quarrel of universals conceived as a critique of knowledge. Now Abelard has fully realized the possibility of separating knowledge from the terms of knowledge of the relation; In spite of the incomprehensible taunts of which he was the object, he brought by this distinction an extremely fertile principle, which takes all its meaning with the development of the experimental sciences: nominalism for the knowledge of the terms, realismfor the knowledge of the relation, this is the method that we can draw from the doctrine of Abelard to apply it by universalizing it. This realism of the relationship can therefore be taken as a postulate for research. If this postulate is valid, it is legitimate to ask the analysis of a particular point in the experimental sciences to reveal to us what physical individuation is. The knowledge that these sciences give us is indeed valid as knowledge of the relation, and can give to the philosophical analysis only a being consisting of relations. But if the individual is precisely such a being, this analysis can reveal it to us. One could object that we choose a particular case, and that this reciprocity between the epistemological postulate and the known object prevents us from legitimizing from the outside this arbitrary choice, but we believe that all thought, precisely as it is real, is a relation, that is , it has a historical aspect in its genesis. A real thought is self-justifyingbut not justified before being structured: it includes an individuation and is individual, having its own degree of stability. For a thought to exist, it does not only need a logical condition but also a relational postulate that allows it to accomplish its genesis. If we can, with the paradigm of the notion of physical individuation, solve other problems, in other fields we can consider this notion as stable; otherwise, it will only be metastable and we will define this metastability in relation to the more stable forms that we will have discovered: it will then retain the eminent value of an elementary paradigm.]

2. Individuation as the genesis of crystalline forms from an amorphous state

Is this way of looking at individuality still valid for defining the difference of crystalline forms with respect to the amorphous state? If the energetic conditions were the only ones to be considered, the answer would be immediately positive, since the transition from the amorphous state to the crystalline state is always accompanied by an exchange of energy; the passage, at constant temperature and pressure, from the crystalline state to the liquid state is always accompanied by a heat absorption; it is said that there exists for the crystalline substance a latent heat of fusion, always positive. If, on the other hand, the structural conditions were only required, no new difficulty would arise: one could equate the genesis of the crystalline form closest to the amorphous state to any passage from a crystalline allotropic form to another crystalline allotropic form. However, when we consider the difference between a substance in the amorphous state and the same substance in the crystalline state, it seems that the previous definition of physical individuation can only be applied to it with a certain number of transformations. , or details. These modifications or precisions come from the fact that the amorphous state can not be treated as an individual, and that the absolute genesis of the individuated state is more difficult to define than its relative genesis by passing from a metastable form to a stable form. The previously studied case then becomes a special case in this more general case.

The transition to the crystalline state from an amorphous state can be done in different ways: a solution that evaporates to saturation, vapors that condense on a cold wall (sublimation), slow cooling a molten substance, can cause the formation of crystals. Can we affirm that the discontinuity between the amorphous state and the crystalline state is sufficient to determine the individuated character of this state? It would be to suppose that there exists a certain symmetry and equivalence between the amorphous state and the crystalline state, which nothing proves. In fact, while the crystals are forming, there is a plateau in the variation of the physical conditions (eg temperature), indicating that an energy exchange is occurring. But it is important to note that this discontinuity can be split up, and not given en bloc, in some cases like those of organic substances with complex molecules, of the type of azoxyanisol; these bodies, called liquid crystals by the physicist Lehmann who discovered them, present, according to G. Friedel, states meso-morphs, intermediate between the amorphous state and the pure crystalline state. In their mesomorphic states, these substances are liquid, but they exhibit properties of anisotropy, for example optical anisotropy, as shown by M. Mauguin. On the other hand, it is possible to obtain the same type of crystals from a solution that is concentrated, a molten liquid that is allowed to cool, or a sublimation. It is not therefore by its relation to the amorphous substance that the crystal is individualized. The true genesis of a crystal as an individual, it is in the dynamism of the relations between hylemorphic situation and singularity that we must look for it. Consider, in fact, the property given as characteristic of the crystalline state: anisotropy. Crystal has two different types of anisotropy. The first is continuous anisotropy: some vector properties of crystals vary continuously with direction; this is the case of electrical, magnetic,

ticks, elastic, thermal expansion, heat conductivity, light propagation velocity. But besides this we notice properties that vary discontinuously with direction: they are expressed by the existence of directions of the right or of the plane having particular properties whereas the neighboring directions do not possess them in any degree. Thus, the crystal can be limited externally only by certain directions of planes and lines, according to the law stated by Romé de l'Isle in 1783: the dihedral angles between the natural faces of a crystal are constant for a same species. Likewise, cohesion, as revealed by cleavage planes or shock figures, manifests discontinuous anisotropy. Finally, the finest example of discontinuous anisotropy is that of X-ray diffraction. An X-ray beam, striking a crystal, is reflected on a limited number of well-defined orientations. Now these properties of discontinuous anisotropy come from the genesis of the crystal, as an individual and not as an exemplary of a species; it is each individual who has structured himself in this way. In a conglomerate of crystals assembled without order, each crystal defined its faces, its dihedral angles, its edges according to a it is each individual who has structured himself in this way. In a conglomerate of crystals assembled without order, each crystal defined its faces, its dihedral angles, its edges according to a it is each individual who has structured himself in this way. In a conglomerate of crystals assembled without order, each crystal defined its faces, its dihedral angles, its edges according to adirection of the whole which is explained by external circumstances , mechanical or chemical, but according to rigorously fixed internal relations , starting from the singular genesis. The fact of being an individual, for the crystal, consists in the fact that it has developed in this way in relation to itself.At the end of the genesis, there exists a crystal individual because around a crystal seed an ordered set has developed, incorporating a primitively amorphous material and rich in potentials, structuring it according to a proper disposition of all the parts relative to each other. to others. There exists here a true interiority of the crystal, which consists in the fact that the order of the elementary particles is universal within a certain crystal; the uniqueness of this structure for all elements of the same individual refers to the initial existence of a seed that not only initiated crystallization as a change of state, but also was the unique principle of structuring the crystal in its particularity. This structural germ was the origin of an active orientation that was imposed on all the elements progressively included in the crystal as it grew; an internal historicity, extending throughout the genesis from the microphysical germ to the last limits of the macrophysical edifice, creates a very particular homogeneity: the initial structure of the germ can not positively cause the crystallization of a body amorphous if the latter is not in metastable equilibrium: a certain energy is needed in the amorphous substance which receives the crystalline germ; but as soon as the germ is present, it possesses the value of a principle: its structure and its orientation enslave this energy of the metastable state; the crystalline germ, bringing only a very weak energy, yet is able to lead the structuring of a mass of matter several billion times greater than his own. Without doubt, this modulation is possible because the successive stages of the developing crystal serve as a relay for this primitive structuring singularity. However, it remains true that the transition from the initial seed to the crystal resulting from the structuring of a single layer of molecules around this seed marked the amplification capacity of the set consisting of the seed and the amorphous medium. The growth phenomenon is subsequently automatic and indefinite, all the successive layers of the crystal having the capacity to structure the amorphous medium that surrounds them, as long as this medium remains metastable; in this sense, a crystal is endowed with an indefinite power of growth; a crystal can have its Without doubt, this modulation is possible because the successive stages of the developing crystal serve as a relay for this primitive structuring singularity. However, it remains true that the transition from the initial seed to the crystal resulting from the structuring of a single layer of molecules around this seed marked the amplification capacity of the set consisting of the seed and the amorphous medium. The growth phenomenon is subsequently automatic and indefinite, all the successive layers of the crystal having the capacity to structure the amorphous medium that surrounds them, as long as this medium remains metastable; in this sense, a crystal is endowed with an indefinite power of growth; a crystal can have its Without doubt, this modulation is possible because the successive stages of the developing crystal serve as a relay for this primitive structuring singularity. However, it remains true that the transition from the initial seed to the crystal resulting from the structuring of a single layer of molecules around this seed marked the amplification capacity of the set consisting of the seed and the amorphous medium. The growth phenomenon is subsequently automatic and indefinite, all the successive layers of the crystal having the capacity to structure the amorphous medium that surrounds them, as long as this medium remains metastable; in this sense, a crystal is endowed with an indefinite power of growth; a crystal can have its this modulation is possible because the successive stages of the crystal being developed serve as a relay to this primitive structuring singularity. However, it remains true that the transition from the initial seed to the crystal resulting from the structuring of a single layer of molecules around this seed marked the amplification capacity of the set consisting of the seed and the amorphous medium. The growth phenomenon is subsequently automatic and indefinite, all the successive layers of the crystal having the capacity to structure the amorphous medium that surrounds them, as long as this medium remains metastable; in this sense, a crystal is endowed with an indefinite power of growth; a crystal can have its this modulation is possible because the successive stages of the crystal being developed serve as a relay to this primitive structuring singularity. However, it remains true that the transition from the initial seed to the crystal resulting from the structuring of a single layer of molecules around this seed marked the amplification capacity of the set consisting of the seed and the amorphous medium. The growth phenomenon is subsequently automatic and indefinite, all the successive layers of the crystal having the capacity to structure the amorphous medium that surrounds them, as long as this medium remains metastable; in this sense, a crystal is endowed with an indefinite power of growth; a crystal can have its However, it remains true that the transition from the initial seed to the crystal resulting from the structuring of a single layer of molecules around this seed marked the amplification capacity of the set consisting of the seed and the amorphous medium. The growth phenomenon is subsequently automatic and indefinite, all the successive layers of the crystal having the capacity to structure the amorphous medium that surrounds them, as long as this medium remains metastable; in this sense, a crystal is endowed with an indefinite power of growth; a crystal can have its However, it remains true that the transition from the initial seed to the crystal resulting from the structuring of a single layer of molecules around this seed marked the amplification capacity of the set consisting of the seed and the amorphous medium. The growth phenomenon is subsequently automatic and indefinite, all the successive layers of the crystal having the capacity to structure the amorphous medium that surrounds them, as long as this medium remains metastable; in this sense, a crystal is endowed with an indefinite power of growth; a crystal can have its all the successive layers of the crystal having the capacity to structure the amorphous medium which surrounds them, as long as this medium remains metastable; in this sense, a crystal is endowed with an indefinite power of growth; a crystal can have its all the successive layers of the crystal having the capacity to structure the amorphous medium which surrounds them, as long as this medium remains metastable; in this sense, a crystal is endowed with an indefinite power of growth; a crystal can have its

growth stopped, but never completed, and it can still continue to grow if it is put back in a metastable environment that it can structure. It is important to note in particular that the character of exteriority or interiority of conditions is modified by the genesis itself. As the crystal is not yet formed, it p had t consider energy conditions as external to the seed crystal, while the structural requirements are carried by this organism itself. On the contrary, when the crystal has grown, it has incorporated, at least partially, masses of substance which, at the time when they were amorphous, constituted the support of the potential energy of the metastable state. We can not speak of external energy to  cRistal, since this energy is carried by a substance which is incorporated in the crystal year s own growth. This energy is only temporarily external80 · P arelsewhere, the interiority of the structure of the crystalline germ is not absolute, and does not autonomously govern the structuring of the amorphous mass; for this modulatory action to be exercised, it is necessary that the structural germ bring a structure corresponding to the crystalline system in which the amorphous substance can crystallize; it is not necessary for the crystal seed to be of the same chemical nature as the amorphous crystallizable substance, but there must be identity between the two crystalline systems, so that the enslavement of the potential energy contained in the amorphous substance can operate. The difference between the gene and the crystallizable amorphous medium is thus not constituted by the absolute presence or absence of a structure, but by the state of actuality or virtuality of this structure. The individuation of a system results from the meeting of a mainly structural condition and a mainly energetic condition. But this meeting is not necessarily fruitful. For it to have constitutive value, it is necessary moreover that the energy can be updated by the structure according to the local material conditions. This possibility depends neither on the structural condition alone, nor on the energetic condition alone, but on the compatibility of the crystalline systems of the germ and the substance constituting the medium of this germ. There is thus a third condition, which we had not been able to perceive in the preceding case, because it was necessarily fulfilled, since the structural germ and the metastable substance were of the same chemical nature. It is no longer a question here of the scalar quantity of the potential energy, nor of the pure vector properties of the structure carried by the germ, but of a relation of a third type, which one can name analog, between the latent structures of the yet amorphous substance and the current structure of the germ. This condition is necessary so that there can be a true amplifying relation between this structure of the germ and this potential energy carried by an amorphous substance. This relationship is neither purely quantitative nor purely qualitative; it is other than a report of qualities or a ratio of quantities; it defines between the latent structures of the still amorphous substance and the actual structure of the germ. This condition is necessary so that there can be a true amplifying relation between this structure of the germ and this potential energy carried by an amorphous substance. This relationship is neither purely quantitative nor purely qualitative; it is other than a report of qualities or a ratio of quantities; it defines between the latent structures of the still amorphous substance and the actual structure of the germ. This condition is necessary so that there can be a true amplifying relation between this structure of the germ and this potential energy carried by an amorphous substance. This relationship is neither purely quantitative nor purely qualitative; it is other than a report of qualities or a ratio of quantities; it definesthe mutual interiority of a structure and a potential energy within a singularity. This interiority is not spatial, since we see here the action of a structural germ on its environment; it is not an equivalence of terms, since the terms, statically and dynamically, are dyssymmetric.

We use the word analogy to refer to this relationship because the content of Platonic thought about paradigmatism in its ontological foundations seems to us the richest of this meaning to consecrate the introduction of a relationship that envelops energetic quantity and structural quality. . This relationship is information; the singularity of the germ is effective when it arrives in a tense hylemorphic situation. A fine analysis of the relation between a structural germ and the medium that it structures makes it understood that this relation requires the possibility of a polarization of the amorphous substance by the crystalline germ. The radius of action of this polarization can be very weak: as soon as a first layer of amorphous substance has become crystal around the germ, it acts as a seed for another layer, and the crystal can thus develop step by step. The relationship of a structural seed to the potential energy of a metastable state is in this polarization of the amorphous material. It is here that we must seek the foundation of a genesis constituting the individual. First, from a macrophysical point of view, the individual always appears ascarrierpolarization; it is remarkable, indeed, that polarization is a transitive property: it is a consequence and a cause at the same time; a body constituted by a process of polarization exerts a series of polarizing functions whose capacity which the crystal has to increase is only one of the manifestations. Perhaps it would be possible to generalize the physical consequences of Pierre Curie's studies on symmetry, known in 1894. The laws of Curie can be stated under two forms; the first uses common concepts: a phenomenon has all the elements of symmetry of the causes that produce it, the dyssymmetry of a phenomenon is found in the causes. On the other hand, the effects produced may be more symmetrical than the causes, which means that the reciprocal of the first law is not true. This amounts to saying that if a phenomenon exhibits dyssymmetry, this dyssymmetry must be found in the causes; it is this dyssymmetry that creates the phenomenon. But the particular interest of the Curie laws appears especially in their precise statement: a phenomenon can exist in an environment which has its characteristic symmetry or that of one of the subgroups of this symmetry. It will not manifest in a more symmetrical environment. The characteristic symmetry of a phenomenon is the maximum symmetry compatible with the existence of this phenomenon. This characteristic symmetry must be defined for each of the phenomena such as the electric field, the magnetic field, the electromagnetic field characteristic of the propagation of a light wave. Gold, it can be seen that the number of symmetry groups with one or more axes of isotropy is limited, and the tallographs have determined the possibility of only seven groups: (1) the symmetry of the sphere; (2) the direct symmetry of the sphere (that of a sphere filled with a liquid endowed with rotatory power); (3) the symmetry of the cylinder of revolution (that of an isotropic body compressed in one direction, that of the axis of the cylinder); (4) the direct symmetry of the cylinder, that is to say that of a cylinder filled with a liquid endowed with rotary power; (5) the symmetry of the trunk of the cone; 6 ° the symmetry of a cylinder rotating around its axis; 7 ° the symmetry of the rotating cone trunk. The first two systems have more than one axis of isotropy, and the last five, one and the tallographers have determined the possibility of only seven groups: 1. The symmetry of the sphere; (2) the direct symmetry of the sphere (that of a sphere filled with a liquid endowed with rotatory power); (3) the symmetry of the cylinder of revolution (that of an isotropic body compressed in one direction, that of the axis of the cylinder); (4) the direct symmetry of the cylinder, that is to say that of a cylinder filled with a liquid endowed with rotary power; (5) the symmetry of the trunk of the cone; 6 ° the symmetry of a cylinder rotating around its axis; 7 ° the symmetry of the rotating cone trunk. The first two systems have more than one axis of isotropy, and the last five, one and the tallographers have determined the possibility of only seven groups: 1. The symmetry of the sphere; (2) the direct symmetry of the sphere (that of a sphere filled with a liquid endowed with rotatory power); (3) the symmetry of the cylinder of revolution (that of an isotropic body compressed in one direction, that of the axis of the cylinder); (4) the direct symmetry of the cylinder, that is to say that of a cylinder filled with a liquid endowed with rotary power; (5) the symmetry of the trunk of the cone; 6 ° the symmetry of a cylinder rotating around its axis; 7 ° the symmetry of the rotating cone trunk. The first two systems have more than one axis of isotropy, and the last five, one (2) the direct symmetry of the sphere (that of a sphere filled with a liquid endowed with rotatory power); (3) the symmetry of the cylinder of revolution (that of an isotropic body compressed in one direction, that of the axis of the cylinder); (4) the direct symmetry of the cylinder, that is to say that of a cylinder filled with a liquid endowed with rotary power; (5) the symmetry of the trunk of the cone; 6 ° the symmetry of a cylinder rotating around its axis; 7 ° the symmetry of the rotating cone trunk. The first two systems have more than one axis of isotropy, and the last five, one (2) the direct symmetry of the sphere (that of a sphere filled with a liquid endowed with rotatory power); (3) the symmetry of the cylinder of revolution (that of an isotropic body compressed in one direction, that of the axis of the cylinder); (4) the direct symmetry of the cylinder, that is to say that of a cylinder filled with a liquid endowed with rotary power; (5) the symmetry of the trunk of the cone; 6 ° the symmetry of a cylinder rotating around its axis; 7 ° the symmetry of the rotating cone trunk. The first two systems have more than one axis of isotropy, and the last five, one (5) the symmetry of the trunk of the cone; 6 ° the symmetry of a cylinder rotating around its axis; 7 ° the symmetry of the rotating cone trunk. The first two systems have more than one axis of isotropy, and the last five, one (5) the symmetry of the trunk of the cone; 6 ° the symmetry of a cylinder rotating around its axis; 7 ° the symmetry of the rotating cone trunk. The first two systems have more than one axis of isotropy, and the last five, one81

single axis. Thanks to these systems, one realizes that the characteristic symmetry of the electric field is that of a truncated cone, while the symmetry characteristic of the magnetic field is that of the rotating cylinder. We can then understand under what conditions a physical individual whose genesis has been determined by a polarization corresponding to a structure characterized by such or such type of symmetry can produce  a phenomenon having a determined polarization.

Thus, a phenomenon noticed by Novalis, and celebrated in the poetic evocation of u"ash-fly" crystal (tourmaline), can be understood from the symmetry system of the truncated cone. The symmetry of tourmaline is that of a triangular pyramid. A heated tourmaline crystal reveals an electrical polarity in the direction of its ternary axis. Tourmaline is already polarized at ordinary temperature, but a slow displacement of electric charges compensates for this polarization; warming only changes the state of polarization, so that compensation no longer takes place for a certain time; but the structure of the crystal has not been modified. Likewise, the magnetic rotation polarization is related to the characteristic symmetry of the magnetic field, that of the rotating cylinder. Finally, the interpretation becomes particularly interesting in the case of the phenomenon of piezoelectricity, discovered by Jacques and Pierre Curie. It consists of the appearance of electric charges by compression or mechanical expansion of certain crystals; as the phenomenon consists in the appearance of an electric field, the symmetry of the system which produces this field (crystal and compression forces) must be at most that of the truncated cone. As a result, the pyroelectric crystals can be piezoelectric; by compressing a tourmaline crystal along the pyroelectric ternary axis, we actually observe the appearance of electric charges of opposite sign. On the other hand, crystals like those of quartz, having only a ternary symmetry (the ends of the binary axes are not equivalent), are not pyroelectric, but are piezoelectric, because, when one exercises a pressure along a binary axis, the only element of symmetry common to crystal and to compression is this binary axis; this symmetry, subgroup of the symmetry of the truncated cone, is compatible with the appearance of an electric field along this axis. In such a crystal, the electric polarization can also be determined by a normal compression to the faces of the prism; the only element of symmetry common to the symmetry of the crystal and to the cylindrical symmetry of the compression is the binary axis perpendicular to the direction of the compressive force. As a result, crystals having no center of symmetry can be piezoelectric. This is the case of the Seignette salt, orthoromic, with enantiomorphic hemihedra, and whose chemical composition is indicated by the formula C0 this symmetry, subgroup of the symmetry of the truncated cone, is compatible with the appearance of an electric field along this axis. In such a crystal, the electric polarization can also be determined by a normal compression to the faces of the prism; the only element of symmetry common to the symmetry of the crystal and to the cylindrical symmetry of the compression is the binary axis perpendicular to the direction of the compressive force. As a result, crystals having no center of symmetry can be piezoelectric. This is the case of the Seignette salt, orthoromic, with enantiomorphic hemihedra, and whose chemical composition is indicated by the formula C0 this symmetry, subgroup of the symmetry of the truncated cone, is compatible with the appearance of an electric field along this axis. In such a crystal, the electric polarization can also be determined by a normal compression to the faces of the prism; the only element of symmetry common to the symmetry of the crystal and the cylindrical symmetry of the compression is the binary axis perpendicular to the direction of the compressive force. As a result, crystals having no center of symmetry can be piezoelectric. This is the case of Seignette salt, orthoromic, with enantiomorphic hemihedra, and whose chemical composition is indicated by the formula C0 the electric polarization can also be determined by a normal compression to the faces of the prism; the only element of symmetry common to the symmetry of the crystal and the cylindrical symmetry of the compression is the binary axis perpendicular to the direction of the compressive force. As a result, crystals having no center of symmetry can be piezoelectric. This is the case of Seignette salt, orthoromic, with enantiomorphic hemihedra, and whose chemical composition is indicated by the formula C0 the electric polarization can also be determined by a normal compression to the faces of the prism; the only element of symmetry common to the symmetry of the crystal and the cylindrical symmetry of the compression is the binary axis perpendicular to the direction of the compressive force. As a result, crystals having no center of symmetry can be piezoelectric. This is the case of Seignette salt, orthoromic, with enantiomorphic hemihedra, and whose chemical composition is indicated by the formula C0 As a result, crystals having no center of symmetry can be piezoelectric. This is the case of Seignette salt, orthoromic, with enantiomorphic hemihedra, and whose chemical composition is indicated by the formula C0 As a result, crystals having no center of symmetry can be piezoelectric. This is the case of Seignette salt, orthoromic, with enantiomorphic hemihedra, and whose chemical composition is indicated by the formula C02 K-CHOH-CHOH-CO 2 Na.

The habit which leads us to think according to common kinds, specific differences, and proper characters, is so strong that we can not avoid using terms implying an implicit natural classification; if this reservation is made, if we agree to remove from the word of property the meaning which it takes in a natural classification, we will say that, according to the preceding analysis, the properties of a crystalline individual express and actualize by prolonging it the polarity or the beam of polarities that presided over its genesis. A crystal, structured matter, can become structuring; it is at once the consequence and the cause of this polarization of matter without which it would not exist. Its structure is a received structure, because it took a seed; but the germ is not substantially distinct from the crystal;

becomes like a larger germ. Here, soma is coextensible with germen, and germen with soma. The germen becomes soma; its function is coextensive with the boundary of the developing crystal. This power to structure an amorphous medium is in some way a property of the crystal boundary82 83; it requires dyssymmetry between the inner state of the crystal and the state of its environment. The genetic properties of a crystal emerge prominently on its surface; these are boundary properties. One can not therefore, if one wants to be rigorous, to name them "properties of the crystal"; they are rather modalities of the relation between the crystal and the amorphous body. It is because the crystal is perpetually unfinished, in a state of genesis kept in suspense, that it possesses what are singularly called "properties"; these properties are in fact the permanent imbalance manifested by relations with the polarized fields or by the creation, at the limit of the crystal and around it, of a field having a polarity determined by the structure of the crystal. By generalizing the laws of Curie,4. A singularity is polarized. The real properties of the individual are at the level of his genesis, and for that very reason, at the level of his relation with other beings, for, if the individual is always able to continue his genesis, is in its relation to other beings that resides this genetic dynamism. The ontogenetic operation of individuation of the crystal is accomplished on its surface. The inner layers represent a past activity, but it is the superficial layers that are the depository of this power to grow, as they are in relation to a structurable substance. It is the limit of the individual who is in the present; it is she who manifests her dynamism, and who makes exist this relation between structure and hylémorphique situation. A being totally symmetrical in itself,The properties are not substantial but relational;they exist only by the interruption of a becoming. Temporality, in so far as it expresses or constitutes the most perfect model of asymmetry (the present is not symmetrical with the past, because the sense of course is irreversible) is necessary for the existence of the individual. Perhaps, moreover, there is perfect reversibility between individuation and temporality, time always being the time of a relation, which can only exist at the limit of an individual. According to this doctrine one could say that time is relation, and that there is a true relation only asymmetrical. Physical time exists as a relation between an amorphous term and a structured term, the former being a carrier of potential energy, and the second of an asymmetric structure. It also results from this way of seeing that every structure is at the same time structuring and structured; it can be grasped in its dual aspect when it manifests itself in the present of the relation, between an amorphous potentiated state and a structured substance in the past. From then on, the relation between the future and the past would be the same that we grasp between the amorphous medium and the crystal; the present, relation between the future and the past, is like the asymmetrical, polarizing limit between

tal and the amorphous medium. This limit can not be captured either as a potential or as a structure; it is not internal to the crystal, but it is not part of the amorphous medium either. Yet, in another sense, it is an integral part of both terms because it is provided with all their properties. The two preceding aspects, namely the belonging and the non-belonging of the limit to the limited terms, which oppose as the thesis and the antithesis of a dialectical triad, would remain artificially distinguished and opposed without their character of constitutive principle. This dyssymmetric relation is, in fact, the principle of the genesis of the crystal, and the dyssymmetry is perpetuated throughout the genesis; hence the character of indefinite growth of the crystal;becoming does not oppose it; it is constitutive relation of being as an individual .We can say, therefore, that the physico-chemical individual constituted by a crystal is becoming, as an indivi-du. And it is indeed on this average scale - between the whole and the molecule - that the true physical individual exists. Admittedly, it can be said, in a derivative sense, that this or that mass of sulfur is individualized by the fact that it is in a given allotropic form. But this determined state of the global whole only expresses at the macroscopic level the underlying and more fundamental reality of the existence, in the mass, of real individuals possessing a community of origin. The individualized character of the whole is only the statistical expression of the existence of a certain number of real individuals. If a set contains a large number of physical individuals of different origins and different structures, it is a mixture and remains weakly individualized. The true support of physical individuality is indeed the operation of elementary individuation, even if it appears only indirectly at the level of observation.

[TheThe very beautiful meditation that Plato gives us in the Parmenides on the relation of being and becoming, repeating or announcing that of the Philebe, can not arrive at finding a mixture of being and becoming; the dialectic remains antithetical, and the content of the xpixov can not appear otherwise than in the form of an unsatisfied postulation. Plato could not find in Hellenic science the notion of an unresolved, asymmetrical and yet immutable becoming. The alternative between the static being and the inconsistent flow of the γένεσις and the φθορά could not be avoided by the introduction of any mixed. The participation between the ideas, and even between the idea-numbers, as we discover it in theEpinomisor reconstruct it from the books M and N of the Metaphysics of Aristotle, with the theory of μέτρων, still retains the notion of the superiority of the one and the immobile over the multiple and the moving. Becoming remains conceived as movement, and movement as imperfection. However, through this infinite dawn that is Plato's thought in the decline of his life, can be guessed the search for a real mix of being and becoming, sensed rather than defined in the sense of ethics: s ' immortalized in sensitive , so as to become one. If the Timaeus had been written at that moment, perhaps we would have had from the fourth century a doctrine of the mixture of being and becoming. After this futile effort, presumably because of the esoteric character of Plato's teaching, philosophical meditation of Platonic inspiration, with Speusippus and then Xenocrates, returns to the dualism founded by Parmenides - that father of thought on

which Plato allowed himself to carry a sacrilegious hand to say that in some way and in some respect being is not and non-being is. The accepted divorce between physics and reflexive thought has become a declared philosophical attitude from Socrates, who disappointed in the physics of Anaxagoras, wanted to bring back the philosophy of "heaven on earth". Certainly, the work of Aristotle marks a great encyclopedic effort, and physics is reintroduced. But it's not thisphysical, devoid of mathematical formulation after the repudiation of archetypal structures, and preoccupied with classification rather than measurements, which could provide paradigms for reflection. The synthesis of being and becoming, missed at the level of the inert being, could not be carried out with solidity at the level of the living, because it would have been necessary to know the genesis of the living, which today still, is object of research. So the Western philosophical tradition is almost entirely substantialist. She neglected the knowledge of the real individual, because she could not grasp it in her genesis. Molecule indivisible and eternal, or being richly organized living, the individual was seized as a given reality, useful to explain the composition of beings or to discover the finality of the cosmos,

By this work we want to show that the individual can now be an object of science, and that the opposition affirmed by Socrates between Physics and reflexive and normative thought must come to an end. This approach implies that the relativity of scientific knowledge is no longer conceived within an empiricist doctrine. And we must note that empiricism is part of the theory of induction for which the concrete is the sensible, and the real, identical to the concrete. The theory of knowledge must be modified to its roots, that is to say the theory of perception and sensation. The sensation must appear as a relation of a living individual to the environment in which he finds himself. Even if the content of this relationship does not immediately constitute a science, it already has value as a relation. The fragility of sensation comes first and foremost from being asked to reveal substances, which it can not because of its fundamental function. If there are a certain number of discontinuities of sensation to science, it is not a discontinuity like that which exists or is supposed to exist between genera and species, but like that existing between different hierarchized metastable states. The presumption of empiricism, relative to the point of departure chosen, is valid only in a substantialist doctrine. As this epistemology of the relation can only be exposed by supposing the individual being defined, it was impossible for us to indicate it before using it; it is for this reason that we began the study with a paradigm borrowed from physics: it is only afterwards that we derived reflective consequences from this point of departure. This method may seem very primitive: it is indeed similar to that of Ionian "physiologists"; but it presents itself here as postulate, because it aims to found an epistemology that would be prior to all logic.]85

in one operation remained without changes, but we were able to clarify the relationship established by this operation 16 can be sometimes currently operative, now pending, while taking all the apparent characters of substantial stability. The relation is here observable as an active limit, and its type of reality is that of a limit. In this sense we can define the individual as a limited being ,but on the condition of understanding that a limited being is a polarizing being, possessing an indefinite dynamism of growth in relation to an amorphous medium. The individual is not substance, for substance is limited by nothing but itself (which led Spinoza to conceive of it as infinite and unique). All rigorous substantialism excludes the notion of the individual, as can be seen from Descartes, who can not explain to Princess Elisabeth what the union of substances in Man consists of, and better still in Spinoza who considers the individual as a appearance. The definite is the very opposite of limited being , for the finite being is bounded by itself,because he does not possess a sufficient quantity to be to grow endlessly; on the contrary, in this indefinite being that is the individual, the dynamism of growth does not stop, because the successive stages of the growth are like so many relays thanks to which ever larger quantities of potential energy are enslaved to order and incorporate masses of amorphous material always more considerable. Thus, the crystals visible to the naked eye are already, in relation to the initial germ, considerable edifices: a cubic diamond domain, of 1 μm on the side, contains more than 177,000,000,000 carbon atoms. We can therefore think that the seed crystal has already grown enormously when it reaches the size of a visible crystal at the limit of the separating power of optical microscopes. But we also know that it is possible to "feed" an artificial crystal, in a supersaturated solution very carefully maintained in slow growth conditions, so as to obtain a crystalline individual weighing several kilograms. In this case, even if it were supposed that the seed crystal is already a large building with respect to the atoms of which it is formed, it would be found that a crystal of a volume of one cubic decimetre has a mass of one million billions of times greater than that of a crystal seed supposed to85volume. The current-sized crystals, which constitute almost the whole of the earth's crust, like those of quartz, feldspar, and mica, of which the granite is composed, have a mass equal to several millions of times that of their germ. It is therefore necessary to assume, of necessity, the existence of a process of enslavement by successive relays, which allows the very low energy contained in the boundary of the germ to structure such a considerable mass of amorphous substance. It is, in fact, the limit of the crystal which is the germ, during the growth, and this limit moves as the crystal increases; it is made of atoms always new, but it remains dynamically identical to itself, and increases on the surface while preserving the same local characteristics of growth. This primordial role of the boundary is particularly emphasized by phenomena such as that of the figures of corrosion, and especially of epitaxy, which constitute a remarkable counter-test. Corrosion patterns, obtained in the attack of a crystal by a reagent, show small depressions with regular contours, which could be called86

negative crystals. Now, these negative crystals are of different form according to the face of the crystal on which they appear; fluorite can be attacked by sulfuric acid; now, the fluorite crystallizes in the form of cubes which, by the shock, give faces parallel to those of the regular octahedron. By corrosion, on one side of the cube, small quadrangular pyramids appear, and, on one side of the octahedron, small triangular pyramids. All figures appearing on the same face have the same orientation. Epitaxy is a phenomenon that occurs when a crystal is taken as a support for a substance in the process of crystallization. The nascent crystals are oriented by the crystalline face (of a different chemical substance) on which they are placed. The symmetry or the dyssymmetry of the crystal appears in these two phenomena. Thus, calcite and dolomite, C03 Ca and (C0 3) 2CaMg, attacked by dilute nitric acid, on a cleavage face, have symmetrical corrosion patterns for calcite and dyssymmetric for dolomite. These examples show that the characters of the limit of the physical individual can be manifested in every point of this individual again limited (for example, here, by cleavage). The individual can thus play a role of information and behave, even locally, as an active singularity, capable of polarizing. However, one may wonder whether these properties, and in particular the homogeneity that we have just noted, still exist on a very small scale: is there a lower limit of this crystalline individuation? Haüy formulated in 1784 the reticular theory of crystals, confirmed in 1912 by Laue thanks to the discovery of X-ray diffraction by crystals, which behave like a network. Haüy was studying calcite, which comes in very different forms; he discovered that all the crystals of calcite can give by cleavage the same rhombohedron, a parallelepiped whose six sides are equal diamonds, and form between them an angle of 105 ° 5 '. It is possible, by shock, to render these rhombohedrons smaller and smaller, visible only under the microscope. But the form does not change. Haüy assumed a limit to these successive divisions, and imagined the calcite crystals as stacks of these elementary rhombohedrons. By the method of Laue, it was possible to measure by X-rays the dimensions of this elementary rhombohedron, the height of which is equal to 3.029 X 10 he discovered that all the crystals of calcite can give by cleavage the same rhombohedron, a parallelepiped whose six sides are equal diamonds, and form between them an angle of 105 ° 5 '. It is possible, by shock, to render these rhombohedrons smaller and smaller, visible only under the microscope. But the form does not change. Haüy assumed a limit to these successive divisions, and imagined the calcite crystals as stacks of these elementary rhombohedrons. By the method of Laue, it was possible to measure by X-rays the dimensions of this elementary rhombohedron, the height of which is equal to 3.029 X 10 he discovered that all the crystals of calcite can give by cleavage the same rhombohedron, a parallelepiped whose six sides are equal diamonds, and form between them an angle of 105 ° 5 '. It is possible, by shock, to render these rhombohedrons smaller and smaller, visible only under the microscope. But the form does not change. Haüy assumed a limit to these successive divisions, and imagined the calcite crystals as stacks of these elementary rhombohedrons. By the method of Laue, it was possible to measure by X-rays the dimensions of this elementary rhombohedron, the height of which is equal to 3.029 X 10 visible only under the microscope. But the form does not change. Haüy assumed a limit to these successive divisions, and imagined the calcite crystals as stacks of these elementary rhombohedrons. By the method of Laue, it was possible to measure by X-rays the dimensions of this elementary rhombohedron, the height of which is equal to 3.029 X 10 visible only under the microscope. But the form does not change. Haüy assumed a limit to these successive divisions, and imagined the calcite crystals as stacks of these elementary rhombohedrons. By the method of Laue, it was possible to measure by X-rays the dimensions of this elementary rhombohedron, the height of which is equal to 3.029 X 108 cm. The rock salt, which has three rectangular dividing lines, is made of unbreakable elementary cubes whose edge measuring 5.628 x 10- 8cm. A rock salt crystal can then be considered as consisting of material particles (sodium chloride molecules) arranged at the nodes of a crystal lattice consisting of three families of lattice planes intersecting at right angles. The elementary cube is named crystalline mesh. Calcite will consist of three lattice planes systems, forming between them an angle of 105 ° 5 'and separated by a constant interval of 3,029 X 10- 8cm. Any crystal can be considered as consisting of a network of parallelepipeds. This lattice structure accounts not only for stratification parallel to the cleavages, but also for several modes of stratification. Thus, in the cubic network, which explains the structure of rock salt, one can highlight a stratification parallel to the diagonal planes of the cube. This stratification manifests itself in blende. The nodes of the cubic lattice can be arranged in lattice planes parallel to the faces of the regular octahedron: we saw above the cleavage of fluorite, which corresponds to such a stratification. This notion of multiple stratification deserves to be particularly meditated, because it gives a content that is both intelligible and real to the idea of limit.

crystalline medium. The crystalline medium is a periodic medium. It is sufficient, in order to know the crystalline medium completely, to know the content of the crystalline mesh, that is to say the position of the different atoms; by subjecting them to translations along three coordinate axes, we find all the analogous points corresponding to them in the medium. The crystalline medium is a triply periodic medium whose period is defined by the mesh. According to Mr. Wyart, "we can make an image, at least in the plan, of the periodicity of the crystal by comparing it to the indefinitely repeated motive , of a hanging paper" (Course of Crystallography for the Certificate of Higher Studies Mineralogy,University Documentation Center, p. 10). Mr. Wyart adds: "This motive is found in all the nodes of a network of parallelograms; the sides of the elementary parallelogram have no existence, just like the  elementary meshcrystal. The limit is not predetermined; it consists of structuring; as soon as an arbitrary point is chosen in this triply periodic medium, the elementary mesh is determined, as well as a set of spatial limits. In fact, the common source of boundary and structuring is the periodicity of the medium. We find here with a more rational content the already indicated notion of indefinite possibility of growth; the crystal can grow while preserving all its characters because it has a periodic structure; growth is therefore always identical to itself; a crystal has no center which makes it possible to measure the distance of a point from its outer contour with respect to this center; its limit is not, relative to the structure of the crystal, further from the center than the other points; the limit of the crystal is virtually in every point, and it can actually appear by a cleavage. Words of interiority and externality can not be applied with their usual meaning to the reality of the crystal. Let us consider, on the contrary, an amorphous substance: it must be bounded by an envelope, and its surface may have properties belonging to the surface. Thus, a drop of water produced by a dropper takes during its formation a number of successive aspects that mechanics studies; these aspects depend on the diameter of the tube, the attraction force due to gravity, the surface tension of the liquid; here, the phenomenon is extremely variable according to the order of magnitude adopted, because the envelope acts as an envelope and not as a limit. It should be noted, moreover, that amorphous bodies may in certain cases assume regular forms, such as the drops of water which constitute fog; but we can not speak of the individuation of a drop of water as we speak of the individuation of a crystal, because it does not possess, at least in a rigorous manner, and in all its mass. , a periodic structure. A large drop of water is not exactly identical for all its properties to a small drop of water at least in a rigorous way and in the whole of its mass, a periodic structure. A large drop of water is not exactly identical for all its properties to a small drop of water at least in a rigorous way and in the whole of its mass, a periodic structure. A large drop of water is not exactly identical for all its properties to a small drop of water87 .

The individuation we have just characterized by the example of the crystal can not exist without a smaller elementary discontinuity of scale; it takes a building of atoms to form a crystalline mesh, and this structuring would be very difficult to conceive without an elementary discontinuity. Descartes, it is true, wishing to explain all the physical effects by "figure and movement", sought to found

the existence of forms on something other than elementary discontinuity, inconceivable in a system from which absolute emptiness is excluded, since the extension is substantialized and becomes res extensa ; Descartes, then, carefully considered the crystals, and even observed the genesis of the artificial crystals in a supersaturated solution of sea salt, trying to explain it by figure and motion. But Descartes has great difficulty in discovering the foundation of structures; he strives, at the beginning of the Meteors,to show a genesis of spatial boundaries from the opposition of the direction of rotation of two neighboring vortices; it is the movement that first and foremost identifies the regions of space; in a mechanics without strong forces, the movement may seem, in fact, a purely geometrical determination. But movement in a continuous matter-space can not easily constitute an anisotropy of physical properties; Descartes' attempt to explain the magnetic field by figure and movement, starting from tendrils coming from the poles of the magnet, and rotating on themselves, remains unsuccessful: we can well explain by means of this hypothesis how two poles of the same name repel each other, or else two poles of opposite names attract each other. But we can not explain the coexistence of these two properties, because this coexistence requires anisotropy, whereas the space-matter of Descartes is isotropic. Substantialism can only explain the phenomena of isotropy. Polarization, the most basic condition of the relationship, remains incomprehensible in a rigorous substantialism. Thus Descartes endeavored to explain all the phenomena in which a field manifests vectorial magnitudes by means of the mechanism of subtle matter. He paid great attention to the crystals, because they gave him a clear illustration of the reality of the figures; they are substantial geometric shapes; but the system of Descartes, excluding the void, made it impossible to recognize what is fundamental in the crystalline state,

Now, to be fully rigorous, it must not be said that, if the crystalline state is discontinuous, the amorphous state is continuous; the same substance, in fact, can be in the amorphous state or in the crystalline state, without its elementary particles being modified. But even if it is composed of discontinuous elements like molecules, a substance can behave like a continuum, as soon as a sufficient number of elementary particles is involved in the production of the phenomenon. Indeed, a multitude of disordered actions, that is to say, obeying neither a polarization nor a periodic distribution in time, have average sums which are distributed in an isotropic field. Such are, for example, the pressures in a compressed gas. The example of Brownian motion, highlighting the thermal agitation of large molecules, It also illustrates this condition of isotropic media: if one takes indeed, to observe this movement, visible particles larger and larger, the movements of these particles eventually become imperceptible; it is that the instantaneous sum of the energies received on each side by the molecules in state of agitation is smaller and smaller compared to the mass of the observable particle; the larger the particle, the greater the number of shocks per unit of time on each side; as the distribution of these shocks is random, the forces per unit area are all the more constant in time as the surfaces considered are larger, and a rather large observable particle remains practically in to observe this movement, visible particles becoming larger, the movements of these particles eventually become imperceptible; it is that the instantaneous sum of the energies received on each side by the molecules in state of agitation is smaller and smaller compared to the mass of the observable particle; the larger the particle, the greater the number of shocks per unit of time on each side; as the distribution of these shocks is random, the forces per unit area are all the more constant in time as the surfaces considered are larger, and a rather large observable particle remains practically in to observe this movement, visible particles becoming larger, the movements of these particles eventually become imperceptible; it is that the instantaneous sum of the energies received on each side by the molecules in state of agitation is smaller and smaller compared to the mass of the observable particle; the larger the particle, the greater the number of shocks per unit of time on each side; as the distribution of these shocks is random, the forces per unit area are all the more constant in time as the surfaces considered are larger, and a rather large observable particle remains practically in it is that the instantaneous sum of the energies received on each side by the molecules in state of agitation is smaller and smaller compared to the mass of the observable particle; the larger the particle, the greater the number of shocks per unit of time on each side; as the distribution of these shocks is random, the forces per unit area are all the more constant in time as the surfaces considered are larger, and a rather large observable particle remains practically in it is that the instantaneous sum of the energies received on each side by the molecules in state of agitation is smaller and smaller compared to the mass of the observable particle; the larger the particle, the greater the number of shocks per unit of time on each side; as the distribution of these shocks is random, the forces per unit area are all the more constant in time as the surfaces considered are larger, and a rather large observable particle remains practically in

rest. For durations and orders of sufficient dimensions, the disordered discontinuity is equivalent to the continuous; it is functionally continuous. The discontinuous can be manifested sometimes as continuous, sometimes as discontinuous, as it is disorderly or ordered. But the continuous can not present itself functionally as discontinuous, because it is isotropic.

E n continuing on this path, we would find that the aspect of continuity can be presented as a special case of the discontinuous reality, while the converse of this proposition is not true. The discontinuous is prime relative to the continuous. It is for this reason that the study of individuation, grasping the discontinuous as discontinuous, has a very great epistemological and ontological value: it invites us to ask ourselves how ontogenesis is accomplished, starting from a system with energetic potentials and structural germs; it is not of a substance but of a system that there is individuation, and it is this individuation which generates what is called a substance, starting from an initial singularity.

However, to conclude from these remarks to an ontological primacy of the individual would be to lose sight of the fertility of the relationship. The physical individual that is the crystal is a being with a periodic structure, which results from a genesis in which a structural condition and a hylemorphic condition, containing matter and energy, have been encountered in a compatibility relation. Now, for the energy to be able to be enslaved by a structure, it had to be given in potential form, that is to say, spread in a originally unpolarized medium ,behaving like a continuous. The genesis of the individual requires the discontinuity of the structural seed and the functional continuum of the previous amorphous medium. A potential energy, measurable by a scalar quantity, can be enslaved by a structure, a beam of polarities that can be represented vectorially. The genesis of the individual is effected by the relation of these vector quantities and these scalar magnitudes. It is therefore not necessary to replace substantialism by a monism of the constituted individual. A monadological pluralism would still be a substantialism. Now all substantialism is monism, unified or diversified, in that it retains only one of the two aspects of being: terms without the operative relation. The physical individual integrates into his genesis the common operation of the continuous and the discontinuous,

This assumes that individuation exists at an intermediate level between the order of magnitude of the particle elements and that of the molar set of the complete system; at this intermediate level, individuation is an amplifying structuring operation that brings to the macrophysical level the active properties of the originally microphysical discontinuity; individuation begins at the level where the discontinuity of the singular molecule is capable - in a medium in a "hylemorphic situation" of metastability - of modulating an energy whose support is already part of the continuum, of a population of molecules randomly arranged, therefore an order of magnitude higher, in relation to the molar system. The polarizing singularity initiates in the amorphous medium a cumulative structuring crossing the orders of magnitude originally separated: the singularity, or information, is what in which there is communication between orders of magnitude; primer of the individual, it is preserved in him.

Chapter III

Form and substance88

I. - CONTINUOUS AND DISCONTINUOUS

1. Functional role of discontinuity

The Socratic injunction by which reflective thought was recalled from Physics to Ethics has not been accepted in all philosophical traditions. The "sons of the Earth," as Plato puts it, have stubbornly sought in the knowledge of physical nature the only solid principles for individual ethics. Already Leucippus and Democritus had shown the way. Epicurus bases his moral doctrine on a physics, and this same approach is found in the great didactic and epic poem of Lucretius. But a remarkable feature of the relationship between Philosophy and Physics among the ancients is that the ethical conclusion is already presupposed in the physical principle. Physics is already ethical. The atomists necessarily define their ethics in their physics when they make the atom a substantial and limited being, crossing without altering the different combinations. The compound has a level of reality lower than the simple, and this compound that the man will be wise if he knows and accepts his own temporal, spatial and energetic limitation. It has been said that the atomists have coined the eleatic being: and in fact, the rounded, rounded plenitude of the poem of Parmenides, a narrative of his initiation into Being, is fragmented at the same time. infinite in the atoms: but it is always the immutable matter, one or multiple, which holds the being. The relation between the atoms of being, made possible by the introduction of the void which replaces the negativity of Parmenidian becoming, has no real interiority. The lawless issue of the innumerable jets of chance, it preserves throughout its existence the essential precariousness of its constitutive conditions. For the atomists, the relation depends on the being, and in the being, nothing bases it substantially. Coming from a clinamen without finality, it remains pure accident, and only the infinite number of encounters in the infinity of time has led to some viable forms. The human compound can not in any case reach substantiality; but it can avoid necessarily destructive relations because without foundations, which take away from it that little time it has to exist, leading it to think about death, which has not it preserves throughout its existence the essential precariousness of its constitutive conditions. For the atomists, the relation depends on the being, and in the being, nothing bases it substantially. Coming from a clinamen without finality, it remains pure accident, and only the infinite number of encounters in the infinity of time has led to some viable forms. The human compound can not in any case reach substantiality; but it can avoid necessarily destructive relations because without foundations, which take away from it that little time it has to exist, leading it to think about death, which has not it preserves throughout its existence the essential precariousness of its constitutive conditions. For the atomists, the relation depends on the being, and in the being, nothing bases it substantially. Coming from a clinamen without finality, it remains pure accident, and only the infinite number of encounters in the infinity of time has led to some viable forms. The human compound can not in any case reach substantiality; but it can avoid necessarily destructive relations because without foundations, which take away from it that little time it has to exist, leading it to think about death, which has not and only the infinite number of encounters in the infinity of time has led to some viable forms. The human compound can not in any case reach substantiality; but it can avoid necessarily destructive relations because without foundations, which take away from it that little time it has to exist, leading it to think about death, which has not and only the infinite number of encounters in the infinity of time has led to some viable forms. The human compound can not in any case reach substantiality; but it can avoid necessarily destructive relations because without foundations, which take away from it that little time it has to exist, leading it to think about death, which has not

no substantial reality. The state of ataraxia is that which concentrates as much as possible on the human compound itself, and brings it to the nearest state of the substantiality which it is possible for it to attain. The "templa serena philosophiae" allow the construction not of a true individuality, but of the state of the most similar to the simple compound that can be conceived.

A symmetrical postulate is found in Stoic doctrine. Here again, man is not a real individual. The only true individual is unique and universal: he is the cosmos. He alone is substantial, one, perfectly bound by the internal tension of πυρ TEXViKOv oδιέχε πάντα. This fire artisan, also called "fire seed", πυρ σπερματικόν, is the principle of the immense pulsation that animates the world. Man, the organ of this great body, can find a truly individual life only in harmony with the rhythm of the whole. This chord, conceived as the resonance that the luthiers achieve by the equal tension of two strings of equal weight and equal length, is a participation of the activity of the party to the activity of all. The finality, rejected by the atomists, plays an essential role in the system of the Stoics. It is because, for the Stoics, the relation is essential, because it raises the part that is the man until the whole that is the individual-cosmos; on the contrary, in the Atomists, the relation can only distance man from the individual, who is the element,

The ethical intention has therefore resorted to physics in two opposite directions. For the Atomists, the true individual is infinitely below the order of magnitude of man; for the Stoics he is infinitely above. The individual is not sought after in the order of magnitude of the human being, but at both ends of the scale of conceivable magnitudes. In both cases, the physical individual is sought with a rigor and force that indicates how much the man feels his life engaged in this search. And it is perhaps this very intention that has led the Epicureans and Stoics not to want to take as a model of the individual a common and common being. The atom and the cosmos are absolute in their consistency because they are the extreme terms of what man can conceive. The atom is absolute as non-relative to the degree reached by the process of division; the cosmos is absolute as non-relative to the process of addition and search of the definition by inclusion, since it is the term that includes all the others. The only difference, very important in its consequences, is that the absolute at all encloses the relation, whereas the absolute of the indivisible excludes it.

Perhaps it is necessary to see in this search for an absolute individual outside the human order a will of research not subject to prejudices stemming from the integration of man into the social group; the closed city is denied in these two discoveries of the absolute physical individual: by folding over oneself in epicureanism, by surpassing and universalizing in the stoicism of cosmic civism. Precisely for this reason, neither of the two doctrines can think of the relation in its general form. The relation between the atoms is precarious, and leads to the instability of the compound; the relation of the part to the whole absorbs the part in the whole. Hence, the relation of man to man is nearly similar in the two doctrines; the Stoic sage remains αυτάρκης και άπαθής.O Ù K έφ ημιν. The Epictetian Manual compares family relationships with the occasional picking of a hyacinth bulb that a sailor encounters by taking a short walk on an island; if the boatswain cries out, it is no longer the moment to linger over this gathering; the marine risk ra it to be ruthlessly abandoned the island because the teacher does not wait. The li fever IV of De Rerum Natura treated in the same way human passions founded 're on instincts, and partially brings meaning to a report of ownership. The  seu the e In Epicurism, the true relation is between man and himself, and in Stoicism, of man with the cosmos.

Thus, the search for fundamental physics individual remained barren in A n cians because she was too tense only for ethical reasons, to the discovery of a substantial absolute. In this sense, the moral thought of Christianity has undoubtedly rendered a service indirectly indirectly to the search for the individual in physics; giving a non-physical foundation of ethics, she removed the  rec Herche of the individual physical appearance of moral principle, which released her.

By the end of the 18th centurycentury, we give a functional role to a discontinuity of matter: Haüy's hypothesis on the reticular constitution of crystals is an example. In chemistry, too, the molecule becomes a center of relations, and not only a depository of materiality. The nineteenth century did not invent the elementary particle, but it continued to enrich it in relationships as it impoverished it in substance. This path led to consider the particle as related to a field. The last stage of this research was accomplished when it was possible to measure in terms of energy level variation a change in structure of the building constituted by the particles in mutual relation. The mass variation linked to an energy release or absorption, and therefore to a change of structure, profoundly concretizes what relationship is equivalent to being. Such an exchange, which makes it possible to state the relation which measures the equivalence of a quantity of matter and a quantity of energy, and therefore of a change of structure, can not leave a doctrine which links the modifications of substance to substance as pure contingent accidents, in spite of which the substance remains immodified. In the physical individual, substance and modes are at the same level of being. The substance consists of the stability of the modes, and the modes, in changes of the energy level of the substance. can not allow a doctrine which links the modifications of the substance to the substance as pure contingent accidents, in spite of which the substance remains immodified. In the physical individual, substance and modes are at the same level of being. The substance consists of the stability of the modes, and the modes, in changes of the energy level of the substance. can not allow a doctrine which links the modifications of the substance to the substance as pure contingent accidents, in spite of which the substance remains immodified. In the physical individual, substance and modes are at the same level of being. The substance consists of the stability of the modes, and the modes, in changes of the energy level of the substance.

The relation could be put in the rank of being from the moment when the notion of discontinuous quantity was associated with that of particle; a discontinuity of matter which consists only of a granular structure would leave most of the problems raised by the conception of the physical individual in antiquity.

The notion of discontinuity must become essential to the representation of phenomena so that a theory of the relation is possible: it must apply not only to the masses, but also to the loads, to the positions of stability that particles can occupy, to the quantities of energy absorbed or given up in a change of structure. The quantum of action is the correlative of a structure that changes in sudden leaps without intermediate states.89

and the equal need of a continuous distribution of energy: there is a threshold of frequency of "photons", as if each photon were to bring a quantity of energy at least equal to the energy of exit of an electron out of the metal. But on the other hand, there is no threshold of intensity, as if each photon could be considered as a wave covering a surface of indeterminate dimension, and yet able to supply all its energy in a perfectly localized point.

Perhaps this antinomy would seem less accentuated if we could retain the result of previous analyzes in order to apply them to this even more general case. Here, as in the case of the crystal, we no longer have the distinction between a discontinuous, structured, periodic region and an amorphous, continuous, scalar region. But we have, synthesized in the same being, carried by the same support, a structured size and an amorphous size, pure potential. The discontinuous is in the mode of relation, which takes place by sudden leaps, as between a periodic medium and an amorphous medium, or between two media with periodic structure; the structure is here as simple as possible, it is the uniqueness of the particle. A particle is not particle as occupies spatially such place, but only in so far as it exchanges its energy with other energy carriers. Discontinuity is a modality ofrelationship.It is possible to grasp here what are called two "complementary representations of the real", and which are perhaps not only complementary, but actually one. This need to bring together two complementary notions may come from the fact that these two aspects of the individuated being have been separated by substantialism, and that we have to make an intellectual effort to reunite them, because of a certain imaginative habit. . What, for a particle, the associated field that we are obliged to add to it to account for phenomena? It is the possibility, for her, of being in structural and energetic relation with other particles, even if these particles behave like a continuum. When a plate of an alkaline metal is illuminated by a light beam, there is a relation between the free electrons contained in the metal and the luminous energy; here, the free electrons behave like beings equivalent to the continuous as they are distributed randomly in the plate, as long as they do not receive a quantity of energy sufficient to be able to leave the plate; this energy corresponds to the output potential, and varies with the chemical species of the metal used. The electrons intervene here as supports of a continuous magnitude, scalar, not con-anspondant to a polarized field. They are like the molecules of an amorphous body in a state of thermal agitation. Their place, assuming they were localizable, would not matter. The same goes for the particles of the light source: their position at the moment when the light energy has been emitted does not count. The photoelectric effect can be produced with the light of a star that no longer exists. On the other hand, electrons behave as structured beings as they are likely to come out of the plate. At this change of their relation with the other particles which constitute the metallic medium corresponds a quantity of energy measurable by a number of quanta. Likewise, the changes of state of each particle constituting the light source intervene in the frequency relationship of the photon. The individuality of the structural changes that took place in the source is preserved in the form of energy of the "photon" that is to say in the form of the capacity of the light energy to make a change of structure demanding a determined amount of energy at a specific point.

to receive a quantity of energy at least equal to its output energy. We are led to ask the notion of "photon" to explain not only this rule of frequency threshold, but also the very important fact of the distribution or rather the availability of light energy in each of the points of the illuminated plate: there is no threshold of intensity: if the electron behaves like a particle in the sense that each electron requires the addition of a certain quantity of energy to get out of the plate, one might think that it will behave like a particle also in the sense that it will receive a quantity of luminous energy proportional to the opening of the angle under which it is seen of the source of light (according to the law of the flux). Yet this is what experience demented; when the amount of light received by the plate on each surface unit decreases, there should be a moment when the amount of light would be too small for each electron to receive a quantity of light equivalent to its output energy. But this moment does not arrive; only the number of electrons extracted per unit of time decreases proportionally to the amount of light. All the energy received by the alkali metal plate acts on this particle 50,000 times smaller than the hydrogen atom. It is by this that we are led to consider that all the energy conveyed by the light wave is concentrated at one point, as if there were a corpuscle of light. there should come a time when the amount of light would be too small for each electron to receive a quantity of light equivalent to its output energy. But this moment does not arrive; only the number of electrons extracted per unit of time decreases proportionally to the amount of light. All the energy received by the alkali metal plate acts on this particle 50,000 times smaller than the hydrogen atom. It is by this that we are led to consider that all the energy conveyed by the light wave is concentrated at one point, as if there were a corpuscle of light. there should come a time when the amount of light would be too small for each electron to receive a quantity of light equivalent to its output energy. But this moment does not arrive; only the number of electrons extracted per unit of time decreases proportionally to the amount of light. All the energy received by the alkali metal plate acts on this particle 50,000 times smaller than the hydrogen atom. It is by this that we are led to consider that all the energy conveyed by the light wave is concentrated at one point, as if there were a corpuscle of light. All the energy received by the alkali metal plate acts on this particle 50,000 times smaller than the hydrogen atom. It is by this that we are led to consider that all the energy conveyed by the light wave is concentrated at one point, as if there were a corpuscle of light. All the energy received by the alkali metal plate acts on this particle 50,000 times smaller than the hydrogen atom. It is by this that we are led to consider that all the energy conveyed by the light wave is concentrated at one point, as if there were a corpuscle of light.

3. The analogical method

Should one, however, give real value to the notion of photon? It is undoubtedly fully valid in a physics of as ifbut we must ask ourselves if it constitutes a real physical individual. It is necessitated by the way in which the relation between the light energy and the electrons is effected, that is to say finally between the changes of state of the particles of the light source and the changes of state of the particles. alkali metal. It may be dangerous to consider light energy without considering the source from which it comes. Now, if we only want to describe the relation between the light source and the free electrons of the alkali metal, we will see that it is not absolutely necessary to involve individuals of light, and that it is even less necessary to use a "probability wave" to account for the distribution of the light energy carried by these photons on the surface of the metal plate. It even seems that the photon hypothesis is difficult to preserve in cases where an extremely small amount of light arrives on a fairly large surface of alkali metal. The output of the electrons is then substantially discontinuous, which results in a "background noise" or noise of shot characterized by amplifying and transforms into sound signals the currents produced in a circuit by the electrons coming out of the metal, and captured on an anode due to a potential difference created between this anode and the photo-emissive metal plate become cathode. If the intensity of the luminous flux is further reduced, but the surface of the alkali metal plate is increased, the number of electrons going out per unit of time is constant when the two variations compensate each other, that is, say when the product of the surface illuminated by the intensity of the light remains constant. Now, the probability of encounter between a photon and a free electron decreases when the surface of the plate increases and the intensity of the light decreases. Indeed, assuming that the number of free electrons per unit area remains constant regardless of the surface, we find that the number of photons that is, when the product of the surface illuminated by the intensity of the light remains constant. Now, the probability of encounter between a photon and a free electron decreases when the surface of the plate increases and the intensity of the light decreases. Indeed, assuming that the number of free electrons per unit area remains constant regardless of the surface, we find that the number of photons that is, when the product of the surface illuminated by the intensity of the light remains constant. Now, the probability of encounter between a photon and a free electron decreases when the surface of the plate increases and the intensity of the light decreases. Indeed, assuming that the number of free electrons per unit area remains constant regardless of the surface, we find that the number of photons

decreases as the surface increases and the total amount of light received per unit time over the entire surface remains constant. It is therefore necessary to consider the photon as being able to be present everywhere at any moment on the surface of the alkali metal plate, since the effect depends only on the number of photons received per unit of time and not on the concentration or the scattering of light on a larger or smaller surface. The photon encounters an electron as if it had a surface of several square centimeters, but it exchanges with it energy as if itwas a particle of the order of magnitude of the electron, that is to say 50,000 times smaller than the hydrogen atom. And this, the photon can while remaining able to appear in another effect, realized at the same time and under the same conditions, as linked to a transmission of energy in wave form: one can obtain fringes of interference on the cathode of the photoelectric cell without disturbing the photoelectric phenomenon. Perhaps then it would be better to account for conflicting aspects of the photoelectric effect by another method. If we consider indeed the phenomenon in the aspect of temporal discontinuity that it presents when the quantity of received energy per unit of surface is extremely weak, it can be seen that the exit of the electrons occurs when the illumination of the photoemissive plate has lasted a certain time: everything happens here as if a certain summation of the light energy occurred in the plate. It could be assumed, therefore, that the light energy is transformed in the plate into a potential energy allowing the modification of the state of relationship of an electron with the particles constituting the metal. This would allow to understand that the place of the free electrons does not intervene in the determination of the phenomenon, nor that the density of "photons" per unit of surface of the metal plate. We would then be brought back to the case of the relation between a structure and an amorphous substance, which manifests itself as a continuum even if it is not continuous in its composition. Here, indeed, the electrons manifest themselves as a continuous substance, because they obey a lawful distribution of large numbers in the metal plate. This set consisting of the electrons and the metal plate in which they are randomly distributed, can be structured by the addition of a sufficient amount of energy that will allow the electrons out of the plate. The messy set has been ordered. However, this thesis, also summarily presented, should attract criticism. Indeed, there are other ways to increase the potential energy of the metal plate, for example by heating it; then, from temperatures between 700 ° and 1250 °, we can see a phenomenon called thermo-thermal effect, better named thermoelectronic effect: electrons spontaneously leave a piece of heated metal. When this metal is coated with crystallized oxides, the phenomenon takes place at a lower temperature. Here, the change of distribution takes place without the intervention of any other condition than the rise in temperature, at least in appearance. However, the energy condition, namely the temperature of the metal constituting a "hot cathode", is not fully self-sufficient; the structure of the metal surface also comes into play: it is said in this sense that a cathode can be "activated" by the addition of traces of metal, strontium or barium, for example; even in the thermoelectronic effect, there are therefore structural conditions of electron emission. Only,

Thermoelectronics are always present under ordinary conditions when the energy conditions are. They are at least on a large scale, for a "hot cathode" having a sufficient emissive surface; but they are much more discontinuous on a small scale. If the electrons emitted at the same time by the different points of a hot cathode are projected onto a fluorescent screen by means of a concentration device (electrostatic or electromagnetic lens), so as to obtain an enlarged optical image of the cathode we see that the emission of electrons by each point is very variable according to the successive instants. It forms as successive craters of intense activity, these craters are eminently unstable: the total current collected if one installs near the cathode, in an empty enclosure, an anode, with, between the anode and the cathode, a potential difference sufficient to capture all the electrons emitted (saturation current), shows fluctuations that come from these intense local variations in the intensity of the thermoelectronic phenomenon. The larger the surface of the cathode, the smaller these local variations are relative to the total intensity; in an electron tube with a very small cathode, this phenomenon is sensitive. It has been quite recently studied under the name of scintillation or "flicker". Now, all the points of a cathode are in the same thermal energetic conditions, with very slight differences, because of the high thermal conductivity of the metals. Even if we assume slight temperature differences between different points on the surface of a cathode, the abrupt and important changes in the intensity of electron emission between two neighboring points can not be explained here. It is therefore that the thermoelectronic effect depends at least on another condition, in addition to the energy condition that is always present. The bright and fleeting craters observed in the electronic optical device described above correspond to the appearance or disappearance of this condition of activity on the surface of the cathode, at this point. The study of this phenomenon is not advanced enough so that we can specify the nature of these in addition to the energy condition that is always present. The bright and fleeting craters observed in the electronic optical device described above correspond to the appearance or disappearance of this condition of activity on the surface of the cathode, at this point. The study of this phenomenon is not advanced enough so that we can specify the nature of these in addition to the energy condition that is always present. The bright and fleeting craters observed in the electronic optical device described above correspond to the appearance or disappearance of this condition of activity on the surface of the cathode, at this point. The study of this phenomenon is not advanced enough so that we can specify the nature of thesegerms of activity.But it is important to note that they are functionally comparable to the crystalline seeds that appear in a supersaturated amorphous solution. The nature of these germs is still mysterious; but their existence is certain. Now, we must ask ourselves if, in the photoelectric effect, the light acts only by increasing the energy of the electrons. It is interesting to note that the electrons normally come out on the surface of the alkali metal plate. It is very unfortunate that the high temperatures necessary to achieve the thermoelectronic effect are not compatible with the conservation of zinc, cesium or cadmium cathodes; we could try to see if, for temperatures barely lower than the temperature at which the thermoelectric effect begins to manifest itself, the minimum frequency of the light producing the photoelectronic effect would be lowered, which would show that the output energy would have decreased. If that were so, one could conclude that there are two terms in the electron output energy: a structural term and a term actually representing a potential. However, even in the absence of more precise experiments, it is possible to draw from this example a number of provisional conclusions relating to the study of physical individuation. We see indeed a very remarkable type of relation in the photoelectric effect: all the free electrons which are in the lit metal plate are, from the energetic point of view, it could be concluded that there are two terms in the output energy of the electron: a structural term and a term actually representing a potential. However, even in the absence of more precise experiments, it is possible to draw from this example a number of provisional conclusions relating to the study of physical individuation. We see indeed a very remarkable type of relation in the photoelectric effect: all the free electrons which are in the lit metal plate are, from the energetic point of view, it could be concluded that there are two terms in the output energy of the electron: a structural term and a term actually representing a potential. However, even in the absence of more precise experiments, it is possible to draw from this example a number of provisional conclusions relating to the study of physical individuation. We see indeed a very remarkable type of relation in the photoelectric effect: all the free electrons which are in the lit metal plate are, from the energetic point of view, it is possible to draw from this example a number of provisional conclusions relating to the study of physical individuation. We see indeed a very remarkable type of relation in the photoelectric effect: all the free electrons which are in the lit metal plate are, from the energetic point of view, it is possible to draw from this example a number of provisional conclusions relating to the study of physical individuation. We see indeed a very remarkable type of relation in the photoelectric effect: all the free electrons which are in the lit metal plate are, from the energetic point of view,as a single substance. Otherwise, we can not understand how there can be summation effect of the light energy arriving on the

plate until the amount of energy required for the output of an electron has been received. There are indeed cases where we can not consider the phenomenon as instantaneous; in this case, therefore, the luminous energy must have been put in reserve; on the other hand, this energy supposes a communication between all the free electrons, because one can hardly conceive that the energy was brought by a photon which would have put to act on the electron a time longer than the speed of the light does not calculate it. If the relationship between light and an electron is slower than the speed of light allows it, it is because there is no direct relationship between light and electron, but a relation by the intermediate of a third term. If the interaction between the "photon" and the light is direct, it must be short enough so that the photon, between the beginning and the end of the interaction, is still practically in the same place. We are content to redo the reasoning that led to the idea that the photon can manifest itself in any illuminated point. But, if we admit that the photon can manifest its presence everywhere at the same moment on a plane perpendicular to the direction of movement, we can not admit that it can remain in the same place during the whole time that a transformation takes place. If, for example, a transformation lasts 1/1000 We are content to redo the reasoning that led to the idea that the photon can manifest itself in any illuminated point. But, if we admit that the photon can manifest its presence everywhere at the same moment on a plane perpendicular to the direction of movement, we can not admit that it can remain in the same place during the whole time that a transformation takes place. If, for example, a transformation lasts 1/1000 We are content to redo the reasoning that led to the idea that the photon can manifest itself in any illuminated point. But, if we admit that the photon can manifest its presence everywhere at the same instant on a plane perpendicular to the direction of movement, we can not admit that it can remain in the same place during the whole time that a transformation takes place. If, for example, a transformation lasts 1/1000esecond, the photon would have had between the beginning and the end of this transformation, the time to travel 3,000 meters. This difficulty is avoided if one supposes that between the light and the electron there is summation of energy in the medium where the electrons are. This summation could be made for example in the form of increasing the amplitude of an oscillation or the frequency of a rotation. In the latter case for example, the frequency of light would intervene directly as frequency and not as scalar quantity. If we accept a direct role of frequency, it is no longer necessary to imagine a photon whose energy is represented by the measurement of a frequency: frequency is the structural condition without which the phenomenon of structuring can not be done. But energy intervenes as a scalar quantity in the number of electrons extracted per unit of time. According to this representation, it would be necessary to consider an electromagnetic field as possessing a structural element and a purely energetic element: the frequency represents this structural element while the intensity of the field represents its energetic element. We say that the frequencyrepresents the structural element, but not that it constitutes it, because in other circumstances this element will intervene as a wavelength during a propagation in a determined medium or in a vacuum. Diffraction by the crystal lattice involves this structure as a wavelength, in relation to the geometric length of the crystal lattice.

The interest of a representation of structure as related to frequency is not only that of a greater realism, but also that of a much larger universality, which avoids creating arbitrary categories of electromagnetic fields ( which results in a rather paralyzing apparent substantialism). The continuity between different manifestations of electromagnetic fields of various frequencies is established not only by theory, but also by scientific and technical experience. If, as Louis de Broglie does in Ondes, Corpuscules, Mécanique ondulatory,In Plate I (between page 16 and page 17), we write against a logarithmic scale of frequencies the various discoveries and experiments that made it possible to measure an electromagnetic frequency, we see that continuity has been established. entirely between the six areas considered first

as distinct: the hertzian waves, the infrared, the visible spectrum, the ultraviolet, the X-rays and the rays y. While the technicians spread to the freq influences lower the field of wave findings theoretically by Maxwell and effectively prodmtes by Hertz in 1886 with a decimeter oscillator, Righi, phy s Italian icien Bologna, establishes the existence of waves 2.5 cm. In a book p u lished in 1897, it shows that these waves are intermediate between visible light and are oneof the radio; they possess all the characters of visible light. The title of this book, Optique des oscillations électriques,is very important, as it shows an effort to unify two previously experimentally separate domains, although they were conceptually united in Maxwell's remarkable electromagnetic theory of light: optics and electricity. In the path opened by Righi, Bose and Lebedew engage with the apparatus built in 1897 by Bose to repeat Hertz's experiments on the refraction, diffraction and polarization of electromagnetic waves; these two researchers manage to produce electromagnetic waves of 6 millimeters. In 1923, Nickols managed to produce waves of 0.29 millimeters. One year later, Slagolewa and Arkodeiwa reached 0, 124 millimeters. Now, by optical methods, Rubens and Bayer, in 1913, had been able to isolate and measure in infrared radiations a radiation of 0, 343 millimeters in wavelength. Exceeding the simple analogy of propagation properties, the two forms of energy once isolated as twogenera or at least two species partially overlapped in extension (from 0.343 to 0.124 millimeters wavelength) and identified in understanding, both for the genesis and for the study of "properties", showing the fragility of the thought that proceeds by common gender and specific differences. The common genre and the specific differences are here exactly at the same level of being: they both consist of frequencies. Extension and comprehension are also overlapping, since the statement of the limits of extension uses the very characters of the definition by comprehension. The intellectual approach that the progressive discovery of the continuity between the airwaves and the manifest visible spectrum is neither inductive nor deductive: it istransductive: indeed, the visible light and the hertzian waves are not two species of a common kind which would be that of the electromagnetic waves.No specific difference can be indicated to go from the definition of electromagnetic waves to that of airwaves or visible light; there is nothing more in the definition of the hertzian waves or the light than in that of the electromagnetic waves. Extension and comprehension do not vary in the opposite direction, as in induction. On the other hand, it can not be said either that this thought proceeds, like deduction, by "transfer of evidence": the properties of electromagnetic light are not deduced from those of Hertzian electromagnetic waves. They are constituted from the very measure that makes it possible to establish a distinction at the same time as continuity: that of frequency.identical or  heterogeneous, but contiguous : this method of transduction makes it possible to establish a  topology of physical beings that studies neither genera nor species. The criterion which makes it possible to establish limits for each domain also makes it possible to define what, in inductive language, would become the subspecies, without adding any new distinctive character , and simply by a precision given to the universal character of the understanding.

hension; thus, in the preceding example, if one wishes to account for the differences which exist between the so-called centimetric electromagnetic waves and the HF electromagnetic waves, one will have recourse to this character which will also make it possible to say why the separating power of a microscope optical is greater in violet light than in red light: it will be shown that the reflection, the refraction, the diffraction of an electromagnetic wave are conditioned by the ratio between the order of magnitude of the wavelength and that of the elements. of the substance constituting the mirror, the diopter or the network. For reflection for example, the condition for this phenomenon to occur is that the irregularities of the mirror are small compared to the electromagnetic wavelength to reflect. The "optical polish" of silver or mercury is needed to reflect the violet light of short wavelength. The red light, on the other hand, is already well reflected by a coarser polished metallic surface; infra-red radiation can be reflected by a slightly oxidized copper plate; the centimeter waves of the radar are reflected on an unpolished metal surface. UHF waves are reflected on a fine mesh metal mesh. VHFs are reflected on a lattice of metal bars. A lattice with large meshes, made of cables suspended from pylons, or even a row of pylons is sufficient for the reflection of the HF or MF waves. Similarly, the fine structure of a crystal lattice is needed to diffract the X-rays, while a network of lines delicately engraved by hand on a metal plate is sufficient to diffract the visible light. The metric waves of the television diffract on the crenellated peaks of the Sierras, a natural network with large meshes. More complex properties, such as the ratio between the amount of reflected energy and the amount of refracted energy for each wavelength encountering a semiconductor obstacle, such as the complex structure Kennely-Heaviside layer, can be interpreted by means of a similar method, which is neither inductive nor deductive. The word analogy seems to have taken on a pejorative meaning in epistemological thought. One should, however, not confuse true analogical reasoning with the quite sophisticated method of inferring identity from the properties of two beings who have in common any character. As much as the method ofresemblancecan be confusing and not very honest, as much the true analogical method is rational. The true analogy according to the definition of the Father of Solages is an identity of relations and not a relation of identity. The transductive progress of thought consists indeed in establishing identities of relations. These identities of relations do not rely on similarities at all, but rather on differences, and they aim to explain them: they tend towards logical differentiation, and in no way towards assimilation or identification. ; thus, the properties of light appear very different from those of radio waves, even in a specific and limited case like that of reflection on a mirror; a grid does not reflect light and reflects radio waves, while a small, perfectly polished mirror reflects the light well and hardly a metric or decametric hertzian wave, let alone a hectometric one. To give an account of these resemblances or these differences will be to resort to the identity of relations existing between all the phenomena of reflection; the amount of energy is great when, in the path of the electromagnetic wave is interposed an obstacle constituted by a substance whose irregularities are small compared to the wavelength of the electromagnetic energy.

There is an identity of relationship between the length of the light wave and the size of the irregularities of the surface of the mirror, and the length of the radio wave and the length of the grid mesh on the one hand. which she reflects on. The transductive method is therefore the application of true analogical reasoning; it excludes notions of gender and species. On the contrary, an illegitimate use of resemblance reasoning is noted in attempts to assimilatethe propagation of light to that of sound, from a few resemblances, like their reflection on the same mirrors (a watch was placed at the focus of a parabolic mirror, a second mirror similar to the first allowed to obtain an "image" auditory of the watch at the focus of the second mirror). It took the strength of mind to eFresnel to stop this abusive identification by showing that there was a difference between the propagation of sound and the propagation of light: the elongations are always transversal for the light, whereas they are always longitudinal for the sound propagating in a gas ; the differences between sound and light in the phenomena of polarization had been ignored in favor of an identification based on more external but more striking resemblances. This facility, which leads us to reason by identification from similarities, is part of substantialistic habits, which lead us to discover common types that are still unknown, thanks to a risky transfer of properties. So, the notion of ether, invented to make the resemblance between the propagation of sound and that of electromagnetic waves more perfect, has survived for a long time the experience of Michelson and Morlay and the unreasonable synthesis of physical properties that it entailed. It was preferable to suppose the existence of an imponderable fluid without any viscosity, but nevertheless much more elastic than steel, to be able to preserve the identity of the sound and the light. Scientific thought is not a pure induction ending in a classification based on differences; but it is not an identification any more; she is rather the It was preferable to suppose the existence of an imponderable fluid without any viscosity, but nevertheless much more elastic than steel, to be able to preserve the identity of the sound and the light. Scientific thought is not a pure induction ending in a classification based on differences; but it is not an identification any more; she is rather the It was preferable to suppose the existence of an imponderable fluid without any viscosity, but nevertheless much more elastic than steel, to be able to preserve the identity of the sound and the light. Scientific thought is not a pure induction ending in a classification based on differences; but it is not an identification any more; she is rather thedistribution of reality according to a measure, common criterion of extension and comprehension.

It would be easy to complete this analysis by showing how the same application of transductive reasoning has made it possible to unify the entire domain of electromagnetic radiation by introducing experimental continuities between the other domains, according to a complete sequence. Schumann, Lyman, then Millikan established the continuity between the visible spectrum and the X-rays (from 0.4 to 0.0438 thousandths of a millimeter, ie from 4000 to 438 A). Thus, the intermediate X-rays began to be known, too long to diffract on the natural networks that are the crystals, whose mesh usually measures some A · And it was finally the domains of X-rays and y-rays that were found in a state of continuity and even a fairly large overlap, since the y-rays of the polonium have a wavelength of 2.5 A, which identifies them to ordinary soft x-rays. They constitute the same physical reality, and if we keep a particular name for them, it is only to recall their mode of production. But we could as well call them X-rays. The general picture of electromagnetic radiations, as Louis de Broglie puts it, ranges from 10-3 A to 3 x 10 14 A, i.e., from 10 millimeters to about 30,000 meters. It is possible to pass, without any solution of continuity, the most penetrating rays to the longest waves of wireless telegraphy. The knowledge of the unity and diversity of this phenomenon so widely spread on a numerical scale is one of the finest successes of this transductive method which is the basis of the progress of

physics. However, this immense monument of logic is also in close coincidence with the real, and that even in the finest techniques: the electromagnetic thermometer of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, receiving in the manner of a radio receiver of very short waves the electromagnetic disturbances emitted by the stars made it possible to measure the temperatures of the sun (10,000 ° K), the moon (292 ° K), the dark space of the sky (less than 10 ° K). The radio theodolite is used to identify the position of the Sun during cloudy weather. Radar, ten to twenty times more sensitive than the eye, can detect the passage of invisible meteors with optical instruments.

However, we must ask ourselves whether this intellectual edifice does not require, as a condition of stability, an absolute transductivity of all properties and terms. Without this perfect coherence, the notion of genre would reappear, with all the latent obscurity it brings with it. A notion can not be forged to account for a relative phenomenon, for example at a given frequency, and then abandoned for the other frequencies. Within a transductivity domain, there must be continuity of all the properties, with variations relating only to the variation of the quantities making it possible to order the transductivity. In the case of the field of electromagnetic radiation, we can not accept the reality of the photon for a specific frequency band, and abandon it for others. Gold, the notion of photon, that quantum of energy that propagates at the speed of light, is remarkably useful when the photoelectric effect has to be interpreted. But it is not so interesting when it comes to infra-red or hertzian waves. It should however be usable in this field of long wavelengths.90

contains as corpuscle. More generally, in any relation, there would always be a continuous term and a discontinuous term. This requires that each being himself has a continuous condition and a discontinuous condition.

Substantialism of the particle and the energetics of the wave had developed quite independently of each other during the XIX th century, because they corresponded at first to rather remote areas of research for to authorize the theoretical independence of the principles of explanation. The historical conditions of the discovery of wave mechanics are extremely important for an allagmatic epistemology ,whose purpose is to study the modalities of transductive thought, as the only truly adequate for the knowledge of the development of a scientific thought that wants to know the individuation of the real that it studies. This epistemological study of the formation of wave mechanics and Bohr's complementarity principle would show that, inasmuch as it was a matter of thinking about the problem of the physical individual, pure deductive thinking and pure inductive thinking have been held in check, and that since the introduction of the quantum of action to the principle of complementarity of Bohr, it is a transductive logic that has allowed the development of the physical sciences.

In this sense, we will try to show that the "synthesis" of the complementary notions of wave and corpuscle is not in fact a pure logical synthesis, but the epistemological meeting of a notion obtained by induction and a notion obtained by deduction ; the two notions are not really synthesized, like the thesis and the antithesis at the end of a dialectical movement, but put in relation through a transductive movement of thought; they retain in this relation their own functional character. For them to be synthesized, they should be symmetrical and homogeneous. In the ternary rhythm dialectic, in fact, synthesis envelops the thesis and the antithesis by overcomingthe contradiction ; the synthesis is therefore hierarchically, logically and ontologically superior to the terms it brings together. The relation obtained after a rigorous transduction maintains on the contrary the asymmetry characteristic of the terms. This has the consequence that the scientific thought relating to the individual, first physical, then biological, as we will try to show, can not proceed according to the ternary rhythm of the dialectic for which the synthesis is thesis of a triad more high: it is by extension of the transductivity that the scientific thought advances, not by elevation of successive plans according to a ternary rhythm. Due to the principle of complementarity, the relationship,become functionally symmetrical, can not present with respect to another term an asymmetry that can be the engine of a subsequent dialectical progression. In terms of reflexive thought, the contradiction is, after the exercise of transductive thought, become interior to the result of synthesis (since it is relation inasmuch as it is asymmetrical). There can therefore be a new contradiction between the result of this synthesis and another term which would be its antithesis. In transductive thinking, there is no result of synthesis, but only a complementary synthetic relationship; the synthesis does not take place; it is never completed; there is no synthetic rhythm, for the synthesis operation never being carried out can not become the foundation of a new thesis.

According to the epistemological thesis that we defend, the relation between the different domains of thought is horizontal. It is a transduction material, that is,

say no to identification or to hierarchy, but to continuous distribution according to an indefinite scale.

The principles we will attempt to extract from the epistemological examination will therefore have to be considered valid if they are transductible to other domains, such as technical objects and living things. Ethics itself will have to appear as a study of the relation peculiar to living beings (here we use the expression "peculiar to living beings" whereas in reality there is not in all rigor a direct relation to beings living: it would be better to say to be exact: "to the measure of living beings", to indicate that these characters, without being peculiar to the living beings, are manifested in a much more important way in them than in any other being, given that they correspond to variables whose values or systems of values pass through a maximum for these beings). It is certain that in such a doctrine the problems relating to the boundaries between the "kingdoms" of Nature, and even more so between species, are much less important than in a theory using the notions of genus and species. We can in fact conceive sometimes a continuous transition between two domains which can be separated only by the rather arbitrary choice of average quantities, sometimes thresholds (like the frequency threshold of the photoelectric effect), which manifest not a distinction between two species, but simply a quantum condition of production of a determined effect. The limit is then no longer endowed with singular and mysterious properties; it is quantifiable, and constitutes only a critical point, the determination of which remains perfectly immanent to the phenomenon studied,

2. The deductive process

It is this thesis that we will try to demonstrate or at least to illustrate by analysis of the conditions in which physical science has been led to define the physical individual as a complementary association of wave and corpuscle.

The notion of wave seems to have appeared at the end of a remarkable deductive effort, particularly directed towards the elucidation of energy problems, to which it has brought a remarkably rational means of calculation. It extends and renews the tradition of a deductive physics and having resorted, since Descartes, to the clear representations of analytic geometry. It is, moreover, connected, at least historically, to the study of macroscopic phenomena. Finally, it has an eminent theoretical  role , making it possible to think under common principles of very large sets of facts previously separated into distinct categories. On the contrary, the notion of corpuscle presents opposite characters.

The notion of wave has played essentially identical roles in the interpretation of luminous phenomena and phenomena relating to the movements of electrified particles (or electric charges); that is why it allowed the emergence of the electromagnetic theory of light by Maxwell. The first work is concretized around the Fresnel studies. The second, around the discovery of Maxwell experimentally verified later by Hertz. Fresnel, beginning in 1814 with the study of diffraction phenomena, had behind him at least two centuries of experimental and theoretical research. Huyghens in particular had already studied the phenomenon of double refraction of spath, discovered by Bartholin, he also knew that quartz

has the same property of birefringence. Huyghens had already expounded a theory and rational methods, accompanied by geometrical constmctions which remained classical; he had observed phenomena of polarization. This astronomical and geometrical mind had brought to the problems of physics a theoretic mind, particularly sensitive in its Cosmotheoros and its Dioptric.He suggested that light is constituted not by moving bodies, but by waves propagating through space. However, this theory was not as satisfactory for Huyghens as the solution he had given to the problem of the chain or curve with equal approaches: it could not explain the phenomenon of the propagation in a straight line of light rays. The problem of nature was more diffi c he eto solve only those whom Galileo and Leibniz had proposed. The work of Descartes, with the statement of the laws of propagation, always showed the interest of a corpuscular optics for the explanation of the propagation in straight line of the light rays. However, Huyghens' theory could not be abandoned, Newton himself, although a partisan of the corpuscular theory, having discovered a new phenomenon, that of the interferences, had been obliged to complete the corpuscular theory by that of the accesses:the corpuscles of light would pass periodically, as they pass through material environments, by accesses of easy reflection and easy transmission, which would explain the phenomenon of the colored rings. Note, moreover, that the hypothesis according to which light includes periodic elements, even if it is of a corpuscular nature, is already expressed in Descartes' work: the Dioptricexplains that the prism disperses the white light (poly-chromatic) because each corpuscle of light is all the more deflected as its rotational movement on itself is slower. This idea of the rotation of the corpuscles of light, related to the cosmological hypothesis of the primitive vortices, leads Descartes to an error, because it forces him to attribute to the vortices of subtle matter constituting the red light a rotation frequency greater than that of the corpuscles of violet light; this would, according to Descartes, result from the fact that the corpuscles constituting the red light are vortices of subtle matter having a smaller diameter than that of the corpuscles constituting the violet light. Despite the error regarding the compared frequencies of red and purple, Descartes had the merit of bringing together two asymmetrical notions into a very fruitful association. Moreover, it would be wrong to suppose that Descartes represented the light exactly as made of corpuscles; there is no void in its system, and consequently no atom nor, strictly speaking, corpuscles; there are only swirls ofres extensamoving. Faced with this confrontation of two traditions, Fresnel conducted his research in such a way as to extend the field of application of a theory which, since Huyghens, had been used to explain only a few phenomena, namely the wave theory. Double refraction was known only for two crystalline species: Fresnel investigated whether this property was not found in other crystals; having created experimental devices capable of highlighting the double refraction in all the crystals where it could exist, he found that it existed in almost all the crystals, and explained it by the unequal composition which their linear elements had to present. in various senses, which is consistent with Haüy's theory of crystalline lattices. So, Fresnel extended this theoretical explanation to cases where an amorphous body is polarized by an external cause: he discovered that a glass prism becomes birefringent when compressed. This extension of the scientific object,

that is to say, the domain of validity of a theory, perfectly illustrates what may be called a transductive method. In addition, in collaboration with Arago, Fresnel was studying the polarization of light. Arago had discovered chromatic polarization; Fresnel completed this discovery by that of circular polarization, produced by means of a suitably cut birefringent crystal. Now, it was impossible to explain this phenomenon of polarization if we used a representation assimilating the light wave to a sound wave propagating in a gas; Fresnel supposed that in the light waves the vibrations are transverse, that is to say, take place perpendicular to the direction of propagation. So it's not just the polarization but also the double refraction that is explained. Fresnel had already demonstrated that the wave hypothesis makes it possible to explain, just as well as the hypothesis of corpuscles, the phenomenon of the rectilinear propagation of light rays. The results of the work of Malus and Arago confirmed this theory. Malus had discovered that reflected light always partially polarizes, and that simple refraction through the lens polarizes, in part, light. (Brief entitled: in part, the light. (Brief entitled: in part, the light. (Brief entitled:On a property of light reflected by diaphanous bodies, 1809). Fresnel's theory was verified and enlarged from its experimental basis thanks to the work of Arago who built a photometer by which the principle discovered deductively by Fresnel (complementarity of the reflected light and the refracted light) received an experimental confirmation. . Having built the pola-riscope, he was able to precisely control all the characters of the chromatic polarization. Thus was amply justified the thought of Huyghens who, in 1690, in his treatise on light,wrote: "In true philosophy, the cause of all natural effects is conceived by mechanical reasons. What we must do in my opinion, or give up all hope of ever understanding anything about physics "(Text cited by Haas in Wave mechanics and new quantum theories, translation Bogros and Esclangon, 1).

In addition, a new stage of deductive rationalism based on the assumption of the continuous and responding to an energy concern is reached by Maxwell. It is indeed to be able to apply the principle of the conservation of energy to the unitary system formed by the union of the different laws, discovered separately in the fields of electricity, which Maxwell formed the notion of "currents of displacement", rather badly named perhaps, but ancestor of the current notion of the electromagnetic wave, and unifying extension of the physical reality named light.

Prior to Maxwell's great memoir on electromagnetic theory, four laws summarized all previous discoveries about "static", "dynamic" electricity, and magnetism, as well as the relationship between currents and fields. To the four separate laws that expressed these results, Maxwell substituted the following system:

If we take: B = magnetic induction

b = electrical induction H = magnetic field h = electric field i = current density p = charge density

We can write :

SB

rot h

I)

II)

III)

IV)

"C St

div B = 0

18b ^ 4ni

c & = rotH - -

div b = 4 rrp

- Law of Induction of Faraday

- Inexistence of isolated magnetic poles

- Ampère theorem on the relations between magnetic fields and currents

- Law of electrostatic actions (Gauss theorem)

The third equation expresses Ampère's theorem on the relations between magnetic fields and currents; but, in order to be able to write that there is conservation of energy (here, conservation of electricity), Maxwell has completed this theory; by the introduction of the displacement current, represented by the expression C- | p  e t which is added to the conduction current i. Then we can deduce from these equations, + divT = o which express the conservation of electricity.

This expression of conservation would be impossible without the term in. uanother very important theoretical consequence of this system of equation is that when the magnetic induction can be confused with the magnetic field and the electric induction with the electric field (which is the case of the vacuum), the electromagnetic fields are always propagate with speed c; this expression, (which measures the ratio of the electromagnetic charge unit to the electrostatic charge unit when the magnetic fields and inductions are expressed in electromagnetic units while the electric fields and inductions, the charges and the currents are expressed in electrostatic units), has a finite value: it allows the theoretical calculation of the speed of light in vacuum.

It was at this moment that the second stage of the fruitful application of the transductive method appeared: Maxwell indeed noticed the real analogy, that is to say the identity of relations, between the propagation of light. in the vacuum and propagation of electromagnetic fields; he then assumed that the light is constituted by disturbances of electromagnetic nature and corresponds only to a certain wavelength interval, that of the visible spectrum, of electromagnetic vibrations. The constant c, discovered from considerations considering the conservation of energy in electricity, is transductiblein the measurement of the speed of light in the vacuum, as the speed of light in vacuum is transductible in the constant c. This assertion of a transductivity goes much further than the discovery of a simple equality between two measures, equality that could come from an arbitrary choice of units: it supposes! physical identity of the measured phenomenon,identity that can mask the difference of the aspects according to the particular values chosen in the wide known range. Let us note that we are not dealing here with a generalization or a subsumption: visible light is not a particular "species" of electromagnetic disturbances, because the "specific difference" that we might try to invoke to distinguish this species of its next kind, namely the wavelength of its propagation in a vacuum, or more precisely the upper and lower limits of the measurement of this wavelength, is part of the definition.

of the next kind himself; we can not conceive an electromagnetic field that has no wavelength of propagation in vacuum. As an electromagnetic field, it is already "specified" and can exist and be thought only as y-ray, X-ray, ultraviolet ray, visible light, infra-red ray, hertzian wave. The number of species or subspecies that could be discovered in a transductivity domain such as electromagnetic waves has the power of the continuum.From long Hertzian waves to the most penetrating Y-rays, there is an infinity of electromagnetic fields of different wavelengths, whose properties vary with these wavelengths; between the visible red light and the violet visible light, there is still an infinity of wavelengths; violet itself can be differentiated as much as one wants; then, the criteria of the subspecies are homogeneous with respect to the criteria of the species, and the criterion of a species is contained in the understanding of the next genus; it is only because of vital or technical uses that discontinuities, limits of pseudo-species, can be introduced; we can speak of red and violet, we can even speak of visible light; but it is because we then introduce the consideration of a living being who perceives; the apparent discontinuity does not come from the continuous scale of the electromagnetic wavelengths but from the relationship between the physiological functions of the living being and these wavelengths: a lens without a crystalline lens perceives a more distant ultraviolet than that which perceives the normal eye, in the aspect of a gray glow: the bee perceives the ultraviolet. The Greeks and the Latins did not cut the visible spectrum like us, and it seems that human perception has changed towards the end of the spectrum located on the side of the short wavelengths, as shown by the use of the adjective Atopopup in the Homeric writings; we distinguish several colors where the companions of Ulysses saw only one as today some peoples of the Far East. These are technical necessities that have led to the cutting of Hertzian waves into 9000 hertz bands, called channels, because these bandwidths correspond to a useful compromise between the necessities of a fairly faithful transmission in amplitude modulation and the total number of separate transmitters in simultaneous operation that can be received with sufficient selectivity. Long, medium, small, short, very short waves can be distinguished because of the rather large differences between the assemblies capable of producing them or likely to receive them, and between the conditions of propagation which characterize them; so it is ultimately based on the characters belonging not to these electromagnetic fields taken in themselves, but according to the limits within which their relations with technical conditions of production or atmospheric and stratospheric propagation vary. For example, long waves will be known as those that range from 20,000 meters to 800 meters because they always reflect on one of the layers of Kennely-Heaviside, which has a negative refractive index, so that they undergo a real metallic reflection on the first ionized layer they encounter, a phenomenon highlighted by Sir Edward Appleton's ionospheric sounding. Medium waves are those which, from 800 to 80 meters, penetrating deeper into the Kennely-Heaviside layer, reflect well at night, but are partially absorbed during the day because of variations in the ionized layer, whose altitude and degree of ionization is related to the altitude and the variable activity of the sun. These

The differences therefore come from a relation between the radio waves and something else that they themselves, for example the ionized layer of the upper atmosphere, or the practical means of producing or driving them, by simple or modulated electronic tubes. speed, per coaxial line or waveguide. These distinctions are never based on the peculiar nature of the phenomenon under consideration; they do not exist strictly speaking according to physical science, but only according to the technique. This is why it is a dependency of these distinctions tech n iq uescompared to each technique: the manufacturers of electronic devices separate the waves whose length is greater than ten meters from those which are shorter, because, under ten meters, the extreme brevity of transit time electrons between cathode and anode obliges manufacturers to provide special devices in the internal architecture of an electron tube; In addition, the Ionospheric Forecasting Service, which aims to ensure the best performance of transmissions, does not draw the same distinctions. Finally, it creates a certain  number mber concepts industrial,born of a more or less precarious concordance between the "special domains" of all the techniques that are organized in the same industry. These industrial concepts end up becoming commercial and administrative, by losing more and more all scientific character, because they are relative to a use and have only a pragmatic meaning ; it is here that, through the usual and collective encounter, recognized by law or administrative regulation, the limits of specialty of many techniques, constitutes a complete specificity,  devoid of scientific significance but possessing a psycho-social value, essentially qualitative, emotional and institutional. Thus, the field of television is specific ; it corresponds to a concrete being only by its psycho-social existence. This institution has its technicians animated by an esprit de corps, its artists, its budget, its friends and its enemies; she has the same wayits frequency bands. Now, there is mutual contamination of these different characteristics of each by the others, after a delimitation resulting from a confrontation with the other institutions. The determination of the wavelengths of television is the result of an expulsion from the domain already occupied by broadcasting and telecommunications of a new technique very cumbersome because of bandwidth necessitated by the wealth of the quantity of television. information to be transmitted per unit of time. Referred to the very high frequencies, the transmission of television is reduced to a first area of specialty relating to the properties of the ionospheric layers; the propagation of the television wave will be done on sight, in a straight line from the transmitting antenna to the receiving antenna, because there will be no reflection on the Kennely-Heaviside layer. This has the consequence that the transmitter and receiver must belong to the same area of settlement, that is to say to a dense and homogeneous agglomeration; television, which can not be required to carry real information, arrives in a population center already saturated with information and artistic performances; it can only become a means of distraction. Moreover, this refoulement towards the very high frequencies leaving the field free to a large bandwidth of transmission, and meeting with the quality of urban provincialism of a capital which is its first consequence, throws in a way of research of the improvement oriented towards the technical quality of the transmitted image, that is to say towards the adoption of a high definition. Favored by the initial circumstances, this adoption of a certain

code of values creates a nonnativity that reinforces the conditions that gave birth to it, and legitimizes them afterwards: high definition will make the correct transmission at a great distance even more random. Requiring manufacturers to take much greater care, at the extreme limit of the possibilities of a marketable technique, it leads to the production of expensive apparatus, which can only be bought by a fairly rich public and moreover reached by an intensive advertisement, all conditions that are urban rather than rural. This leads to a psycho-social morphology and dynamics that summarize and stabilize the concept and the institution.television; from the capital towards the great centers rush out directed beams, modulated in frequency and on UHF, which transmit programs of distraction, over the campaigns and the cities of second order, powerless to participate in this starry network. The true limits of the concept of television are therefore psychosocial; they are defined by the closing of a cycle of recurrent causalities, creating a kind of psychosocial interior, endowed with homeostasis thanks to a certain internal regulation by assimilation and disassimilation of techniques, processes, artists, recruited by co-optation, and linked together by a mechanism of self- defense comparable to that of the various private companies. Specific myths, self-justifying, are elaborated: the search for the delicacy of the image is given as superior in value to the search of the color, tried by other nations, and invokes to justify the distinctive features of the genius French, loving sharpness, precision, and disdaining the bad taste of chromos, good for primitives or children. Here, the logical contradiction is accepted, because this thought is governed by affective and emotional themes; so, the superiority of finesse over color is invoked in the name of technical perfection, while a simple calculation of the amount of information needed to convey a colored image and an achromatic image, and an examination of the degree of complication of the devices employed in both cases lead to the opposite result. The television wave can thus be thought of in two absolutely different ways; if we accept a way of thinking based on the validity of the gender-species pattern, the television wave becomes a The television wave can thus be thought of in two absolutely different ways; if we accept a way of thinking based on the validity of the gender-species pattern, the television wave becomes a The television wave can thus be thought of in two absolutely different ways; if we accept a way of thinking based on the validity of the gender-species pattern, the television wave becomes aa species of the electromagnetic wave genus, whose specific difference is not its wavelength but its belonging to the institution that is television; it will then be an administrative decree (The Hague Conference) which will create this allocation and will establish this link of participation. On the contrary, according to a transductive thought, the wavelengths of television will be inserted between numerical limits which do not correspond to net physical characters; they will not be a  species,but a sector, a band more or less wide of a domain of transductivity, that of the electromagnetic waves. An important and perhaps crucial consequence for epistemology of this difference between transductive thinking and thinking that proceeds by genera, species, and inclusion relationships is that generic characters are not transductible. Thus, there are in France two bands currently exploited by television: one towards 46 megahertz, the other towards 180 megahertz; between these two bands, the air force, the police, have particular or shared bands; the existence of the same property in the "high" band can not be inferred from a property characterizing television waves in the "low" band; the bond of common subsumption does not create any real common physical property. The only link is that of the administrative property of the domain. That's why this participation relationship creates a certain regime of

property, with possible disposals and times, as if it were a field not p 0r t year t p have the imprint of its owner, but creating a link or obligation  vassa ity of the prospective operator: French Television, currently unable to exploit its "low band" in all its width, has lent a certain extent of this band (around 47.2 megahertz) to the Scouts of France, who use it for radiotelegraphy or telephony. This sub-band has the characters of an object loaned for precarious purposes, and can be withdrawn immediately and without notice; by its physical characteristics, it has transductible properties in those of bands having wavelengths immediately higher or lower.

Thus appears the type of physical reality that can be called field or field of transductivity, and its distinction from any psycho-social being, knowable by concepts, and justifying the use of thought that uses notions of gender and in kind, by relying on the participation relation, concretized or not in relation of property or kinship. The true thought Transductive makes use of reasoning by analogy, but never the reasoning by similarity, that is to say identity  has ff ecemotional and partial emotional. The very word domain that we use here is dangerous, because the relation of possession seems to reduce to thought by participation; it should be possible to say: "transductivity track", divided into "bands" and "sub-bands" of transductivity (instead of species and subspecies). Transductive thought establishes a topology of the real, which is not identical to a hierarchy in genera and species.

In order to determine the criteria of the physical individual, it will not be necessary to resort to an examination of the relations between the genus and the species, then between the species and the individual. The play of transductive thought, whose fertility we have seen in the discovery of an immense field of transductivity, prohibits the use of this method.

However, if the transductive method is necessary, there is no guarantee that it is sufficient and allows the physical individual to be grasped. It may be that the physical individual can only be grasped at the point of encounter and compatibility of two opposing and complementary methods, equally unable both in their isolation to grasp this reality. One can not consider as a physical individual an electromagnetic wave, which has no consistency and no own limit which characterizes it; the pure continuum of the transductive domain does not permit the conception of the individual; obtained at the end of a deductive process based on energetic considerations, it is perfectly rational and compenetrable in any part to the geometric intellection of the figure and the movement. But it does not give a criterion for cutting out this continuous virtuality; he can not give the concrete of the complete existence. It does not allow to grasp the physical individual alone. However, if the physical individual can be grasped only by two complementary knowledge, the critical question will be that of the validity of therelationship between these two knowledge, and its ontological foundation in the individual himself.

3. The inductive process

The second line of research that has led to the position of wave mechanics and the principle of complementarity is that which, after an inductive process, has

affirmed the discontinuous nature of physical reality. It presents a very different definition of the physical individual from what one might derive from the wave-based deductive research.

What kind of necessity is there at the origin of the corpuscular or discontinuous conceptions of the same physical realities as those we have just examined, namely electricity and light? It is essentially the need for a structural representation that can serve as a foundation for inductive research.

The notion of a discontinuous structure of electricity appeared in 1833, when Faraday, during his research on electrolysis, discovered that, in the decomposition of a hydrogenated compound for example, the appearance at the cathode of a given quantity of hydrogen was bound to the passage of a given quantity of electricity into the solution, whatever the hydrogenated compound employed. In addition, the quantity of electricity that gave off 1 gram of hydrogen still deposited 107.1 grams of silver. In this sense, the condition of the discovery of the discontinuity of electricity is its participation in discontinuous actions ; she plays a rolein the field of discontinuity, and in particular in the changes of structure of matter. If one accepts the validity of the atomic conception of matter, one must admit that electricity, which participates in the discontinuous actions characterizing the atomic properties of matter, itself has a discontinuous structure. Faraday discovered that all the univalent atoms of chemists, that is to say those which combine with a hydrogen atom, appear as associatesat the same amount of electricity; all the atoms bivalent to a double quantity of the preceding one, all the trivalent atoms to a triple quantity. We then come to the conclusion that electricity, positive and negative, breaks down into elementary particles that behave like real electric atoms. This is Helmhotz's conclusion in 1881. The word "electron," used for the first time by GJ Stoney, refers to the natural unity of electricity, that is, the amount of electricity that must flow through an electrolytic solution for depositing at one of the electrodes an atom of a univalent element. It is by its association with the atom that electricity is seized in its discontinuity, and it is by this association that the charge of the electron has been calculated.

This first inductive discovery was followed by a second which exhibits the same method and results in the same result. After 1895, the date of the discovery of X-rays, it was shown that these rays can render the conducting gases, creating a conductivity identical to the electrolytic conductivity, in which electric charges are transported by ions, this time not from decomposition of a molecule, but of the atoms themselves, since these ions exist even in a monoatomic gas such as argon or neon. This decomposition allows induction to take a step further in the search for structures: the Stoney electron remained an amount of electricity associated with a physical particle indivisible; it is now becoming more substantial, because the ionization of gases requires a structural representation in which the negative electric charge is released from this heavy support that was the electrolytic ion. Finally, the discovery of the structures was able to

run two years later a new stage. If one limits oneself to measuring the quantities of electricity which pass through a column of ionized gas, one can conceive the independence of the electron with respect to any heavy material particle. But this independence remains abstract; it is the experimental principle that makes it possible to save phenomena. If, on the contrary, the experimental research is pushed further by trying to physically analyze the contents of the discharge tube, when the gas pressure decreases, we obtain the dark space of Crookes which invades the whole tube when the pressure drops to 1 / 1OO emillimeter of mercury; this space, which was developed from the cathode, very gradually, while the pressure was decreasing, realized in any way the physical analysis of all that was originally continuous l e g az ionized, wherein it is could discern the free electrons of the other  c h aelectrical charges, namely the positive charges carried by the ions. It was then possible to suppose that the dark space of Crookes contained free electrons in transit. Experiments on "cathode rays" were considered experiments on free electrons. Of course, it could be said that in this last experiment the discontinuity of the electrons disappears at the same time as their association with a phenomenon such as the ionization of a liquid or a gas, in which they manifest themselves as fixed fixed quantity charges to particles. All the experiments that were made at that time on the cathode rays were macrophysical and showed the existence of electrical charges in transit in the tube, without indicating a discontinuous microphysical structure; you could not do the experiment on a single electron; the luminescence of the glass tube, the nonnality of the rays relative to the cathode, their rectilinear propagation, their calorific and chemical effects, the fact that they carry negative electric charges, their deflection under the influence of an electric field and of a magnetic field, are so many macrophysical effects of continuous appearance. However, because of the inductive process at the end of which this discovery was obtained, it was necessary to assume that these cathode rays were made of discontinuous particles of electricity, because the structure of the experiment: the electrons of the ionized gas but still undifferentiated in the disruptive discharge are, according to the structure of the experiment, their rectilinear propagation, their calorific and chemical effects, the fact that they carry negative electric charges, their deviation under the influence of an electric field and a magnetic field, are all macrophysical effects of continuous appearance. However, because of the inductive process at the end of which this discovery was obtained, it was necessary to assume that these cathode rays were made of discontinuous particles of electricity, because the structure of the experiment: the electrons of the ionized gas but still undifferentiated in the disruptive discharge are, according to the structure of the experiment, their rectilinear propagation, their calorific and chemical effects, the fact that they carry negative electric charges, their deviation under the influence of an electric field and a magnetic field, are all macrophysical effects of continuous appearance. However, because of the inductive process at the end of which this discovery was obtained, it was necessary to assume that these cathode rays were made of discontinuous particles of electricity, because the structure of the experiment: the electrons of the ionized gas but still undifferentiated in the disruptive discharge are, according to the structure of the experiment, their deflection under the influence of an electric field and a magnetic field, are all macrophysical effects of continuous appearance. However, because of the inductive process at the end of which this discovery was obtained, it was necessary to assume that these cathode rays were made of discontinuous particles of electricity, because the structure of the experiment: the electrons of the ionized gas but still undifferentiated in the disruptive discharge are, according to the structure of the experiment, their deflection under the influence of an electric field and a magnetic field, are all macrophysical effects of continuous appearance. However, because of the inductive process at the end of which this discovery was obtained, it was necessary to assume that these cathode rays were made of discontinuous particles of electricity, because the structure of the experiment: the electrons of the ionized gas but still undifferentiated in the disruptive discharge are, according to the structure of the experiment, identical to those occupying the dark space of Crookes; the latter are identical to those which form the cathode rays. The electrons of the ionization of a gas at the moment of the disruptive or non-disruptive discharge are identical to those which are carried by the negative ions in the electrolysis of a body.

Can we consider the inductive method followed in these three interpretations of experience as transductive? It is not identical to that which manifests itself in the formation of the notion of wave. Indeed, the notion of wave was formed to allow the introduction of the deductive thought in a field more and more vast, by an enlargement of the object; it corresponds to a primacy of theoretical representation; it allows the synthesis of several previously separate results: on the contrary, the notion of electricity corpuscle is introduced to allow the representation of an experimentally observed phenomenon by means of an intelligible structure; at first, it does not go beyond the numerically formable law, but gives it a representative substructurethanks to which the phenomenon can be doubled by an intelligible schema. When we go from one experiment to another, for example from the electrolysis to the ionization of a monoatomic gas, we carry the same scheme ; we discover a new case of application of the

schema previously discovered; but it is experimentally that the case is new, not by an extension of the object: the electron is always the same, and it is because it is the same that induction is possible. On the contrary, when we establish the continuity between the hertzian waves and the visible light, we do not say that the light is made of hertzian waves; on the contrary, we define the boundary that separates and unites these two bands of the transductivity domain that we are exploring.

The thought that led Faraday's laws to the calculation of the mass and charge of the electron brought about a transfer of identity. The thought that led from the laws of electricity and Fresnel formulas to the electromagnetic theory of Maxwell operated the development of a domainwhich opens up in a continuous infinity of values. We can now better separate what in Maxwell's effort is only deductive of what is really transductive; Maxwell made deductive work when he wrote the formula of the current of displacement to be able to account for the conservation of the electricity and to connect in a single system of equations the four laws summarizing all the science of the electrical phenomena. But he did a real transduction when he related the theory of currents of displacement to that of the wave propagation of light. The necessity of the continuous is a direct consequence of the application of the deductive method. Only, as a deductive invention is necessary for transductive progress to be realized, we have in fact in the examination of the birth of the wave theory a combination of deductive method and transductive method rather than an absolutely pure example of the transductive method. It is also possible to find some traces of the transductive method in the development of the concept of electrified corpuscle: the discovery of the rays formed of negative corpuscles of electricity has prompted to seek also rays formed of positive particles, or material particles positively charged: with a cathode ray tube having a cathode pierced with holes, positive electrons were not obtained, but positive rays formed of ions from the gas contained in the tube; this is the principle of the isotope study with the Aston mass spectrograph. This research leads to a real discovery of a vast field of transductivity, when the interpretation of the isotopy came to confirm remarkably and complete the periodic classification of the elements established in 1869 by Mendeleieff. This classification was itself the result of a vast induction based on the consideration of atomic weights, and of a transductivity effort directed towards the periodicity of the properties of the known elements, arranged in order of increasing atomic weights. But we must notice that there is a difference between a transductivity domain obtained at the end of an essentially deductive process and a transductivity domain obtained at the end of an essentially inductive process: the first is open at both ends; it is composed of a continuous spectrum of various ordered and ordered values; the second is on the contrary closed on itself and its spread is periodic in structure. It includes a finite number of values.

III. - THE UNSUBSTANTIAL INDIVIDUAL - INFORMATION AND COMPATIBILITY

1. Relativistic conception and notion of physical individuation

One of the most difficult problems of reflexive thought is that of the relation that can be established between these two results of transductivity. If the transduction carried out on the basis of the deduction leads to the same results as that which one can lead from the induction, the reflection could be reduced to a search for the compatibility between these two types of results, known as homogeneous in law. . If, on the other hand, a hiatus persists between these two kinds of results, the reflection has before it this hiatus as a problem, because it can not be classed in a continuous transductivity or localized in a periodic transductivity. The invention of a reflective transductivity will then be necessary.

The fourth step of the inductive search for the negative electricity corpuscle is of the same character as the previous three; but it involves, in some way, the elementary quantity of electricity in the individual state, not in its visible corpuscular reality, but by the discontinuous effect which it produces when it joins a very fine material particle. . Here again, we see the discontinuity of electricity manifested by a situation where material charge changes occur. The electron is not directly grasped in itself as an individualized particle. Millikan's experiment consists in introducing, between the plates of a condenser, very fine drops of a non-volatile liquid (oil, mercury). These drops are electrified by their passage in the vaporizer which produces them. In the absence of a field between the amiatures of the capacitor, they fall slowly. When a field exists, the motion is accelerated or delayed, and the velocity variation can be measured. Now, by ionizing the air between the plates, it is found that the speed of a given drop undergoes from time to time sudden variations. These variations are interpreted by admitting that the charge of the drop varies when it meets one of the ions of the gas. The measurements show that the captured charges are simple multiples of an elementary charge, equivalent to 4.802.10- and the speed variation can be measured. Now, by ionizing the air between the plates, it is found that the speed of a given drop undergoes from time to time sudden variations. These variations are interpreted by admitting that the charge of the drop varies when it meets one of the ions of the gas. The measurements show that the captured charges are simple multiples of an elementary charge, equivalent to 4.802.10- and the speed variation can be measured. Now, by ionizing the air between the plates, it is found that the speed of a given drop undergoes from time to time sudden variations. These variations are interpreted by admitting that the charge of the drop varies when it meets one of the ions of the gas. The measurements show that the captured charges are simple multiples of an elementary charge, equivalent to 4.802.10-10 electrostatic units. To this experience are added those in which the electron intervenes by the discontinuity of its charge.

Let us note, however, that this discovery of the corpuscular nature of electricity left a mystery behind: the dissymmetry between positive and negative electricity, which nothing could inductively predict in the corpuscular theory: positive electricity did not occur. never in the free state, while the negative electricity was in the free state. Indeed, there is no structural reason for a corpuscle to be positive or negative. One can not easily conceive a qualification of the corpuscle; the quality appears in the different modes of possible combinations of the elementary corpuscles, but can not be easily conceived at the level of this simple structural element that is the corpuscle. Here we touch one of the limits of inductive thinking; his need for simple representative structures leads him to consider quality as irrational. Quality resists inductive identification. However, the experience, from the XVIIIth century, indicated the qualitative differences of electricity "glass" and electricity "resinous." To be able to absorb the element of irrationality, it would be necessary to be able to transform the specific difference.

quality in a clear structural difference. But since induction tends towards the simple element, it also tends towards the identification of all the elements with respect to each other: after the discovery that the negative electricity is a universal constituent of matter, it has been thought that all matter is made of electricity. Then induction by identification would have completed science; chemistry and physics would have become a generalized electronics. But the reduction to absolute identity was impossible because it could not absorb the dissymmetry between the two forms or "species" of electricity. Certainly, it has been possible to consider that a positive charge of electricity is only a "potential hole" created by the departure of an electron. The particle then becomes a particle function, which behaves like a truly existing particle. But on the one hand we go beyond the limits of induction seeking the simple structural element, and on the other hand we assume the reality of a material support made of another substance than negative electricity. For if all matter consisted of negative electricity, never the departure of an electron could create a "hole of potential" manifesting itself as a positive charge equal in absolute value to the electron but of opposite sign. The true limit of induction is plurality in its simplest and most difficult form: and on the other hand we suppose the reality of a material support made of another substance than the negative electricity. For if all matter consisted of negative electricity, never the departure of an electron could create a "hole of potential" manifesting itself as a positive charge equal in absolute value to the electron but of opposite sign. The true limit of induction is plurality in its simplest and most difficult form: and on the other hand we suppose the reality of a material support made of another substance than the negative electricity. For if all matter consisted of negative electricity, never the departure of an electron could create a "hole of potential" manifesting itself as a positive charge equal in absolute value to the electron but of opposite sign. The true limit of induction is plurality in its simplest and most difficult form:heterogeneity. It is from the moment when inductive thought is in the presence of this heterogeneity that it must resort to transductive thought. But then she encounters results of deductive thought, which also finds its limits at a certain moment. Inductive thinking fails when a representation of pure discontinuity is insufficient. Deductive thinking is failing when a representation of the pure continuum is also failing. For this reason, neither of these two ways of thinking can lead to a complete representation of the physical individual: the physical thought then resorts to the invention of different systems of compatibilityfor methods or results. It is through this compatibility that the physical individual can be known. But such epistemological conditions lead to a necessary critique of knowledge, intended to determine what degree of reality can be apprehended through the invention of a compatibility system.

This beginning of a discovery of compatibility between the inductive method and the deductive method, between the representation of the continuous and the discontinuous, we find in the introduction of relativistic mechanics in the field of the free electron.

Other means of producing free electrons had been discovered: to the cathode ray tube had come to add the effect named "thermoïonique", then the emission P of the radioactive bodies. It was known to determine the trajectories of electrons in space by noting their points of impact on fluorescent screens or photographic plates likely to be impressed by this impact. Wilson's relaxation chamber, which was said to be the "finest experience of the century," tracks the path of an electrified particle. At the end of the studies carried out by Perrin, Villard and Lenard, the electron could be thought of as a corpuscle, that is to say a very small object locatable in space and obeying the laws of the dynamics of the material point ( Louis de Broglie, Waves, Corpuscules, Wave mechanics, pp. 18-19). In an electric field, the electron, having a negative charge, is subjected to an electric force. In a magnetic field, when in motion, it behaves as a small element of a conduction current and is subject to an electrodynamic force of the Laplace type normal to both magnetic field direction and direction.

instantaneous motion, and numerically equal to the vector product of the velocity of the electron by the magnetic field, multiplied by the charge. Under the action of this

force f = - [vx H ], the movement of the electron executes as the motion of the

c

weight of a material point of mass 0.9-109 g. The Rowland experiment in 1876 had established a movement of electric charges produces a magnetic field, as if it were a conduction current produced by a gen ra t e ur in a fixed conductor.

The inductive value of this staple design electricity manifested p ar larly in that it allowed to bring the study of the movement of el ec trons to the material point Mechanics, theory long classic.

The new mechanics remained theoretical as long as it applied to the bodies studied by macrophysics; Indeed, relativistic mechanics is valid for all  cmaterial orps; she had already succeeded in explaining "the three phenomena in 10-s" that classical mechanics did not succeed in explaining: the displacement of the perihelion of the planet Mercury, which had been observed for a long time, explained by the theory of relativity, gave it much of strength. The deviation of light by the sun, observed during an eclipse, confirmed the principle of special relativity. The change of color of the moving light sources resulted in the same confirmation. However, this theory of relativity, which is a mechanistic of extremely rapid movements, could still be contested in the fields of macrophysics. Le Chatelier, in the work entitled: Industry, Science and the organization _ U " th centurysays of the theory of relativity: "Similar speculations may be of interest to the philosopher, but they must not hold back for a single moment the attention of men of action who claim to command nature and direct its transformations." Further on, the author adds: "Today the probability of seeing the laws of Newton and Lavoisier in default is not of the order of a billionth. So it's madness to worry about such eventualities, to talk about them and even stop for a moment. " The Chatelier supported his argument that relativistic theory gives results different from those of classical mechanics only for animated bodies with velocities greater than 10,000 kilometers per second. "On earth, we do not know how to produce speeds greater than 1 kilometer, that of the projectiles of the famous Bertha. There is scarcely anything but the planet Mercury which has sufficient speed to be relatable of relativistic speculations. Even in this case, the predicted disturbances are so small that we have not yet reached an agreement on their size. The second argument is that: "As far as the transmutation of radium into helium is concerned, all the scientists who have worked on this problem have not yet succeeded in producing together 10 milligrams of this gas. However, of the millions of tons of materials that the industry transforms every day, never an exception to Lavoisier's law could be found. From a macroscopic and pragmatic point of view, Le Chatelier was perhaps right, apparently at least;The Clouds, in front of the Athenian public worried to see new ideas spread. Yet there was already, on the

earth, and in simple montages achievable with the physics apparatus of an educational institution at the time when Le Chatelier stood against "the negation of all common sense" to "put the points on the i and explain clearly Animated bodies with velocities greater than 10,000 kilometers per second: electrons in transit in a cathode ray tube; these corpuscles belong to microphysics by their size, but in a tube a few dozen centimeters long and with the energy that can be collected at the secondary terminals of a Ruhmkorff coil, it is possible to communicate them a speed superior to that of the fastest celestial bodies: there is here a meeting of magnitudes which, in the usual classification of phenomena, were not of the same kind.A corpuscle 1836 times lighter than the hydrogen atom behaves like a planet, during an experiment which is of the order of magnitude of the human body, and which requires a power comparable to that of our muscles.

The mechanics of relativity profoundly modify the notion of the individual existence of the physical particle; the electron can not be conceived, when it moves at high speed, as formerly an atom was conceived. Since the old atomists, the atom was a substantial being. The quantity of matter that it constituted was fixed. The invariance of the mass was an aspect of this substantial invariance of the atom. The atom is the corpuscle that is not modified by the relation in which it is engaged. The compound results entirely from the atoms which constitute it, but these first elements, the primordia rerum, are not modified by the compound which they constitute. The relationship remains fragile and precarious: it has no power over the terms; it results from terms, which are in no way modes of the relation.

With the electron envisaged by the theory of relativity, the mass of the corpuscle is variable according to the speed, according to the law of Lorentz which is stated in the

following formula: m =    where m 0 is the mass of the electron at rest, that is to say

0.9.10 -27 g., And c the speed of light in a vacuum, where v is the velocity of the particle considered. The dynamics of relativity thus presents us with a corpuscle which not only can not be characterized by a rigorously fixed mass, representing the substantiality of an immutable matter, immodified support of accidental relations, but which can not even receive an upper limit for a possible increase of the mass, and consequently of the energy conveyed and the transformations that can be produced in the other bodies by this particle. It is a whole set of principles of atomistic thought, seeking the inductive clarity of corpuscular structures, which is questioned by the Lorentz law. Indeed, from the point of view that we place ourselves to consider each particle in itself, unbounded above: the mass tends to infinity when the velocity v tends to the limit c, which measures the speed of light in a vacuum. The individual no longer has the essential character of the old atom, which is to be narrowly bound by its size, mass, shape, and therefore endowed with a rigorous identity through time, an identity that gives it eternity. But the theoretical consequence of this change in the conception of the physical individual is even more important if we consider the mutual relation between the particles; if a particle can under certain conditions acquire an energy that tends towards infinity, there is no limit

in aC t 0n be a particle to another or on a set, as great as the e vou d r a, other particles. The discontinuity of the particles no longer imposes the character fi ™ possible changes. The smallest element of a whole can harbor  the t year t energy than all other parties combined. The essential character men t egalitarian of atomism can be preserved. This is the very relationship of the party e toeverything that is transformed, because the relation of the game to the game is completely modified, from the moment when one party can exert on the other parts a stronger action than all the other elements of the whole taken together: each physical individual being potentially unlimited, no individual can be at any time conceived as immune from the possible action of another individual. This mutual isolation of atoms, which for the old atomists was a guarantee of substantiality, can not be considered absolute; the void,precious condition of energetic isolation and structural independence, which for Lucretius was the very guarantee and the condition of the individuality of atoms and their eternity, can no longer ensure this function, because distance is a condition of independence only if the action by contact is only effective. In this substantialist atomism, shock can modify the state of rest or motion of an atom, but not its own characters, such as mass; now, if the mass varies with velocity, a shock may modify the mass of a particle, by modifying its velocity; the accidental encounter, totally fortuitous, affects the substance.Passivity and activity are no more than the two symmetrical aspects of energy exchanges; the potential or actual passivity of the substance is as essential as its potential or current activity. Becoming is integrated into being. The relationship, which conceals the exchange of energy between two particles, contains the possibility of a true exchange of being. The relation has value because it is allagmatic ; if the operation remained distinct from the structure which would be its immodifiable support, the substantialism of the particle could attempt to account for the exchange of energy by a modification of the mutual relation of the particles, leaving the proper characters of each particle immodified. But, like any change in the relationshipfrom one particle to another is also a modification of its internal characters, there is no substantial interiority of the particle. The real physical individual, here again, as in the case of the crystal, is not concentric with a limit of interiority constituting the substantial domain of the individual,but on the very limit of being. This limit is relationship, current or potential. An immediate belief in the interiority of being as an individual is undoubtedly the intuition of the own body, which seems, in the situation of a reflective man, separated from the world by a material envelope offering a certain consistency , and delimiting a closed domain. In reality, a rather deep psycho-biological analysis would reveal that the relation to the external environment, for a living being, is not only distributed on the external surface of itself. The only notion, formed by Claude Bernard for the necessities of the biological investigation, of the interior milieu, indicates, by the mediation that it constitutes between the external environment and the being, that the substantiality of the being can not be confused. with his interiority, even in the case of the biological individual. The conception of a physical interiority of the elementary particle manifests a subtle and tenacious biologism, sensitive even to the most theoretically rigorous mechanism of the ancient atomists. With the appearance of the theory of relativity in terms of the current physical experience, this biology has given way to a more rigorously physical conception of individuation. Note, however, that if the possibility of increasing the mass of a this biology has given way to a more rigorously physical conception of individuation. Note, however, that if the possibility of increasing the mass of a this biology has given way to a more rigorously physical conception of individuation. Note, however, that if the possibility of increasing the mass of a

corpuscle had a limit, one could return to a substantialist atomism simply modified by a logical dynamism. The monad of Leibniz is still eminently an atom, because its states of development and involution are governed by a rigorous internal determinism of the concrete individual notion;it does not matter that it possesses in it like microcosm, in the form of small perceptions, a summary of the modifications of the monads of the whole universe. In fact, from the point of view of the causality of modifications, it draws its modifications only from itself and remains absolutely isolated in becoming; the limits of its successive determinations are rigorously fixed by the system of universal compossibility. On the contrary, the physical individual conceived according to relativity has no proper limits defined once and for all by his essence: he is not limited.In this way, it can not be determined by a principle of individuation comparable to that which Leibnizian dynamics assigns to it. The limit, and consequently the relation of the individual, is never a limit; it is part of being itself.

This statement, however, can not be taken as a resort to pragmatism. When we say that, for the physical individual, the relation is to be, we do not mean that the relation expresses being, but constitutes it. Pragmatism is still too much ofaistist and substantialist; he only wants to trust the manifestations of activity as a criterion of being; it is to suppose that there exists a being distinct from the operation, an interiority which the externalization of the action authenticates and expresses, by manifesting it. Action, in pragmatism, is the crossing of a limit. Now, according to the doctrine which we present here, this limit can neither hide a reality nor be crossed by action, for it does not separate two domains, that of exteriority and that of interiority. Nor can this relativistic doctrine lead to a more subtle form of pragmatism, such as Poincaré's "commodism", leading to scientific nominalism. It is realistic, without being substantialist, and postulates that scientific knowledge is a relation to being; gold, in such a doctrine the relation has a rank of being. Only the realism of knowledge should not be conceived as a substantialization of the concept; Realism is the direction of this knowledge as a relation; here, with the theory of relativity, we see it go from the rational to the real; in other cases, it follows the opposite direction, and it is then the encounter and the compatibility of these two epistemological directions which establishes the validity of the subject-object relation. The realism of knowledge is in the progressive increase of the density of the relation which connects the term subject and the term object. We can only discover it if we search for the meaning of this derivation. Realism is the direction of this knowledge as a relation; here, with the theory of relativity, we see it go from the rational to the real; in other cases, it follows the opposite direction, and it is then the encounter and the compatibility of these two epistemological directions which establishes the validity of the subject-object relation. The realism of knowledge is in the progressive increase of the density of the relation which connects the term subject and the term object. We can only discover it if we search for the meaning of this derivation. Realism is the direction of this knowledge as a relation; here, with the theory of relativity, we see it go from the rational to the real; in other cases, it follows the opposite direction, and it is then the encounter and the compatibility of these two epistemological directions which establishes the validity of the subject-object relation. The realism of knowledge is in the progressive increase of the density of the relation which connects the term subject and the term object. We can only discover it if we search for the meaning of this derivation. and it is then the encounter and the compatibility of these two epistemological directions which establishes the validity of the subject-object relation. The realism of knowledge is in the progressive increase of the density of the relation which connects the term subject and the term object. We can only discover it if we search for the meaning of this derivation. and it is then the encounter and the compatibility of these two epistemological directions which establishes the validity of the subject-object relation. The realism of knowledge is in the progressive increase of the density of the relation which connects the term subject and the term object. We can only discover it if we search for the meaning of this derivation.

This is the first step, in inductive research, of the discovery of trans-ductivity by which the corpuscle receives a non-substantialist definition of its individuality. However, in the application of the theory of relativity to the electron, there remains an element which constitutes a substantial link between the different successive moments, when the mass of the electron varies, even if it always increases while tending towards the infinity when velocity tends towards the speed of light in a vacuum: the  continuity between successive successive measurements of mass and energy. The relation is not entirely at the same level as being as long as the substantial magnitudes, mass and energy, are posited as susceptible of continuous variations.

It remains a very important point of doctrine to present and to specify, before evoking the epistemological characters of the quantum theory. Quantum theory, in fact, assumes that energy exchanges between corpuscle and wave, or

c n t r e corpuscle corpuscle and always be by finite quantities, multiples of q uan elementary tity, the quantumwhich is the smallest amount of energy that can be exchanged. There is therefore a lower limit on the amount of energy that can be exchanged. But we must ask ourselves in what sense the Lorentz formula can be affected a priori by the introduction of a quantum theory, and how we must consider the possibility of indefinite increase in the mass of a corpuscle when its velocity tends towards that of light. If we start from a very weak initiated rate which increases progressively, we will see that, at the beginning, when the mass can be confused with the mass at rest, the kinetic energy increase equivalent to a quantum corresponds to a notable increase of speed: we can therefore imagine speed as increasing by sudden jumps; on the contrary, when the speed is close to that of light, the increase in kinetic energy corresponding to the addition of a quantum results in a small increase in velocity. When the speed tends towards the speed of the light, the addition of a quantum of energy is translated by an increase of speed which tends towards zero: the jumps of the successive additions of quanta are more and more minimal: the mode of variation of speedtends to a steady state.

The importance of quantum discontinuities is therefore variable with the speed of the particle. This deductive result is important because it shows that a particle like an electron tends towards a regime of continuity when its velocity tends towards that of the light; it is then functionally macroscopic. But we must ask ourselves if this conclusion is fully valid. What is the true meaning of this limit, namely the speed of light? It is not the exact measure of this speed that matters, but the existence of a limit that can not be reached. Now, what would happen if an electron reached a speed very close to that of light? Is there not a threshold beyond which the phenomenon would change completely? Physics has already presented at least one very important exampledThe existence of a limit which could not be predicted by simple extrapolation: we can trace the curves which give the resistivities of metals as a function of temperature, and these curves are fairly regular in an interval of several hundred degrees. . The theory shows that near absolute zero, the resistivity of a metal must tend to zero. Now, experience shows that for certain bodies, the resistivity, instead of gradually decreasing, falls abruptly below any measurable value; it is superconductivity. This phenomenon occurs at 7.2 ° absolute for lead, 3.78 ° for tin, 1.14 ° for aluminum (Kamerlingh Onnes experiment). Modern particle accelerators make it possible to launch electrons at speeds very close to those of light. The energy can then become considerable, as in the betatron of 100 million electron volts of Schenectady, without the predictions according to the theory of relativity being in any way in default; however, it can be assumed that there is a threshold not yet reached beyond which the phenomenon would change if we could reach it. Consequently, there is currently an empirical limit to the application of the principle of relativity to the electron; it is difficult to conceive that this limit can be suppressed, because one can not communicate an infinite energy to an electron. On the other hand, there seems to be some theoretical necessity to design an upper limit to the characteristic quantities of the electron, like that of the electric field which reigns on the radius of the electron (in the classical representation); but if

we seek the temperature of a black body whose density of radiation energy is due to the propagation of this maximum field, we find a higher temperature of the order of 10'2 degrees Kelvin. This temperature is the one that seems to reign in the center of some white dwarf stars. There are no known higher temperatures or more intense electromagnetic fields. (from Y. Rocard, Electricity, 360).

We can not therefore base a reflexive approach on the possibility of indefinite growth theoretical and absoluteof the mass or energy of a particle like the electron, for there still remains, for rigorous reflexive thought, a distinction between a very extensive empiricism and a universal empiricism; the unexplored margin between the very high energies reached and infinite energy will remain infinite. For this reason, it is very difficult to speak of what would be an electron going at the speed of light in a vacuum; it seems even difficult to specify whether one must conceive the possibility of the existence of a higher threshold of speed beyond which the electron should no longer be considered as an electron. This margin of inaccuracy in knowledge can not be reduced by the adoption of quantum theory, since the increase of mass and the increase of energy make the dynamic regime of the corpuscle tend towards the continuum when its speed tends towards that of the light. If there were a higher threshold of energy and speed, it could not be determined by quantum considerations.

Here we come across a field of epistemological opacity that can cast its shadow over a reflexive theory of physical individuation, and mark the existence of an epistemological bound to transductivity. The resultant agnosticist consequence would itself be relativised by the milestone that marks the beginning of its field of application, the structure of which could not be known internally. This topology of transductivity, if it is itself a relation, can be trans-ductible to another type of individuality.

2. Quantized theory: concept of elementary physical operation integrating the complementary aspects of continuous and discontinuous

We will first try to express to what extent the adoption of a quantum principle modifies this conception of corpuscular individuation, and prolongs the conversion of the notion of the individual begun in the relativistic conception. Even if in fact there is not a rigorous epistemological anteriority of one of the conceptions on the other, as physical theories, a logical anteriority manifests itself for the conception of individuation. The individual can indeed be conceived as having a variable mass according to the relation with the other elements of the system of which it forms part; to conceive these variations as continuous or discontinuous, this constitutes an additional precision given to the theory of relativity. However, this point of view is still too formal; indeed, the discontinuous quantification of mass degrees and possible energy levels brings a new type of relationship between individuals of the same species. Thanks to the quantification, a new condition of stability is brought in the change itself; the existence of successive levels corresponding to ever greater energies for the same corpuscle is the true synthesis of continuity and discontinuity; on the other hand, there is a possibility here to distinguish in the moment the individuals who are part of the same system, thanks to the current differences of quantum states that exist the existence of successive levels corresponding to ever greater energies for the same corpuscle is the true synthesis of continuity and discontinuity; on the other hand, there is a possibility here to distinguish in the moment the individuals who are part of the same system, thanks to the current differences of quantum states that exist the existence of successive levels corresponding to ever greater energies for the same corpuscle is the true synthesis of continuity and discontinuity; on the other hand, there is a possibility here to distinguish in the moment the individuals who are part of the same system, thanks to the current differences of quantum states that exist

between them, as Pauli's principle, the key to a new logic of the individual, does: "the electrons, postulated as identical to the point that nothing can distinguish them in a system, may, however, not have, in an atom or a gas, their four respectively equal quantum numbers; in other words, when an electron is in one of these quadrupletly quantized states, it excludes, for any other electron, the possibility of being in the same state (hence its name of exclusion principle) "(Stéphane Lupasco , Principle antagonism and the logic of the energy,pp. 41-42). Quantum theory recreates in some way, when completed by means of such a principle, a principle of individuation and stability of discernible beings that the theory of relativity would lose by destroying the immutable substantiality of the mass, the foundation classic identity of being in a corpuscular theory. A new way to grasp the reality of the individual opens with quantum theory, whose transductivity power is so great that it makes it possible to establish a viable relation between an inductive physics of discontinuity and an energetic and deductive theory. , of the continuum.

In 1900, in his work on black radiation, that is to say on the radiation emitted by the surface of a perfectly absorbent body maintained at a certain temperature, Planck introduced the idea of the quantum of Action. The black radiation can be decomposed by an analysis of the classical type since Fourier, into a sum of monochromatic radiations. If one wants to know the energy which corresponds to a frequency interval v -> v + Sv, in the black radiation, it is necessary to determine the function p (v, T) or spectral density such that p (v, T) ôv gives the quantity of energy contained in the unit of volume and corresponding to the spectral interval Sv, if T designates the temperature of the walls of a closed enclosure whose walls, as well as all the material bodies that it may contain , are kept at a certain uniform absolute temperature. Here we are at the meeting point of an energetic theory, thermodynamics, and structural research; indeed, it is the thermodynamics which allowed Kirchoff to show that this equilibrium radiation does not depend in any way on the nature of the walls of the enclosure or the bodies which are present there, but only on the temperature T. D ' other thermodynamic reasoning makes it possible to demonstrate that the quantity of energy contained in the unit of volume of the black radiation must grow as the fourth power of the absolute temperature T: it is Stéfan's law that the experiment verifies (Louis de Broglie ,Waves, Corpuscules, Wave Mechanics , pp. 33-34). Finally, it is again the thermodynamics that allowed Wien to demonstrate that we must have p (v, T) = vF 4 ^ where F is a function of the variable ~ that thermodynamic reasoning is impotent to determine. .

Thermodynamic research thus gave the indication of its own limits, and invited scientific thought to go further by an analysis of energy relations.between the material and the radiation inside a temperature-controlled enclosure. It was therefore a necessary encounter between the theory of corpuscles and that of the electromagnetic radiation defined by Maxwell, between the culmination of the researches pertaining to the theory of the discontinuous and that of the researches pertaining to the theory of the continuous. Here is how Louis de Broglie, in the work cited above, presents (P · 35), the epistemological situation at this time: "Moreover this analysis seemed easy enough, because the theory of electrons then provided a very well-defined diagram for phenomena of emission and absorption of radiation by matter: it was sufficient

to suppose that the walls of the chamber contained electrons, to study how these electrons absorbed on the one hand part of the energy of the ambient black radiation and on the other hand restored it a certain amount of energy by processes radiation, then finally express that the processes of absorption and emission s e  compensated statistically such that the spectral composition of the radiation balance remained constant mean. The calculation was done by Lord Rayleigh and Planck, later reworked by Jeans and Henri Poincaré. It necessarily leads to the

following conclusion: the function p (v, T) must have for expression p (v, T) = v 2 T where

c 5

k is a certain constant which is involved in the statistical theories of physics and whose numerical value is well known. (This is the Boltzmann constant, k = 1.37.10- 16, in units c). This theoretical law, called Rayleigh-Jeans, gives a growth of p with v represented by a parabola increasing indefinitely without maximum; this law leads to the conclusion that the total energy of the black radiation would be infinite. This law accords with experience only for small values of v for a given temperature. The experiment makes it possible to draw a bell curve representing the variations of p as a function of v for a given temperature. According to this new curve, the total quantity of energy p (v, T) Sv contained in the black radiation has a finite value, given by the area between the abscissa and the bell curve,

Br

according to the following empirical formula due to Wien: p (v, T) = A v 3 e 'T (Figure VII).91

my g n Ethics (thinkable according to the continuous) and a particle (thinkable according disconti NU ), e ntraîne for the relationship the need to express simultaneously disconti naked ity in terms of energy and continuity in structural terms. On this condition, it is not a mere relationship, but a relationship, worth having. The quantum character of the relation defines a mode of reality different from the structure and from the continuous energy: the operation, which integrates in it the complementary characters of the continuum and the discontinuity: the character of continuity becomes there orderquantum states, hierarchical in increasing series since an absolute lower quantity; the character of structuring and of individual consistency becomes the complementary aspect of this hierarchy, that is to say the character of quantification of the exchange. The operation appears to be a real relationship, or actual transduction  mu t ue lle between continuous and discontinuous term term, between structure and

energy.

A substantialist theory of the particle led to a continuous representation of energy exchanges between the particle and the radiation. Planck, on the contrary, supposed that it was necessary to admit that an electron animated by a periodic movement of frequency v can emit or absorb radiant energy only by finite quantities of value hv, where h is a constant. According to this hypothesis, the function p (v, T) must

8 Khv

k being always the same constant as in the law

have the form: p (v, T) - - ^

here in. J

of Rayleigh and h the newly introduced constant. For small values of -,this Planck formula merges with the Rayleigh formula, while for the large values of this quotient it leads to the empirical formula of Wien. This formula is also in agreement with the laws of Thermodynamics, because it gives for the total energy of the radiation, a finite quantity proportional to T 'as it is the law of Stéfan; and it is of the formula p (v, T) = v'F} as required by Wien's law. The constant h (Planck's constant) has the dimensions of the product of an energy by a time, or of a quantity of motion by a length; it has therefore the dimensions of the quantity named action in Mechanics; it plays the role of a unit of action. "The constant plays the role of a kind of unity of action, the role, one may say, of an atom of action. Planck has shown by considerations that I will not develop that such is the deep meaning of the constant h. Hence the name of "quantum of Action" that he attributed to him. (Louis de Broglie,Waves, Corpuscules, Wave Mechanics, p. 39).

Here comes an important element, valid both for the history of ideas and for the search for the individual physical being itself; Indeed, the introduction in Physics of quantum of Action was considered by Louis de Broglie in 1923-1924 to be incorporated in the fusion of the notions of wave and corpuscle that he realized in the framework of the classical conceptions on spatio-temporal representations and on causality. This conception, which Louis de Broglie has called "the theory of the double solution," was exposed in the May 1927 issue of the Journal de Physique.Now, this theory envisages, besides the continuous solutions of the equations of wave mechanics usually envisaged and which were considered as having a statistical significance, other solutions having a singularity and making it possible to define the position in space of a corpuscle which then takes on a much better defined individual meaning because of this very singularity. The meaning of these solutions is no longer statistical as that of the former. Against this theo-

Born, Bohr, Heisenberg, Pauli, Dirac, who rejected the determinism of classical physics, proposed a purely probabilistic interpretation of wave physics in which the laws of probability had a primary character and did not result from a hidden determinism; these authors relied on the discovery of Heisenberg's "uncertainty relations" and Bohr's ideas of "complementarity." The Solvay Physics Council of October 1927 marked the conflict between deterministic and indeterministic representations; Louis de Broglie expounded his doctrine in the form (which he qualifies in 1953 as "sweetened") of the pilot wave; then, he says, "before the almost unanimous reprobation that greeted my presentation, I became discouraged and joined in the probabilistic interpretation of Born, Bohr and Heisenberg, to which I have remained faithful for twenty-five years. " In 1953 Louis de Broglie wondered whether this fidelity was fully justified; he notes that David Bohm, an American physicist, has taken up "his old ideas in the truncated and barely defensible form of the pilot wave". He also notes that JP Vigier pointed out a profound analogy between singular wave theory and Einstein's attempts to represent material particles as singularities of the field in the context of generalized relativity. The material corpuscles, and also the photons, are represented as singularities within a spatio-temporal wave field, the structure of which involves the quantum of action of Planck.

For the study of individuation in Physics, this doctrine is of particular interest because it seems to indicate that the physical individual, the corpuscle, can be represented as associated with a field without which it never exists, and that this field is not a pure expression of the probability that the corpuscle is at this or that point at such or such a moment ("probability wave"), but that the field is a real physical quantity associated with the other quantities that characterize the corpuscle; the field, without being absolutely part of the individual, would be centered around him and thus express a fundamental property of the individual, namely the polarity, which one would have there in its simplest form, since a field is precisely made of polarized magnitudes, generally representable by vector systems. According to this view of physical reality, the wave-particle duality would not be at all the seizure of two "complementary faces of reality" in the sense that Bohr gives to this expression, but the seizure of two realities also and simultaneously given in the object. The wave would not necessarily be a continuous wave. By this would be understood this singular atomicity of action which is the foundation of the theory of quanta. The fundamental problem posed for a theory of the physical individual in wave mechanics is indeed this: in the wave-particle complex, how is the wave connected to the corpuscle? Does this wave belong in some way to the corpuscle? Because the wave-particle duality is also a wave-particle pair. the wave-particle duality would not be at all the seizure of two "complementary faces of reality" in the sense that Bohr gives to this expression, but the seizure of two realities also and simultaneously given in the object. The wave would not necessarily be a continuous wave. By this would be understood this singular atomicity of action which is the foundation of the theory of quanta. The fundamental problem posed for a theory of the physical individual in wave mechanics is indeed this: in the wave-particle complex, how is the wave connected to the corpuscle? Does this wave belong in some way to the corpuscle? Because the wave-particle duality is also a wave-particle pair. the wave-particle duality would not be at all the seizure of two "complementary faces of reality" in the sense that Bohr gives to this expression, but the seizure of two realities also and simultaneously given in the object. The wave would not necessarily be a continuous wave. By this would be understood this singular atomicity of action which is the foundation of the theory of quanta. The fundamental problem posed for a theory of the physical individual in wave mechanics is indeed this: in the wave-particle complex, how is the wave connected to the corpuscle? Does this wave belong in some way to the corpuscle? Because the wave-particle duality is also a wave-particle pair. but the seizure of two realities also and simultaneously given in the object. The wave would not necessarily be a continuous wave. By this would be understood this singular atomicity of action which is the foundation of the theory of quanta. The fundamental problem posed for a theory of the physical individual in wave mechanics is indeed this: in the wave-particle complex, how is the wave connected to the corpuscle? Does this wave belong in some way to the corpuscle? Because the wave-particle duality is also a wave-particle pair. but the seizure of two realities also and simultaneously given in the object. The wave would not necessarily be a continuous wave. By this would be understood this singular atomicity of action which is the foundation of the theory of quanta. The fundamental problem posed for a theory of the physical individual in wave mechanics is indeed this: in the wave-particle complex, how is the wave connected to the corpuscle? Does this wave belong in some way to the corpuscle? Because the wave-particle duality is also a wave-particle pair. The fundamental problem posed for a theory of the physical individual in wave mechanics is indeed this: in the wave-particle complex, how is the wave connected to the corpuscle? Does this wave belong in some way to the corpuscle? Because the wave-particle duality is also a wave-particle pair. The fundamental problem posed for a theory of the physical individual in wave mechanics is indeed this: in the wave-particle complex, how is the wave connected to the corpuscle? Does this wave belong in some way to the corpuscle? Because the wave-particle duality is also a wave-particle pair.

If we start from the study of the wave, the quantum aspect of the radiation emission or absorption also leads to the idea that the energy of the radiation during its propagation is concentrated in quanta hv; from then on, the radiant energy itself is concentrated in grains, and one thus arrives at a first way of conceiving a

association of the wave and the corpuscle, when the corpuscle is only a quantum. If the radiation is quantified, the radiant energy is concentrated in grains, in quanta of value hv. This design is necessary to interpret the photoelectric effect and the Compton effect, as well as the existence of a sharp limit on the high frequency side in the X-ray continuous background emitted by an anticathode subjected to bombardment. electrons, in the Crookes or Coolidge tube (which makes it possible to calculate the constant h) experimentally; it provides a basis for constructing a satisfactory theory of the atom and spectral lines, according to the Rutherford representation to which Bohr applied a theory of radiation derived from quantum theory. The quantified Rutherford-Bohr atom then had a discontinuous sequence of possible quantized states, the quantized state being a stable or stationary state of the electron: according to Bohr, in quantized states the electron does not radiate; the emission ofes spectral line occurs during the transition from a stationary state to another. However, this doctrine requires us to consider electrons as corpuscles that can only take certain quantified movements. With regard to the interpretation of the frequency threshold of the photoelectric effect and the law which gives Electricity supply e kinetic photoelectrons, T K = (v - v 0 ) where v is the incident frequency and v 0the threshold frequency, Einstein proposed in 1905, to return in a new form to the old corpuscular theory of light, supposing that in a monochromatic light wave of frequency v, the energy is curled up in the form of a particle of energy hv , h being Planck's constant. According to this theory, therefore, there exist grains of energy equal to hv in the radiation. The fricence threshold of the photoelectric effect is then given by the formula of the threshold frequency ^ - ■ · Wo being the output work of the electron.

The constant K of the experimental law quoted above must be equal to the Planck constant, h, because the electron will come out with a kinetic energy equal to T = hv - Wo = h (v - vo), which equality satisfies experimental study of visible light, x-rays and y-rays, as the Millikan experiments have shown, with a lithium and then sodium surface receiving the light emitted by a mercury arc, those of Maurice de Broglie for X-rays and finally those of Thibaud and Ellis for the rays y.

In photon theory, the individuality of the photon is not purely that of a corpuscle, because its energy, given by the expression E = hv, involves a frequency v and any frequency presupposes the existence of a periodicity which is in no way involved in the definition of a corpuscle consisting of a certain quantity of matter enclosed within its spatial limits. The momentum of the photons is directed in the direction of their propagation and equal to. Relative to the upper limit of the X-ray continuous background emitted by an anhcathode, the law of Duane and Hunt

measure this maximum frequency by the expression v m =!. = -. However, this law can be

I h

directly interpret that, when slowing down to an electron incident on the material of the anticathode, X-rays are emitted by photons. The highest frequency that can be emitted is that corresponding to the case where an electron loses all of its kinetic energy at a single stroke: T = eV, and the maximum frequency of the spectrum is

given by v = - = l lY- according to the law of Duane and Hunt.

m hh

Finally, the theory of the photon was corroborated by the discovery of the Raman effect and the Compton effect. In 1928, Raman showed that by illuminating a substance such as benzene with monochromatic visible radiation of frequency v, a diffused light was obtained containing, outside the frequency v itself, other frequencies of the form v - v ik where v ik are infrared frequencies that can andR e  emitted by the molecules of the diffuser body, as well as frequencies of the form v + v ik , with a much lesser intensity. The explanation is easy with the photon theory: if the molecules of the diffuser body may issue an e  radiation frequency v ik = because they are susceptible of two states

quantized energy Ej and Ek <E |, the body illuminated with photons of energy hv, will emit scattered photons after shock between the photons and the molecules; the exchange of energy between the molecule and the energy photon hv will result in an increase in the frequency if the photon has gained energy and in a lowering if it has lost. If a molecule yields to a photon the energy Ej - Ek by passing from the quantized state Ej to the quantized state Ek the energy of the photon after the shock will be hv + Ej - Ek = h (v + v ^). In the opposite case, the energy of the scattered photon will be hv - (Ej - Ek) = h (v - v ^). In the first case the frequency of the photon will be v + v ^ and in the second case v - v ^.

The Compton effect, occurring with X-rays and Y-rays, consists of scattering of radiation by matter, but in the Compton effect the frequency changes that correspond to this scattering do not depend on the nature of the scattering depend only on the direction in which diffusion is observed. This effect is interpreted by saying that the photons X and y meet in the diffuser body free or substantially free electrons which are at rest or almost at rest. The wavelength variation of the photon is due to an exchange of energy with an electron; we can detect the trajectories of the photon and the electron after this exchange of energy which is a real shock by means of Wilson's chamber, when the photon still produces, after striking the electron, the birth of a photoelectron because it has encountered a molecule of gas; the path of the electron is directly visible in the Wilson chamber, thanks to the ionization it produces. (Experience of Compton and Simon).

To illuminate this relationship between the wave and the corpuscle, Louis de Broglie uses a critique of the concept of corpuscle as it is used by physicists, and opposes two conceptions of the corpuscle. The first is that which makes the corpuscle "a well-located small object that describes in space over time a substantially linear trajectory on which it occupies at every moment a well-defined position and is animated by a determined speed." But there is a second conception according to which one can say "that a corpuscle is a physical unit characterized by certain constants (mass, charge, etc.) and likely to produce localized effects where it intervenes totally and never by fraction", as for example the photon in the photoelectric effect or the Compton effect. According to Louis de Broglie, (Waves, Corpuscules, Wave Mechanics, 73). Now, it is from this moment that we must choose between the ways of defining the relation of the wave and the

C0r w SCSU it. What is the most real term? Are they as real as each other? The 0n of it is only a kind of probability field, which is for corp SCSU l e the probability to manifest its presence by a locally obser share will bl e in certain points? Louis de Broglie shows that three interpretations are the o TQM eu ment possible. The author wanted one that would accept the widest  s y n thè willwave and particle concepts; As we have tried to point out, two cases where the need for this connection was apparent, that of the photon and that of the quantified movements of the corpuscles, he wanted to make this connection possible for the electrons and other elements of matter. or light in  re li year t by formulas which necessarily would appear the Planck constant h, the  as p ec ts wave and particle indissolubly bonded to each other.

The was the first kind of relationship between the wave and the corpuscle is the Schrodinger, which is to deny the reality of the corpuscle. Only the waves would have a physical meaning analogous to those of the waves of classical theories. In some cases, the wave propagation would give rise to corpuscular appearances, but these would only be appearances. "At first, to clarify this idea, Mr. Schrodinger wanted to assimilate the corpuscle to a small train of waves, but this interpretation can not be sustained, if only because a train of waves always has a tendency to spread rapidly and incessantly further in space and therefore can not represent a body endowed with a prolonged stability ". (Louis de Broglie,Communication at the meeting of the French Society of Philosophy , meeting of April 25, 1953).

Louis de Broglie does not admit this negation of the reality of the corpuscle; he declares that he wants to admit "as a physical fact" the wave-particle duality.

The second interpretation admits as real the wave-particle duality, and wants to give it a concrete meaning, in accordance with the traditional ideas of Physics, and considers the corpuscle as a singularity within an undulatory phenomenon of which it would be the center. But, says Louis de Broglie, the difficulty is to know why wave mechanics makes successful use of continuous waves without singularities of the type of continuous waves of the classical theory of light.

Finally, the third interpretation consists in considering only the ideas of corpuscle and continuous wave, and in considering them as complementary faces of reality, in the sense that Bohr gives to this expression; this interpretation is described by Louis de Broglie as "orthodox".

The second interpretation was at first that of Louis de Broglie, in 1924, the day after his thesis defense: he considered the corpuscle as a singularity within an extensive wave phenomenon, the whole forming only one physical reality. "The movement of singularity being linked to the evolution of the wave phenomenon of which it was the center would be dependent on all the circumstances that this undulatory phenomenon would encounter in its propagation in space. For this reason the movement of the corpuscle would not follow the laws of classical mechanics, which is a purely punctual mechanics in which the corpuscle only undergoes the action of the forces acting on it along its trajectory without suffering any repercussion of the the existence of obstacles that may be far off its trajectory:

and diffraction. "(Louis de Broglie Communication to the French Society of e Philosophy, meeting of 25 April 1953).

Now, the wave mechanics, says Louis de Broglie, has developed by considering only continuous solutions, without singularities, propagation equations, solutions that it is customary to designate by the Greek letter IJI. If one associates with the rectilinear and uniform movement the propagation of a wave (of a plane and monochromatic wave P), one encounters a difficulty: the phase of the wave which makes it possible to define the frequency and the length of The wave associated with the corpuscle seems to have a direct physical meaning, whereas the constant amplitude of the wave seems to be able to be only a statistical representation of the possible positions of the corpuscle. "There was a mixture of the individual and the statistics which intrigued me and which it seemed to me urgent to clear up," says Louis de Broglie in the same communication.Journal of Physics, (T. VIII, 1927, p.225) postulates that any continuous solution of the equations of wave mechanics is somehow doubled by a singularity solution u having a generally mobile singularity, the corpuscle, and having the same phase as the solution IJI. Between the solution u and the solution IJI, which both have the form of a wave, there is no phase difference (the phase being the same function of x, y, z, t), but there is has a considerable amplitude difference, since that of u has a singularity whereas that of lJI is continuous. If the propagation equation is assumed to be the same for u and for 'P, we can then prove a fundamental theorem: the moving singularity of u must, over time, describe a trajectory such that at each point the velocity is proportional to the gradient of the phase. "Thus would be translated, one could say, the reaction of the propagation of the wave phenomenon on the singularity which formed the center of it. I also showed that this reaction could be expressed by considering the particle-singularity as subject to a "quantum potential" which was precisely the mathematical expression of the wave's reaction on it ". One can thus interpret the diffraction of light by the edge of a screen by saying that the corpuscle of light undergoes an action of this edge of screen and is consequently deviated from its rectilinear road, as the proponents of the 'old corpuscular theory of light, but considering that the action of the screen edge on the corpuscle takes place via this' quantum potential' which is the mathematical expression of the reaction of the wave on the corpuscle; the wave thus serves as a means of exchange of energy between the corpuscle and the screen edge. In this interpretation, the u wave with its mobile singularity thus constitutes both the corpuscle and the wave phenomenon that surrounds it, which is a unique physical reality. It is the wave u which describes the physical reality, and not the wave IJI which has no real physical meaning; the IJI wave being supposed to have the same phase as the u wave, and the particle-singularity always moving following the phase gradient, the possible trajectories of the corpuscle coincided with the orthogonal curves at the equal phase surfaces of 'P; this led to considering the probability of finding the corpuscle at one point as equal to the square of the amplitude, to the intensity of the IJI wave. This principle had already been accepted for a long time in wave mechanics because it was necessary to give the theory of diffraction of electrons. Einstein, in 1905, had already shown that the probability for a photon to be present at a point in space is proportional to the square of the amplitude of the luminous wave associated with it; this is one of the essential principles of the wave theory of

light: the density of the radiant energy is given by the square of the amplitude of the light wave; in this case, the wave IJI appears as a purely fictitious wave, a simple representation of probabilities. But it should be noted that this formal and, in a sense, nominal character of the IJI wave was such only because, in phase with it, existed the singular u-wave which actually described the corpuscle center of a phenomenon. extensive wave; and Louis de Broglie concludes his retrospective paper in 1953: "If one could have the impression that the IJI wave was enough to fully describe the behavior of the corpuscle as one could observe it experimentally, it was because of this coincidence of phases which was the key to my theory "(Bulletin of the French Philosophical Society, October-December 1952-1953, page 146). This theory, to be received then, would have demanded that we remade the theory of interference phenomena, such as that of Young's holes, utili hisonly the singular u wave. It would also have been necessary to interpret the wave mechanics of the corpuscle systems developed in the context of the Schrödinger configuration space by means of waves. But in 1953, Louis de Broglie proposed a modification of the definition of the wave u: "In 1927, I considered it as a solution with singularity of the linear equations admitted by the Wave mechanics for the wave IJI. Various considerations, and in particular the comparison with the theory of generalized relativity, of which I will speak later, made me think that the true equation of propagation of the wave u could be nonlinear like those which one meets in the Einstein gravitational theory, nonlinear equation which would admit as approximate form the equation of the Wave mechanics when the values of u would be rather weak. If this point of view were correct, one could even admit that the u wave does not have a singularity mobile in the strict sense of the word singularity, but simply a very small singular mobile region (probably of the order of 10-13cm) within which the values of u would be large enough that the linear approximation is no longer valid, although it is valid throughout the space outside this very small region. Unfortunately, this change in point of view does not facilitate the resolution of the mathematical problems that arise, because while the study of solutions to the singularity of linear equations is often difficult, that of solutions of nonlinear equations is even more difficult "(even book, 147). Louis de Broglie tried to simplify his theory for the Solvay Council of 1927, by introducing the notion of "pilot wave", which was essentially the wave IJI considered to guide the corpuscle according to the formula: "speed proportional to the gradient of the phase ". The movement of the corpuscle being defined by the gradient of the phase, which is common to the solutions u and lJI, everything happens in appearance as if the corpuscle were guided by the continuous wave IJI. The corpuscle then became an independent reality. This representation was not well received at the Solvay Council, and Louis de Broglie regrets having at that moment simplified his theory in the sense of a certain formalism that leads to nominalism: "the theory of the pilot wave leads to this result unacceptable to determine the motion of the corpuscle by a magnitude, the continuous wave IJ, which has no real physical meaning, which depends on the state of knowledge of the one who uses it and which must change suddenly when a piece of information just change this knowledge.

the pilot wave "(cited work, 148). Louis de Broglie considers that the first form of his theory, including the wave u and the wave \ f, although difficult to justify mathematically, is much higher than that of the pilot wave, because it is likely, in case of success to offer a very profound view of the constitution of matter and the duality of waves and corpuscles and even perhaps to allow a rapprochement of quantum conceptions and relativistic conceptions. However, this rapprochement is ardently desired by Louis de Broglie, who considers it "grandiose".

It is for this reason that Louis de Broglie once again considers the theory of the double solution (wave u and wave) to be studied, from the moment when he sees Bohm and Vigier take up this point of view. Vigier establishes, following Bohm's attempt, a rapprochement between the theory of the double solution and a theorem demonstrated by Einstein. Einstein, after having developed the general lines of Generalized Relativity, had been preoccupied with the way in which the atomic structure of matter could be represented by singularities of the field of gravitation. Now, in Generalized Relativity, we admit that the motion of a body is represented in curved space-time by a geodesic of this space-time; this postulate had enabled Einstein to recover the movement of the planets around the Sun by interpreting further the secular movement of the perihelion of Mercury. Therefore, if we want to define the elementary particles of matter by the existence of singularities in the gravitational field, it should be possible to demonstrate, from the equations of the field of gravitation alone, that the movement of singularities has place according to the geodesics of space-time without having to introduce this result as an independent postulate. This was demonstrated in 1927 by Einstein working in collaboration with Grommer, and then the demonstration was repeated and extended in various ways by Einstein and his collaborators Infeld and Hoffman. The proof of Einstein's theorem presents, says Louis de Broglie in 1953, a certain analogy with that which he himself gave in 1927 to prove that a corpuscle must always have its velocity directed along the gradient of the phase of the wave u of which it constitutes a singularity. "Mr. Vigier continues with great ardor attempts to clarify this analogy by seeking to introduce the u wave functions in the definition of the metric of space-time. Although these attempts have not yet reached their full completion, it is certain that the path in which he has embarked is very interesting, because it could lead to a unification of the ideas of Generalized Relativity and Wave Mechanics. " (cited work, 156). The material corpuscles and the photons being considered as singular regions in the space-time metric surrounded by a wave field of which they would be part and whose definition would introduce the constant of Planck, it would become possible, according to Louis de Broglie, to unite Einstein's conceptions of particles and those of the double solution theory. This "grandiose synthesis" of Relativity and Quanta would have, among many others, the advantage of avoiding the "subjectivism", related, says Louis de Broglie, to idealism in the sense of the philosophers, which tends to deny the physical existence independent of the observer. "Now, the physicist remains instinctively, as Meyerson once strongly emphasized, a realist" and he has for this reason some good reasons: Subjectivist interpretations will always make him feel uncomfortable, and I think that he would be happy to be free from it. "(book cited, 156). But this synthesis, giving a new meaning to

Another advantage is that the singular zones of the various corpuscles can encroach on one another from a certain scale; this encroachment is not sufficiently clear and significant at the atomic scale (10- 8 to 10- 11 cm) to hinder the "orthodox" interpretation but it is not necessarily true for the nuclear scale (10 - 13cm). At this scale, it is possible that singular areas of the corpuscles encroach and that the latter can no longer be considered as isolated. We thus see a new way of calculating the relationship between physical individuals that involves a consideration of density and also of individual characters, defined as singularity of the wave u. The theory of nuclear phenomena and in particular the forces that maintain the stability of the nucleus could be approached by this new way. Physics could define a structure of particles, which is not possible with the wave which excludes any structural representation of particles because of its statistical character. The new types of mesons that we discover could thus be provided with a structural image, thanks to this return to spatio-temporal images. The statistical wave could no longer be considered as a complete representation of reality; and the indeterminacy that accompanies this conception, as well as the impossibility of representing the realities of the atomic scale in a precise manner in the context of space and time by variables that would be hidden from us, should be considered as incompatible with this new representation of physical reality.

3. The theory of the double solution in wave mechanics

Now, it is very important to note that, if one accepts at the starting point not to consider the physical individual as a reality limited to itself and defined by its spatial limits, but as the singularity of a wave that is to say, as a reality that can not be defined by the inherent in its own limits, but which is also defined by the interaction that it has at a distance with other physical realities, the consequence of this initial width in the definition of the individual is that this notion remains affected by a coefficient of realism. On the contrary, if the notion of individual is defined at the point of departure, strictly speaking,as a particle limited by its dimensions, then this physical being loses its reality, and the probabilistic formalism replaces the realism of the preceding theory. It is precisely in the probabilistic theories (which accept at the starting point the classical notion of the individual) that this notion is subsequently blurred in the theory of the probability wave; the corpuscles become, according to the expression of Bohr quoted by Louis de Broglie, "unsharply defined individuals within finite space-time limits". The wave also loses all realistic physical meaning; it is no longer, according to Destouches' expression, a representation of probability, depending on the knowledge acquired by the person who uses it. "She is personal and subjective as are probability distributions and, like them, it changes abruptly when the user acquires new information: this is what Mr Heisenberg called the "reduction of the wave packet by the measure", a reduction which alone would be sufficient to demonstrate the non-physical character of the wave "(work cited, 150). This probability does not result from an igno-

rance; she is pure contingency; this is the "pure chance" that Equals e no hidden determinism defined and calculable right after hidden parameters; the hidden parameters would not exist.

The physical individual, the corpuscle, becomes in the theories of Bohr and Heisenberg a set of potentialities with probabilities; he is no more than a being that manifests itself to us fleetingly, sometimes under one aspect, sometimes under another, in accordance with the notion of complementarity which is part of Bohr's theory, and according to the relations of Heisenberg's uncertainty, the foundation of an indeterminist and probabilistic theory. We can not generally attribute to the particle any definite position, velocity, or trajectory: it can only be revealed, at the moment when we make an observation or a measurement, as having such a position or such speed. It possesses, so to speak, at every moment a whole series of possible positions or states of motion, these various potentialities can be actualized at the moment of measurement with certain probabilities. The associated 'P' wave is a representation of the set of potentialities of the particle with their respective probabilities. The extension of the wave 'P in space represents the indeterminacy of the position of the corpuscle which may be present at any point in the region occupied by the wave with a probability proportional to the square of the amplitude of the the wave at this point. It is the same for the states of motion: the wave 'P has a spectral decomposition in series or integral of Fourier and this decomposition represents all the possible states of a measurement of the momentum, the probability of each possible result of such a measurement being given by the square of the corresponding coefficient of the Fourier decomposition. This theory is fortunate enough to find before it, ready to use it as a means of expression, a perfectly adequate mathematical formalism: theory of functions and eigenvalues, series developments of eigenfunctions, matrices, Hilbert space; all the resources of the linear analysis are thus immediately usable. The theory of the double solution is not so well served by the current state of development of mathematical formalism; it seems that a certain irregularity in the development of mathematical thought according to the various ways has led to a much greater facility of expression for indeterministic and probabilistic theory than for the theory of the double solution; but the privilege thus given by a certain state of mathematical development to one of the interpretations of the wave-particle relation must not be considered as an index of superiority of the easily formulated doctrine, as regards the value of the representation which it gives physical reality. We must dissociate formal perfection and fidelity to reality. This fidelity to the real results in a certain power of discovery and fertility in research. Gold,

Louis de Broglie considers this opposition between the two conceptions of the wave-particle relationship as residing essentially in the deterministic or indeterministic postulate. One could also consider that what is in question is the representation of the physical individual, elementary first, at all levels thereafter. Probabilistic theory can only be probabilistic because it considers that the physical individual is what it appears in the relation with the subject measuring; there is

comm e recurrence probability that move into the very being of the individual phy S ic despite the contingency of the relationship that the measurement event is inter ven i r . Rather, the basis of the theory of the double solution, there is the idea that the  re l a tion value has to be, is bound to be, is actually part of it. To the individual belongs this wave of which he is center and singularity; it is the individual who carries the instrument by which the relationship is established, whether this relation is that of a measure  orsome other event that involves an exchange of energy. The relation has value of being; it is an individual operation. In the indeterministic theory and Probabili did was anger, there remain about the physical self a static substantialism; the individual may be one of the terms of the relationship, but the relationship is independent of the terms; at the limit, the relation is nothing, it is only the probability for the relation between the terms to be established here or there. The relationship is not the same that areterms; it is a purely formal thing, artificial also in the deep sense of the term when there is a measure, that is to say, a relation of subject and object. This formalism and this artificiality, coming from a too narrow definition of physical individuation, then reflect on the definition of use of the individual, which, practically, is defined only by the relation: it then becomes this unsharply defined individual ". But precisely the individual can not be "sharply defined" at the beginning, before any relation, because it carries around him his possibility of relation, it is this possibility of relation. Individuation and relationship are inseparable; the capacity of relation is part of being, and enters into its definition and in the determination of its limits: there is no limit between the individual and his activity of relation; the relation is contemporary with being; it is part of being energetically and spatially. The relationship exists at the same time as being in the form of a field, and the potential it defines is true, non-formal. It is not because an energy is in potential form that it does not exist. It will be answered that we can not define the potential outside a system; This is true, but it may be necessary to postulate that the individual is a being who can exist as an individual only in relation to an un individuated reality. In the probabilistic conception, it is postulated that the individual can be alone and he is then unable to incorporate the relationship, which seems accidental and indeterminate. The relation must be conceived neither as immanent to being, nor as external to it and accidental; these two theories come together in their mutual opposition in the sense that they assume that the individual could be entitled alone. If, on the contrary, the individual is includedfrom a system to a minimum, the relationship becomes as real as the individual as a being that could, abstractly, be conceived as isolated. The individual is being and relationship; it is center of activity, but this activity is transductive; it is exercised through and through a field of forces that modifies the whole system according to the individual and the individual according to the whole system. The relationship is always in the form of potential, but it may or may not be at this moment correlatively modifying individual and system. Quantum laws seem to indicate that this relation operates only from degree to degree and not continuously, which assures the system as well as the individual stable or metastable states despite the conservation of potenhels. Formalism supposes that the individual is conceived before the relation, which remains then calculable in a pure way, without being subjected to the conditions of the energetic states of the individual; the state of the individual and his changes of state are not conceived as the principle and origin of the relation; in the formalism, the relation is not confused with its energy modality. the

On the contrary, in realism, the relation is always energy exchange which implies operation on the part of the individual; structure of the individual and operation of the individual are related; any relation modifies the structure and any change of structure modifies the relation, or rather is relation, because any change of structure of the individual modifies its energetic level and consequently implies exchange of energy with other individuals constituting the system in which the individual has received his genesis.

Louis de Broglie believes that this realism requires a return to Cartesian representations of space and time, where everything is done by "figure and movement". Reservations must be made on this point; Descartes refuses indeed to consider as possible the action at a distance, it admits as possible only the action by contact; for an individual to act at a point, he must be present; the Cartesian representation of individuation clearly identifies the individual with his geometric limits characterized by his figure. On the contrary, it seems that the conception which considers the individual as the singularity of a wave, which consequently involves a field, does not admit the Cartesian representation of individuation, even if it admits its conception of determinism. There is, to use Bachelard's expression, a non-Cartesian epistemology, not in the sense of determinism or indeterminism, but with regard to the mode of action of an individual over another, by contact or through a field (what Bachelard names "electrism"). It is rather because of a definition of individuation, Cartesian at the starting point, that probabilistic physics leads to indeterminism. And it is this initial definition of individuation that is the basic postulate of any physical theory. For Descartes, the relationship is not part of the individual, does not express it, does not transform it; it is accident in relation to the substance. The indeterminist theory retains this definition of the individual, at least implicitly, since it calculates the probabilities of presence at a point without taking into account the individual who must be present there; it is only a determinism that postulates that the hidden parameters do not exist; but what is identical in this determinism and this indeterminism is determination, which is always an event for the individual and not a relational operation. Determination is a relation and not a relation, a real relational act. This is why it is better not to assert too much the possibility of a return to Cartesian conceptions of space and time. Einstein's system, as Louis de Broglie has repeatedly said, is much more suited to this conception of individuation than any other, and even that of Descartes;Res extensa, extended substance, without much modification of geometry and Cartesian mechanics.

In the final analysis, we may ask ourselves whether we should not consider the theory of singularities as being able to enter neither into the framework of an indeterministic physics, nor into that of a deterministic physics, but as the foundation of a a new representation of the real enclosing the two others as special cases, and which we should name transductive theory of time or theory of the phases of being.

This definition of a new way of thinking about becoming, including determinism and indeterminism as borderline cases, applies to other realms of reality than that of elementary corpuscles; thus, it was possible to obtain the diffraction of beams of molecules by the crystalline surfaces (Stem, in 1932, obtained the diffe-

fraction of hydrogen and helium molecular rays, by checking the relationship of L 0 uis de Broglie between the wavelength and the velocity, λ = h / mv, to within 1 % ).

However, it seems difficult to generalize this method by applying it to all orders of magnitude without recasting what could be called the topology and chronology of the physical axiomatic, that is, without to rethink each time the problem of the individuation of the whole in which the phenomenon is accomplished; As such, one can ask two questions: what are the limits of use of the notion of photon as a physical individual? What can be considered as a real source of light in cases where the continuous, undulatory character of light comes into play to produce a phenomenon? In both cases appears to require  c onsidérer the physical system in its entirety.

Suppose a field, for example magnetic, exists and is constant. We can speak of the existence of the field and measure its intensity at a given point, just as we can define its direction. Suppose now that what produced this field, for example a current in a solenoid, comes to an end. The field also ceases, not abruptly and simultaneously in all points, but according to a disturbance that propagates from the origin of the field, the solenoid, with the speed of an electromagnetic wave. Can we consider this disturbance that propagates like a photon, or at least a grain of energy? If it were an alternating magnetic field, this view would be normal, and it would be possible to define a frequency and a wavelength characterizing the propagation of this alternating magnetic field. Should we not then characterize the presence of the continuous magnetic field at each point as a potential which is a relation between the solenoid and the bodies capable of transforming these variations of the magnetic field into a current, for example? But it can be supposed that the solenoid disappears at the moment when the current which maintains the continuous magnetic field is cut off; this disturbance will not spread less, as if the solenoid still existed, and will be capable of producing the same effects of induction in the other bodies; it will no longer be a relationship between two physical individuals, since one of them will have disappeared,

In the same way, it seems rather difficult to give the individuality of the photon to the modifications of any electromagnetic field. From the ten-kilometer radio waves (international and underwater telegraphy) to the most penetrating y-rays, an analogy of formula and a true continuity in the modes of production as in the physical properties links all the electromagnetic relations. However, the granular nature of these radiations is very apparent for short wavelengths, but it becomes very fuzzy for long wavelengths, and it can be stretched if desired towards an infinite wavelength, corresponding to a zero frequency, without the reality of the electric field and the magnetic field is thereby annihilated. A disturbance which would occur in these fields would propagate at the speed of light; but if no disturbance occurs, nothing propagates, and yet the fields continue to exist since they can be measured as continuous fields. Should we distinguish the continuous field of disturbance that could spread if it appeared? One can also interpret the continuity of the field in each point as information indicating that the source still existed at a given moment. Since the field is real, it would be necessary Should we distinguish the continuous field of disturbance that could spread if it appeared? One can also interpret the continuity of the field in each point as information indicating that the source still existed at a given moment. Since the field is real, it would be necessary Should we distinguish the continuous field of disturbance that could spread if it appeared? One can also interpret the continuity of the field in each point as information indicating that the source still existed at a given moment. Since the field is real, it would be necessary

suppose a wave of infinite length that corresponds to this zero frequency. But then the individuality of the grain of energy loses its significance outside the physical beings that radiate or receive this energy. Here again it seems that a definition of physical individuality is to be specified. Perhaps we should not speak of the individuality of the grain of energy as of the individuality of the grain of matter; there is a source of the photon and the electromagnetic disturbance. The design of the space would be to question; it is doubtful that the Cartesian conception may be suitable without being completed. Finally, let us note that a quantitative formalism is not enough to solve this difficulty of relation between space and time: the cessation of a magnetic field is not identical to the establishment of the magnetic field; even if the induction effects that the two flux variations can cause in a circuit are, at the cessation and the establishment, equal to the direction of the current, the presence of the constant magnetic field corresponds to a possibility of exchange of energy between, for example, the solenoid that creates it and a circuit that is rotated at a certain distance so as to make one of the faces penetrate a constantly variable flow. When the field no longer exists, this possibility of energy coupling no longer exists; the system of possible energy exchanges in the system has changed; we can say that the topology of the system has changed because of the disappearance of a constant field which nevertheless did not carry energy when no variation of induced flux took place. By this is shown the reality of relations other than those of events between individuals (such as a theory of probability can make them appear).

Finally, it would be very important to know if the new path in which Louis de Broglie wishes to engage Wave mechanics removes or preserves the indistinguishability of individuals of the same characteristics, for example electrons. According to Kahan and Kwal (Wave Mechanics, pp. 161 et seq.), Still employing probabilistic methods, it must be postulated that the probability of finding two electrons in two defined states, when they interact, is independent of the how to number them; this indistinguishability of the identical particles produces the exchange degeneracy of the problem which seeks the respective energy levels. It is also questionable whether Pauli's exclusionary principle is still valid.

A similar difficulty relating to the individuation of physical systems appears in the phenomenon of interference: when we consider any experiment of non-localized field interference, we make the theory of this experiment (Young holes considered as means to produce not a diffraction but two synchronous oscillators, Fresnel mirrors, Billet lens), saying that the light waves are emitted by two synchronous sources, synchronous since they receive their light from a single source, and that they do not are themselves only secondary sources, arranged at equal distances from a primary source. However, if we carefully consider the structure and activity of this primary source, we will realize that it is possible to obtain a very clear phenomenon of interference, with almost complete extinction in the dark fringes, even if a primary source containing a very large number of atoms is used; a source consisting for example of a segment of tungsten filament of 1/2 millimeter in length and 0.2 mm in diameter necessarily contains several tens of thousands. Even more: we can take a very large source, like a coal arc in which the light emanates from a crater and a point whose active surface

(the one from which the column of luminous vapor) is of the order of one square centimeter for a high intensity. However, the light emanating from this large luminous range, having passed through a diaphragm of small surface which serves as a primary source, is capable of producing the phenomenon of interference, as if it were produced by a very small segment of incandescent filament . Is there then a real synchronism between the molecules and the atoms of these large luminous surfaces? At every moment a very large number of unsynchronized oscillators emit light; it would seem normal to consider the phenomenon as a result consistent with the laws of statistics; then we should assume that the phenomenon of interference will be all the more unclear as there will be a greater number of unsynchronized oscillators (we mean no different frequencies, but in any phase relationship) to constitute the primary source; and it does not seem that experience checks this forecast. But, given the order of magnitude of the sources used, even the smallest sources already contain a large number of elementary oscillators which do not seem to be able to be in phase. These oscillators can not be in phase when they have different frequencies; however, the phenomenon still occurs, although only the central fringes are clear, because the fringes relative to each frequency are superimposed all the less as they are farther from the central fringe. What is the phase synchronism that can exist between waves emitted by oscillators of the same frequency? Does this synchronism relate to the unity of the system that contains them? Is there a coupling that occurs between these oscillators placed at a short distance from each other? But if we constituted a primary source by means of an optical device uniting the rays emitted by two very distinct sources, would this phase synchronism remain? Or is the phenomenon independent of any phase synchronism? It is perhaps not without interest to relate the study of light to that of the source which produces it. The individuality of the photon can not be considered absolutely independent of the oscillator which produces it, nor of the system of which this oscillator is possibly part. Thus all the oscillators included in the same energy system would have a certain coupling between them which could realize the synchronism, not only of frequency but of phase between these oscillators, in such a way that the individuality of the photons is affected, marked in some way by this systematic community of origin. Finally, note that light from a star can still give rise to an interference phenomenon, as if the source was really very small real diameter; it seems impossible to consider a star as a single oscillator, even if it is under an apparent diameter smaller than any assignable size; the extreme smallness of this apparent diameter can, in principle, change the phase ratio of the different photons arriving on the interferometer; it can happen on this interferometer photons from parts far apart from each other (relative to the wavelength) on the star which is taken as a source. Where does synchronism come from? No doubt from the apparatus where the interferences occur; but he is not himself a true source. Or it must be assumed that each photon is cut into two quantities of energy that would be like semi-photons, and that each half of the photon would interfere with the other half on the screen where the phenomenon occurs; this assumption seems hardly acceptable, precisely because of the individual character of the photon. It seems, for all these reasons, that the photon can not be granted physical individuality

same as to a material corpuscle; the individuality of the photon would be only proportional to its frequency, to the quantity of energy it transports, without this individuality being ever complete, for it would then be necessary for this frequency to be infinite, and no oscillator can produce an infinite infinite frequency. A photon that has an infinite frequency could be likened to a real grain of matter. Still, we must notice that there may be a threshold beyond which we can say that the frequency of the photon corresponds to a true individuality: that for which the energy of the photon is or would be equal to that of a material particle whose transformation into energy would give precisely the amount of energy that would be that of this photon of very high frequency.

4. Topology, chronology and order of magnitude of physical individuation

If, on the other hand, we directly consider the microphysical reality, an interpretation of individuation from the phenomena of structural change would aim to consider becoming as essentially linked to the individuation operations that are accomplished in successive transformations; determinism would remain applicable as a limit case when the system under consideration is not the theater of any individuation, that is to say when no exchange takes place between structure and energy, coming to modify the structures of the system, and leaving it topologically identical to what it was in its previous states; on the contrary, indeterminism would appear as a limit case when a complete change of structure is manifested in a system, with a transition from one order of magnitude to another order of magnitude; it's the case, for example, modifications made to a system by the fission of an atomic nucleus: intranuclear energies, previously part of the internal system of this nucleus, are released by the fission, and can act in the form of a gamma photon or a neutron on bodies that are part of a system at a level higher than that of the atomic nucleus. Nothing in a macroscopic system can predict when the macroscopic time will be a fission releasing energy that will yet be effective at the macroscopic level. Indeterminism is not only linked to measurement; it also stems from the fact that physical reality has echelons of magnitude intertwined in one another, topologically, and each having their own particular future, their particular chronology. Indeterminism would exist in the pure state if there was no correlation between the topology and the chronology of the physical systems. This lack of correlation is never absolutely complete; it is only abstract that one can speak of an absolute indeterminism (achievable by a complete internal resonance) or of an absolute determinism (achievable by a complete independence between chronology and topology). The general case is that of a certain level of correlation between the chronology and topology of a system, a level which varies according to the vicissitudes of its own future; a system reacts on itself not only in the sense of the principle of entropy, by the general law of its internal energy transformations, but also by modifying its own structure through time.

fl hast imtial. Detemiinism and indeterminism are only borderline cases, because there is a becoming of systems: this becoming is that of their individuation; there is a reactivity of the systems with respect to themselves. The evolution of a system would be determined if there was no internal resonance of the system, that is to say, no exchange between the different levels which it contains and which constitute it; no quantum change of structure would be possible, and one could know the fate of this system in the theory of the continuous, or according to the laws of large numbers, as does the Themiodynamic. Pure indeterminism would correspond to such a high internal resonance that any change occurring at a given level would immediately reverberate at all levels as a change in structure. In fact, the general case is that of the quantum resonance thresholds: for a modification occurring at one of the levels to reach the other levels, it must be greater than a certain value; the internal resonance is accomplished only intermittently and with a certain delay from one echelon to the next; the individuated physical being is not totally simultaneous with itself. Its topology and its chronology are separated by a certain difference, variable according to the future of the individuated set; the substance would be a physical individual totally resonant in relation to itself, and consequently totally identical to itself, perfectly coherent with itself and one. The physical being must be considered, on the contrary, as more than one and more than identity, rich in potential; the individual is in the process of individuation from a preindividual reality that underlies it; the perfect individual, totally individuated, substantial, impoverished and emptied of his potentials, is an abstraction; the individual is on the way to becoming ontogenetic, he has relative to himself a relative coherence, a relative unity and a relative identity. The physical individual must be thought of as a chrono-topological whole, of which the complex becoming is made of successive crises of individuation; the becoming of being consists in this non-coincidence of chronology and topology. The individuation of a physical whole would then consist of the succession of successive regimes of this set. is an abstraction; the individual is on the way to becoming ontogenetic, he has relative to himself a relative coherence, a relative unity and a relative identity. The physical individual must be thought of as a chrono-topological whole, of which the complex becoming is made of successive crises of individuation; the becoming of being consists in this non-coincidence of chronology and topology. The individuation of a physical whole would then consist of the succession of successive regimes of this set. is an abstraction; the individual is on the way to becoming ontogenetic, he has relative to himself a relative coherence, a relative unity and a relative identity. The physical individual must be thought of as a chrono-topological whole, of which the complex becoming is made of successive crises of individuation; the becoming of being consists in this non-coincidence of chronology and topology. The individuation of a physical whole would then consist of the succession of successive regimes of this set. the becoming of being consists in this non-coincidence of chronology and topology. The individuation of a physical whole would then consist of the succession of successive regimes of this set. the becoming of being consists in this non-coincidence of chronology and topology. The individuation of a physical whole would then consist of the succession of successive regimes of this set.

Such a conception would therefore consider the energetic regimes and the structural states as convertible into one another through the becoming of a whole; thanks to the notion of orders of magnitude and the notion of threshold in trade, she would affirm that individuation exists between the pure continuum and the pure discontinuity; the notion of threshold and quantum exchange is, in fact, a mediation between the pure continuum and the pure discontinuity. It would involve the notion of information as a fundamental character of individuation conceived in both chronological and topological dimensions. One could then speak of a level of individuation more or less high:

Such an assumption supposes that there is no elementary individual, a prime individual, and anterior to all genesis; there is individuation in a set; the first reality is pre-individual, richer than the individual understood as the result of individuation; the preindividual is the source of chronological and topological dimensionality. The oppositions between continuous and discontinuous, particle and energy, thus express not so much the complementary aspects of the real as the dimensions that arise in the real when it becomes individual; the complementarity at the level of the individual reality would be the translation of the fact that individuation appears on the one hand

as ontogenesis and on the other hand as an operation of a preindividual reality which does not only give the individual, model of the substance, but also the energy or field associated with the individual; only the associated individual-field couple accounts for the level of preindividual reality.

It is this assumption of the preindividual character of the first reality that, moreover, makes it possible to consider the physical individual as being in fact a set; the individual corresponds to a certain dimensionality of the real, that is, to an associated topology and chronology; the individual is edifice in its most common form, that is to say in the form in which it appears to us, crystal or molecule. As such, it is not an absolute, but a reality that corresponds to a certain state of equilibrium, generally metastable, and based on a regime of exchanges between different orders of magnitude that can be modified either by becoming an external event bringing a certain new condition to the internal regime (for example an energy when the neutron from a nucleus fission causes the fission of another nucleus). There is therefore a certain consistency of the individual, but not an absolute antitypie, an impenetrability having a substantial meaning. The consistency of the individual building is still based on quantum conditions; it depends on thresholds.

Hence the limits of the physical individual are themselves metastable; a set of fissionable nuclei is not a truly individuated set if the number of nuclei, given the average radioactivity of the nuclei, is small enough that the fission of a nucleus is unlikely to cause the fission of nuclei. another nucleus 1; everything happens as if each nucleus was isolated from the others; each has its own chronology and fission occurs for each nucleus as if it were alone; on the contrary, if a large quantity of fissile matter is collected, the probability of the results of the fission of one nucleus provoking at least one further increases: when this probability reaches unity, the internal chronology each nucleus changes abruptly: instead of constituting itself, it forms an internal resonance network with those of all the other nuclei capable of fission: the physical individual is then the whole mass of fissile matter, and not each core ; the notion of critical mass gives the example of what can be called a relative threshold of individuation: the chronology of the whole becomes abruptly coextensive with the topology of the whole2: there is individuation because there is an exchange between the microphysical level and the macrophysical level; the information reception capacity of the set increases sharply. It is by modifying the topological conditions that nuclear energy can be used either for sudden effects (by bringing together several masses, each lower than the critical mass), or for moderate continuous effects (by control of the exchange between the fissile nuclei by means of an adjustable device which keeps the assembly below the unit amplification coefficient, for example by more or less absorption of the radiation). We can therefore say that the degree of individuation of a set depends on the correlation between chronology and topology of the system; this degree of individuation can be92 93

named first as level of interactive communication, since it defines the degree of reso n internal dence of set2.

From this perspective, it seems possible to understand why representations year t hasThe gonists of the continuum and discontinuity, of matter and of energy, of structure and operation, can not be used otherwise than in the form of complementary couples; it is because these notions define the opposite and extreme aspects of the orders of reality between which individuation is instituted; but the operation of individuation is the active center of this relation; it is it which is its unity splitting into aspects which for us are complementary whereas in the real they are coupled by the continuous and transductive unity of the intermediate being, which we here call internal resonance; the complementary aspects of reality are extreme aspects defining the dimensionality of reality. Since we can only grasp reality by its manifestations, that is, when it changes, we only perceivees extreme complementary aspects; but it is the dimensions of the real rather than the real that we perceive; we grasp its chronology and topology of individuation without being able to grasp the preindividual real that underlies this transformation.

Information, understood as the arrival of a singularity creating a communication between orders of reality, is what we can most easily think of, at least in a few particular cases such as the chain reaction, free or limited. This intervention of a notion of information does not however make it possible to solve the problem of the ratio of the different levels of individuation. A crystal is made up of molecules; for a supersaturated solution to crystallize, it is necessary to combine energetic conditions (metastability) and structural conditions (crystalline germ); an individuated being such as a molecule, which is already a building, can it intervene as the structural germ of this larger building, which is a crystal? -Is it really necessary to have a structural seed already of an order of magnitude greater than that of a molecule for the crystallization to begin? It is difficult, in the current state of knowledge, to provide a generalizable answer to this question. It can only be said that the problem of the relations of inert matter and of life would be clearer if we could show that the living being is characterized by the fact that it discovers in its own field of reality structural conditions allowing it to to solve its own incompatibilities, the distance between the orders of magnitude of its reality, whereas the inert matter does not have this power of autogenesis of the structures; a singularity is needed for the supersaturated solution to crystallize; Does this mean that the inert matter does not increase its capital of singularities, whereas the living matter increases this capital, this increase being precisely the ontogeny of the living, capable of adaptation and invention? This distinction can only be given as a methodological hypothesis; it does not seem to be necessary to oppose a living matter and a non-living matter, but rather a primary individuation in inert systems and a secondary individuation in living systems, precisely according to the different modalities of the modes of communication during these individuations; then, between the inert and the living, there would be a quantum difference in the capacity to receive information rather than a substantial difference: continuity, if it exists,

dimensions so that the microphysical forces intervene as carriers of energetic and structural conditions.

According to this conception, one could say that the bifurcation between the living and the non-living is at a certain dimensional level, that of macromolecules; phenomena of a lower order of magnitude, called microphysics, are in fact neither physical nor vital, but prephysical and pre-emptive; the pure, non-living physics would only begin at the supra-molecular level; it is at this level that individuation gives the crystal or the mass of protoplasmic matter.

In the macrophysical forms of individuation, we distinguish the living from the non-living; while an organism assimilates while diversifying, the crystal increases by the iteration of an addition of ordered layers, in indefinite number. But in terms of macromolecules, we can hardly say whether the filter virus is alive or not alive. To adopt the notion of reception of information as an essential expression of the individuation operation would be to affirm that individuation takes place at a certain dimensional level (topological and chronological); below this level, reality is prephysical and prevital, because preindividual. Above this level, there is physical individuationwhen the system is able to receive information once only, then develops and amplifies by uniquely self-limiting this initial singularity. If the system is able to successively receive several inputs of information, to compatibilize several singularities instead of iterating by cumulative effect and by transductive amplification the unique and initial singularity, individuation is of vital type, self-limited, organized.

It is usual to see in the vital processes a greater complexity than in non-vital, physicochemical processes. However, to be faithful, even in the most hypothetical conjectures, to the intention that animates this research, we would suppose that the vital individuation does not come after the physico-chemical individuation, but during this individuation, before its completion, by suspending it at the moment when it has not reached its stable equilibrium, and rendering it capable of spreading and propagating before the iteration of the perfect structure capable only of repeating itself, which would preserve in the individual living something of preindividual tension, active communication, in the form of internal resonance, between the extreme orders of magnitude.

According to this view, vital individuation would be inserted in the physical indivi- duation by suspending the course, slowing it down, making it capable of propagation in the inchoative state. The living individual would in some way be, at its most primitive levels, a nascent crystal enlarging without stabilizing itself.

To bring this pattern of interpretation closer to more common notions, one can appeal to the idea of neoteny, and generalize this type of relationship between classes of individuals, assuming, in the category of the living, a cascade of possible neotenic developments. . Animal individuation can, in a sense, be considered more complex than plant individuation. However, we can also consider the animal as an inchoative plant, developing and organizing while retaining the motor, receptor, reaction, which appear in the reproduction of plants. If it is supposed that vital individuation holds and expands the earliest phase of physical individuation - so that the vital would be suspended physics,

of plant individuation, retaining in it something of anterior to development as an adult plant, and now, in particular, for a time more than one g, the capacity to receive information.

We thus understand why these categories of individuals increasingly compl e xed but also increasingly unfinished, less stable and self-sufficient, need, as a partner middle of the most accomplished individuals and more stable layers . The living need to live physicochemical individuals; animals need plants, which are for them, in the true sense of the word, Nature, as, for plants, chemical compounds.

The individuation of living beings

First chapter

Information and ontogenesis vital individuation

I. - PRINCIPLES FOR A STUDY OF THE INDIVIDUATION OF THE LIVING

1. Vital individuation and information; organizational levels; vital activity and psychic activity

Physiology poses the difficult problem of the levels of individuality, according to the species and the moments of the existence of each being; the same being can indeed exist at different levels: the embryo is not individualized in the same way as the adult being; on the other hand, in relatively similar species, we can find behaviors that correspond to a life more individualized or less individualized according to the species, without these differences necessarily appearing linked to a superiority or an inferiority of the vital organization.

To provide some clarity, it would be good to define a measure of the levels of individuation; but, if the degree of individuality is subject to variations in the same species according to the circumstances, it is difficult to measure this individuality in an absolute manner. It would then be necessary to define the type of reality in which individuation takes place, by saying with which dynamic regime it is exchangeable when the level of organization does not vary in the whole system concealing vital unity. Then we would get a chance to measure the degree of individuality 1. According to the methodological postulate that we have just defined, it would be good to have recourse to the study of the integration in the systems of organization. The organization can, in fact, be done either in each being, or by the organic relation which exists between the different beings. In the latter case, the internal integration is doubled in the being of an external integration; the group is integrator. The only concrete reality is the vital unity, which can in some cases be reduced to a single being and in other cases corresponds to a very differentiated group of multiple beings2.

Moreover, the fact that an individual is mortal and not divisible by split or regenerable by exchange of protoplasm corresponds to a level of individuation which indicates the existence of thresholds. Unlike physical individuation, the individual94 95

biology admits the existence of the whole species, colony, or society; it is not indefinitely extensible like physical individuation. If physical individuation is unlimited, we must look for where the transition between physical individuation and biological individuation is. Now, the biological boundless is in the species or in the group. What is called an individual in biology is actually in some way a sub-individual much more than an individual; in biology, it seems that the notion of individuality is applicable to several stages, or according to different levels of successive inclusion. But analogically, the physical individual should be considered as a biological society, and he alone would be the image of a totality, albeit a very simple one.

The first consequence of this way of seeing is that the level of organization contained in a physical system is lower than that of a biological system, but that a physical individual may have a higher level of organization than a physical one. individual biological system integrated into a larger whole. There is nothing theoretically opposed to the possibility of exchanges and alternations between a physical system and a biological system; but, if this hypothesis is valid, it will be necessary to suppose that a physical individual unit is transformed into a biological group, and that it is in a certain way the suspension of the development of the physical being, and its analysis, not a relation synthetic, bringing together completed physical individuals, which brings out the living. If that's so, we will have to say that only very complex physical buildings can be transmuted into living beings, which limits very much the possible cases of spontaneous generation. According to this view, the unity of life would be the complete, organized group, not the isolated individual.

This doctrine is not a materialism, since it supposes a sequence from physical reality to higher biological forms, without distinguishing between classes and genres; but it must, if it is complete and satisfactory, be able to explain why and in what sense it is possible to remark inductively the relation species-genus, or even individual-species. This distinction must come within a larger reality, which can account for continuity as well as discontinuities between species. This discontinuity seems to be related to the quantum character that appears in physics. The criterion of syncrystallization which makes it possible to recognize chemical species, indicating in which system they crystallize, indicates a type of relationship of real analogy based on ontogenetic dynamism; the process of crystal formation is the same in both cases; there may be sequencing during the growth of a crystal made of several different chemical species, so that the growth is continuous despite the specific heterogeneity of the different layers. The unity created by the continuity of an operation of individuation enveloping species that seemed heterogeneous with respect to each other according to an inductive classification indicates a deep reality, belonging to the nature of these species as rigorously as what one names specific characters; the possibility of syncrystallization does not, however, indicate the existence of a genus, because one can not, from the criterion of syncrystallization, down to the particular characters of each syncrystalline-sand body by adding specific differences. Such a property, which indicates the existence of an information process during an individuation operation, is not part of the systematics of genera and species; it indicates other

real properties, properties that offer when considered in relation to the possibility of spontaneous ontogenies that can be done by him in his own s t ru ctures and its own potential.

It is such properties that one can search for to characterize the living, rather than the specific form, which does not allow to go down to the individual because it was obtained by abstraction, therefore by reduction. Such research presupposes that the use of a paradigm derived from the field of the physical sciences, and particularly the processes of morphogenesis that are accomplished in this field, is considered legitimate. For this, it must be assumed that the elementary levels of the biological order contain an organization that is of the same order as that contained in the most perfectly individuated physical systems, for example those that generate the crystals, or the large metastable molecules of the Organic chemistry. Admittedly, such a hypothesis of research may seem very surprising; custom leads one to think that living beings can not come from physical beings, because they are superior to them because of their organization. However, this very attitude is the consequence of an initial postulate, according to which the inert nature can not conceal an elevated organization96. If, on the contrary, it were posited that the physical world is already highly organized, this primitive error resulting from a devaluation of the inert matter could not be committed; in materialism there is a doctrine of values which presupposes an implicit spiritualism: matter is given as less richly organized than the living being, and materialism seeks to show that the superior can emerge from the inferior. It is an attempt to reduce the complex to simple. But if, from the beginning, we consider that matter constitutes systems with a very high level of organization, we can not so easily prioritize life and matter. It may be necessary to suppose that the organization preserves itself but is transformed in the passage of the matter to the life. If it were so, it would be necessary to assume that science will never be completed, because this science is a relation between beings who have by definition the same degree of organization: a material system and an organized living being who tries to think this system by means of the science. If it were true that the organization is neither lost nor created, it would lead to the consequence that the organization can only be transformed. A type of direct relation between the object and the subject manifests itself in this affirmation, for the relation between thought and reality becomes a relation between two organized reals that can be analogically linked by their internal structure. a material system and an organized living being that tries to think this system through science. If it were true that the organization is neither lost nor created, it would lead to the consequence that the organization can only be transformed. A type of direct relation between the object and the subject manifests itself in this affirmation, for the relation between thought and reality becomes a relation between two organized reals that can be analogically linked by their internal structure. a material system and an organized living being that tries to think this system through science. If it were true that the organization is neither lost nor created, it would lead to the consequence that the organization can only be transformed. A type of direct relation between the object and the subject manifests itself in this affirmation, for the relation between thought and reality becomes a relation between two organized reals that can be analogically linked by their internal structure.

Yet even if the organization is conserved, it is wrong to say that death is nothing; there may be death, evolution, involution, and the theory of the relationship between matter and life must be able to account for these transformations.

According to this theory, there would be a determined level of organization in each system, and these same levels could be found in a physical being and a living being. For this reason, it should be supposed that when beings such as an animal are composed of several superimposed ranks of relays and systems of integration, there is not in them a single organization which would have neither cause nor origin, external equivalent: the level of organization belonging to each system being limited,

may think that if a being appears to possess a high level of organization, it is rea lity by it integrates already informed and integrated elements, and that his own integrative task is quite limited. Individuality proper would then be reduced to a rather restricted organization, and the word of nature applied to what in the individual is not the product of his activity would have a very important meaning, because each individual would be indebted to his nature of the rich organization he seems to have in his own right. It might be supposed then that the external richness of the relation in the middle is equal to the internal wealth  of the organization contained in an individual.

Internal integration is made possible by the quantum character of the relationship between the environments (exterior and interior) and the individual as a defined structure. Relays and integrators characteristic of the individual could not function without this quantum trading regime. The group, in relation to these sub-individuals, exists as integrator and differentiator. The relationship between the singular being and the group is the same as between the individual and the sub-individuals. In this sense, it is possible to say that there is a homogeneity of relationship between the different hierarchical levels of the same individual, and likewise between the group and the individual. The total level of information then would measure the number of stages of integration and Differencia tionas well as by the relation between integration and differentiation, which can be called transduction, in the living. In the biological being, the transduction is not direct but indirect, after a double ascending and descending chain; along each of these chains, it is the transduction that allows the information signals to pass, but this passage, instead of being a simple transport of the information, is integration or differentiation, and there occurs a preliminary work by which the final transduction is made possible, whereas in the physical domain this  tran deduction exists in a system such as high or low internal resonance97 ; if integration and differentiation were only real, life would not exist, because resonance must also exist, but it is a resonance of a particular type which admits a prior activity requiring development.

If we use psychological terms to describe these activities, we will see that the integration corresponds to the use of representation, and the differentiation to the use of the activity which distributes over time energies acquired progressively and put in reserve , while the representation stores information that is acquired by sudden jumps depending on the circumstances, so as to achieve a continuous. Finally, transduction is effected by the affectivity and by all the systems which play in the organism the role of transducers at various levels. The individual would therefore always be a system of transduction, but, while this transduction is direct and at a single level in the physical system, it is indirect and hierarchical in the living being. It would be wrong to think that transduction alone exists in a physical system, because there is also integration and differentiation, but they are situated at the very limits of the individual, and detectable only when it increases. This integration and boundary differentiation are found in the living individual, but they then characterize its relationship to the group or the world, and may be relatively independent of those operating within the living. Such an assertion can not explain how these two groups relate but they then characterize its relation to the group or the world, and may be relatively independent of those which operate within the living. Such an assertion can not explain how these two groups relate but they then characterize its relation to the group or the world, and may be relatively independent of those which operate within the living. Such an assertion can not explain how these two groups relate

integration and differentiation. Those acting outside cause changes in the structure of the ensemble in which they occur, changes comparable to those of a corpuscle that absorbs or emits energy in a quantum way, passing from a state more excited to a less excited state, or vice versa. Perhaps the relationship between the two types of processes is the basis of this variation in the levels of the individual, accompanied by a change in structure which is the  internal correlative of an exchange of information or energy. with the outside. Let us remark, indeed, that the effort has not only motor aspects, but also affective and representative aspects; his emotional characters are the bridge between its  camotor characters and its representative characters; the quantum character of the effort, covering both a continuity and a discontinuity, represents very clearly this integration and this differentiation in mutual relations from an internal group to an external group.

The problem of individuation would be solved if we knew what information is in relation to other fundamental quantities such as quantity of matter or quantity of energy.

The homeostasis of the living being does not exist in the purely physical being, because the homeostasis refers to the external conditions of transduction, thanks to which the being uses the equivalence to the external conditions as guarantees of its own stability. and its internal transduction. The heterogeneous transductive character appears in physics only in the margins of this physical reality; interiority and externality are everywhere in the living being, on the contrary; the nervous system and the internal environment make this interiority everywhere in contact with a relative exteriority. It is the balance between integration and differentiation that characterizes life; but homeostasis is not all vital stability. The quantum character of discontinuous action comes to oppose the continuous character of the constructive knowledge of syntheses to constitute this mixture of continuous and discontinuous which is manifested in the regulatory qualities serving the relation between integration and differentiation. Qualities appear in the reactivity by which the living appreciates its own action; Now, these qualities do not make it possible to reduce this relation to a simple awareness of the difference between the goal and the result, and therefore to a simple signal. This is what the automaton lacks to be a living being; the automaton can only adapt in a convergent manner to a set of conditions by reducing more and more the difference which exists between its action and the predetermined goal; but he does not invent and discover goals in the course of his action, because it does not realize any real transduction, the transduction being the widening of a domain initially very restricted which takes more and more structure and extent; the biological species are endowed with this capacity of transduction, thanks to which they can extend indefinitely. The crystals too are endowed with this power to increase indefinitely; but, while the crystal has all its power to grow localized on its limit, this power is, in the species, devolved to a set of individuals who grow for themselves, from within as well only from the outside, and which are limited in time and space, but which reproduce and are unlimited thanks to their ability to reproduce. The most eminent biological transduction is therefore essentially the fact that each individual reproduces analogs. The species advances in time, like a chemico-physical modification that would go step by step, with a rather weak recovery of the generations, like active molecular layers at the edge of a crystal

in the process of formation98 . In some cases, a building comparable to that of the crystal is deposited by successive generations99 . On the other hand, the growth of the living individual is a permanent, localized type of transduction, which has no analogue in physics; a particular individuality is added to the specific individuality.

Life would therefore be conditioned by the recurrence of causality through which an integration process and a process of differentiation can be coupled while remaining distinct in their structures. Thus, life is not a substance distinct from matter; it implies processes of integration and differentiation which can in no way be given by anything other than physical structures. In this sense, there exists a profound triality of the living being by which one finds in him two complementary activities and a third which realizes the integration of the previous ones at the same time as their differentiation by means of the activity of causal recurrence; recurrence, in fact, does not add a third function to the previous ones, but the qualification it authorizes and constitutes brings a relation between activities that could not have any other community. The basis of affective identity and identity is thus in the affective polarity through which there can be a relation of the one and the multiple, the differentiation and the integration. It is the relation of two dynamisms that the qualification constitutes; it is already this relationship at the lowest level, and it remains at the level of the higher affectivity of human feelings. From pleasure and pain, grasped in their concretely organic character, the relation manifests itself as the closing of the reflex arc, which is always qualified and oriented; higher, in the sensible quality, a similar polarity, integrated in the form of a global constellation and particularly dense, characterizes the acquired personality and makes it possible to recognize it. When a subject wants to express his internal states, it is to this relation that he uses, through affectivity, the principle of art and all communication. To characterize an external thing that can not be shown, it is through affectivity that we pass from the continuous totality of knowledge to the singular unity of the object to be evoked, and this is possible because Affectivity is present and available to institute the relationship. Any association of ideas passes through this affective relationship. There are therefore two possible types of use of the already constituted relation, going from the unity of knowledge to the plurality of action, or from the multiplicity of action to the unity of knowledge;

The anatomo-physiological study of vital processes shows the distinction between the receiving and motor organs, even in the disposition of the cortical areas and in the functioning of the brain; but we also know that the brain is not only composed of projection areas; a large part of the frontal lobes is used for the association between the receiving and motor areas; the neurosurgical practice of lobotomy, which is to weaken the recurrence of causality linking integration to

differentiation, profoundly changes the emotions of the subject, while in principle this lobotomique action leaves the undamaged or centers affecti v ity, located in the infundibulum region of the thalamus, that is, to say in regions very different from those which constitute neopallium; it would, according to this hyp o thesis distinguish the instant emotions, which may indeed be locali hisin the region of the infundibulum of the thalamus, and relational affectivity, dealing with elaborate products of integrative activity and differentiating activity, and which could be called active affectivity, characterizing the individual in his singular life, not in its relation to the species. The region of the arche-pallium would then concern much more the regulation of the instincts than that of the elaborated affectivity; it manifests itself in the relation between the tendencies of the subject and the qualities he discovers in the environment, rather than in the conscious elaboration of this transduction characteristic of the activity of neo-pallium, and which is the affectivity of the subject. individual as an individual.

By this also, we would understand that affectivity is the only function capable, thanks to its relational aspect, of giving meaning to negativity: the nothingness of action, like the nothingness of knowledge, is elusive without a positive context in which they intervene as a limitation or a pure lack; on the other hand, for affectivity, nothingness can be defined as the opposite of another quality; as Plato has noted, all realized quality appears as inserted according to a measure in an indefinite dyad of contrary and absolute qualities; the qualities go in pairs of opposites, and this bipolarity of any qualitative relation is constituted as a permanent possibility of orientation for the being qualified and qualified; nothingness has a meaning in affectivity, because two dynamisms clash with it at any moment; the relation of integration to differentiation is constituted as the bipolar conflict in which forces are exchanged and balanced. It is thanks to this orientation of being in relation to itself, to this affective polarization of all content and of all psychic constituents, that being preserves its identity. Identity seems to be based on the permanence of this orientation during the course of existence, an orientation that unfolds through the qualification of action and knowledge. Some very deep intuitions of the presocratic philosophers show how a qualitative dynamism exchanges structures and actions in existence, either within a being or from one being to another. Heraclitus and Empedocles in particular have defined a relation of structure and operation which supposes a bipolarity of reality, in a multitude of complementary ways. Affectivity realizes a type of relation which, in terms of action, would be conflict, and, in terms of knowledge, incompatibility; this relation can exist only at the level of affectivity, because its bipolarity allows it to make the unity of the heterogeneous; quality is transductive in nature, because every qualitative spectrum connects and distinguishes terms that are neither identical nor foreign to each other; the identity of the subject is precisely of the transductive type, in particular through the first of all transductivities, that of time, which can as much as we want to be fragmented into instants or grasped as a continuity; every instant is separated from those who follow it or precede it by the very same which connects it to these instants and constitutes its continuity with respect to them; distinction and continuity, separation and relation are the two complementary aspects of the same type of reality. The fundamental type of vital transduction is the time series, both integrative and differentiating;

the identity of the living being is made of its temporality. One would make a mistake in conceiving temporality as pure differentiation, as a necessity of permanent choice, and always recommenced; individual life is differentiation to the extent that it is integration; there is here a complementary relation which can not lose one of its two terms without ceasing to exist itself by committing itself in a false differentiation, which is in reality an aesthetic activity by which, within a personality dissociated, each choice is known as a choice by the consciousness of the subject, and becomes an information to integrate, whereas it was an energy to be differentiated: it is the choice which is chosen, more than the object of the choice; the affective orientation loses its relational power within a being whose choice constitutes all the relational activity, relying in a certain way on itself in its reactivity. The choice must be eminently discontinuous to represent a true differentiation; a continuous choice, in a subject conscious of the fact that he chooses, is in reality a mixture of choice and information; from this simultaneity of choice and information results the elimination of the element of discontinuity characteristic of the action; an action mingled with information by a recurrence of this species becomes in reality a mixed existence, at once continuous and discontinuous, quantum, proceeding by sudden leaps which introduce a change in consciousness; an action of this type can not lead to a real constructive affectivity, but only at a precarious stability, in which an illusion of choice is given by a recurrence which results in relaxation oscillations. Relaxation differs from constructive choice in that the choice never returns the subject to anterior states, while relaxation periodically brings the subject back to a neutral state which is the same as previous neutral states; a feeling such as that of the absurd emptiness (which we seek to distinguish from the mysterious absurd) corresponds precisely to this state of return to nothingness, in which all reactivity or recurrence is abolished by absolute inactivity and lack of information. ; that is, in this state, the activity values information, and the absence of activity causes a complete void of information: if information elements then come from outside, they are abandoned as absurd because they are not valued; they are not qualified because the subject's direct affectivity no longer plays and has been replaced by a recurrence of information and action. This existence is the character of all aesthetics; the subject in a state of aestheticism is a subject that has replaced his affectivity with a responsiveness of action and information in a closed cycle, unable to admit a new action or new information. In a sense, aesthetics could be treated as a vicarious function of affectivity; but aestheticism destroys the recourse to affectivity by constituting a kind of existence which eliminates the circumstances in which a real action or a real information could take place; the time series is replaced by a series of cyclochronic units which succeed one another without going on, and realize a closing of time, according to an iterative rhythm. Any artificiality, renouncing the creative aspect of the vital time, becomes a condition of aesthetics, even if this aestheticism does not use the construction of the object to realize the causal return of the action to the information, and more simply a recourse to an action that changes iteratively the conditions of apprehension of the world.

2. The successive levels of individuation: vital, psychic, transindividual

C 0 siness psychic and vital do they differ from each other? According to this theory of an individuation, psychic and vital are indistinguishable as two substances, nor even as two parallel or overlapping functions; the psychic intervenes as a slowing down of the individuation of the living, a neotenic amplification of the first state of this genesis; there is psyche when the living does not concretize completely, preserves an internal duality. If the living being could be fully appeased and satisfied in himself, in what he is as an individuated individual, within his somatic limits and by the relation in the middle, there would not be appeal to the psyche; but it is when life, instead of being able to recover and resolve in unitya duality of perception and action, becomes parallel to a set composed by perception and action, that the living becomes problematized. All the problems of life can not be solved by the simple transductivity of regulative affectivity; when affectivity can no longer intervene as the power of resolution, when it can no longer operate this transduction, which is an individuation perpetuated within the living already individuated, affectivity leaves its central role in the living and ranks with perceptive-active functions; a perceptual-active problematic and an affective-emotional problem then fill the living; the call to psychic life is like a slowing down of the living which keeps it in a metastable and tense state, rich in potential100· The essential difference between simple life and psychism is that affectivity does not play the same role in these two modes of existence; in life, affectivity has a regulative value; it overcomes the other functions and ensures that permanent individuation which is life itself; in the psyche, affectivity is overwhelmed; it poses problems instead of solving them, and leaves unresolved those of the perceptive-active functions. The entry into the psychic existence manifests itself essentially as the appearance of a new problem, higher, more difficult, which can not receive any real solution within the living being proper, conceived to the within its limits as being individuated; the psychical life is neither a solicitation nor a superior rearrangement of the vital functions, which continue to exist under it and with it, but a new dive into preindividual reality, followed by a more primitive individuation. Between the life of the living and the psyche there is the interval of a new individuation; the vital is not a matter for the psychic; it is not necessarily taken up and re-assumed by the psyche, because the vital already has its organization, and the psyche can scarcely disrupt it by trying to intervene in it. A psyche that tries to constitute itself by assuming the vital and taking it as a subject in order to give it shape only results in malformations and an illusion of functioning. there is the interval of a new individuation; the vital is not a matter for the psychic; it is not necessarily taken up and re-assumed by the psyche, because the vital already has its organization, and the psyche can scarcely disrupt it by trying to intervene in it. A psyche that tries to constitute itself by assuming the vital and taking it as a subject in order to give it shape only results in malformations and an illusion of functioning. there is the interval of a new individuation; the vital is not a matter for the psychic; it is not necessarily taken up and re-assumed by the psyche, because the vital already has its organization, and the psyche can scarcely disrupt it by trying to intervene in it. A psyche that tries to constitute itself by assuming the vital and taking it as a subject in order to give it shape only results in malformations and an illusion of functioning.

In fact, the true psyche appears when the vital functions can no longer solve the problems posed to the living, when this triadic structure of perceptual, active and affective functions is no longer usable. The psyche appears or at least is postulated when the living being does not have enough in itself to solve the problems that are posed to him. It is not surprising to find at the base of psychic life purely vital motives: but it must be noted that they exist as problems and not as determining or guiding forces; they do not exert a constructive determinism on the psychic life they call to exist; they provoke it but do not condition it positively. The psyche appears as a new stage of individuation of being, which has for correlative, in being, an incompatibility and a slowing supersaturation of the vital dynamisms, and, outside of being as a limited individual, a recourse to a new charge of pre-individual reality capable of bringing to the to be a new reality; the living individual becomes more precocious, and he can not be individuated by being to himself his own matter, as the larva which is metamorphosed by nourishing itself; the psychism expresses the vital, and, correlatively, a certain charge of preindividual reality. and he can not be individuated by being to himself his own matter, as the larva which is metamorphosed by nourishing itself; the psychism expresses the vital, and, correlatively, a certain charge of preindividual reality. and he can not be individuated by being to himself his own matter, as the larva which is metamorphosed by nourishing itself; the psychism expresses the vital, and, correlatively, a certain charge of preindividual reality.

Such a conception of the relationship between vital individuation and psychic individuation leads us to imagine the existence of the living as playing the role of a strain for psychic individuation, but not of a subject in relation to which the psychism would be a form. It also requires that we make the following hypothesis: individuation does not obey a law of all or nothing: it can be done in a quantum way, by sudden jumps, and a first stage of individuation leaves around the constituted individual, associated with him, a certain preindividual reality charge, which may be called associated nature, and which is still rich in potential and organized forces.

Between the vital and the psychic, therefore, when the psychic appears, there exists a relation that is not from matter to form, but from individuation to individuation; psychic individuation is a dilation, an early expansion of vital individuation.

It follows from such a hypothesis that entry into the path of psychical individuation obliges the individuated being to surpass himself; the psychic problematic, appealing to the preindividual reality, leads to functions and structures that do not end within the limits of the living individuated being; if the living organism is called the individual, the psychic results in an order of transindividual reality; indeed, the preindividual reality associated with individuated living organisms is not cut off like them and does not receive limits comparable to those of separate living individuals; when this reality is grasped in a new individuation initiated by the living, it retains a relation of participation which links each psychic being to other psychic beings; the psychic is the nascent transindividual; it may appear for a certain time as pure psychic, a last reality which could consist in itself; but the living can not borrow from the associated nature of the potentials producing a new individuation without entering into an order of reality which makes it participate in a set of psychical reality exceeding the limits of the living; psychic reality is not closed on itself. The psychic problematic can not be solved in an individual way. Entry into psychical reality is an entry into a transitory way, because the resolution of the intra-individual psychic problematic (that of perception and that of affectivity) leads to the level of the transindividual; the structures and the complete functions resulting from the individuation of the it may appear for a certain time as pure psychic, a last reality which could consist in itself; but the living can not borrow from the associated nature of the potentials producing a new individuation without entering into an order of reality which makes it participate in a set of psychical reality exceeding the limits of the living; psychic reality is not closed on itself. The psychic problematic can not be solved in an individual way. Entry into psychical reality is an entry into a transitory way, because the resolution of the intra-individual psychic problematic (that of perception and that of affectivity) leads to the level of the transindividual; the structures and the complete functions resulting from the individuation of the it may appear for a certain time as pure psychic, a last reality which could consist in itself; but the living can not borrow from the associated nature of the potentials producing a new individuation without entering into an order of reality which makes it participate in a set of psychical reality exceeding the limits of the living; psychic reality is not closed on itself. The psychic problematic can not be solved in an individual way. Entry into psychical reality is an entry into a transitory way, because the resolution of the intra-individual psychic problematic (that of perception and that of affectivity) leads to the level of the transindividual; the structures and the complete functions resulting from the individuation of the last reality which could consist in itself; but the living can not borrow from the associated nature of the potentials producing a new individuation without entering into an order of reality which makes it participate in a set of psychical reality exceeding the limits of the living; psychic reality is not closed on itself. The psychic problematic can not be solved in an individual way. Entry into psychical reality is an entry into a transitory way, because the resolution of the intra-individual psychic problematic (that of perception and that of affectivity) leads to the level of the transindividual; the structures and the complete functions resulting from the individuation of the last reality which could consist in itself; but the living can not borrow from the associated nature of the potentials producing a new individuation without entering into an order of reality which makes it participate in a set of psychical reality exceeding the limits of the living; psychic reality is not closed on itself. The psychic problematic can not be solved in an individual way. Entry into psychical reality is an entry into a transitory way, because the resolution of the intra-individual psychic problematic (that of perception and that of affectivity) leads to the level of the transindividual; the structures and the complete functions resulting from the individuation of the but the living can not borrow from the associated nature of the potentials producing a new individuation without entering into an order of reality which makes it participate in a set of psychical reality exceeding the limits of the living; psychic reality is not closed on itself. The psychic problematic can not be solved in an individual way. Entry into psychical reality is an entry into a transitory way, because the resolution of the intra-individual psychic problematic (that of perception and that of affectivity) leads to the level of the transindividual; the structures and the complete functions resulting from the individuation of the but the living can not borrow from the associated nature of the potentials producing a new individuation without entering into an order of reality which makes it participate in a set of psychical reality exceeding the limits of the living; psychic reality is not closed on itself. The psychic problematic can not be solved in an individual way. Entry into psychical reality is an entry into a transitory way, because the resolution of the intra-individual psychic problematic (that of perception and that of affectivity) leads to the level of the transindividual; the structures and the complete functions resulting from the individuation of the psychic reality is not closed on itself. The psychic problematic can not be solved in an individual way. Entry into psychical reality is an entry into a transitory way, because the resolution of the intra-individual psychic problematic (that of perception and that of affectivity) leads to the level of the transindividual; the structures and the complete functions resulting from the individuation of the psychic reality is not closed on itself. The psychic problematic can not be solved in an individual way. Entry into psychical reality is an entry into a transitory way, because the resolution of the intra-individual psychic problematic (that of perception and that of affectivity) leads to the level of the transindividual; the structures and the complete functions resulting from the individuation of the

preindividual reality associated with the living individual do not become and stabilize only in the collective. The psychic life goes from the preindividual to the collective. A life p s y c hic who would be intra-individual would not be able to overcome a disparati is fundamental between perceptual and emotional problematic issue101 . ET re psychic, that is to say being that fulfills the fullest possible fo nindividuation by not limiting individuation to this first stage of the vital, resolves the disappearance of its internal problematic insofar as it participates in the individuation of the collective. This collective, a transindividual reality obtained by individuation of the preindividual realities associated with a plurality of the living, is distinguished from the pure social and the pure interindividual; the pure social exists, indeed, in animal societies; it does not require to exist a new individuation dilating the vital individuation; it expresses the way in which the living exist in society; it is the vital unity of the first degree which is directly social; the information that is attached to social structures and functions (for example the functional differentiation of individuals in the organic solidarity of animal societies) is lacking in organisms as organisms. This society assumes as a condition of existence the structural and functional heterogeneity of different individuals in society. On the contrary, the transindividual collective group of homogeneous individuals; even if these individuals present some heterogeneity, it is in so far as they have a basic homogeneity that the group groups them, and not as they are complementary to each other in a superior functional unit. Society and transindividuality can also exist by superimposing themselves in the group as the vital and the psychic are superimposed in the individual life. The collective is distinguished from the interindividual as the interindividual does not require a new individuation in the individuals between which it is instituted, but only a certain regime of reciprocity and exchanges which suppose analogies between the intra-individual structures. rather than questioning individual issues. The birth of the interindividual is progressive and does not presuppose the bringing into play of emotion, the capacity of the individuated being to temporarily disindividually to participate in a larger individuation. Interindividuality is an exchange between individual realities that remain at their same level of individuation, and who seek in other individuals an image of their own existence parallel to this existence. The addition of a certain coefficient of interindividuality to a society can give the illusion of transindividuality, but the collective truly exists only if an individuation institutes it. It is historic.