Living Systems in the context of non-reductionist materialism of Gilbert Simondon

Sayapin Vladislav Olegovich ORCID: 0000-0002-6588-9192 PhD in Philosophy Associate Professor; Department of History and Philosophy; Tambov State University named after G.R. Derzhavin 392000, Russia, Tambov region, Tambov, Internatsionalnaya str., 33 vlad2015@yandex.ru Other publications by this author

Biological individuation, vital individuation, or the individuation of a living entity (living system) is the process by which life arises and persists until death. In this regard, French social researcher J. Simondon argues that a living individual never stops self-individualization (except in cases of death). In addition, he believes that, unlike a physical individual, a living personality is the result of self–development and a "theater of individuation." Personality formation occurs through a constant series of flashes of individuation from one metastable phase to another. In other words, a living individual is presented as a problematic entity that is: "... both greater and less than unity" ^{[1, p.42]}. Thus, existence, taken as a living individual, is located at the average level of reality between two orders of magnitude. That is, a living individual always opens up to his inner self, which is smaller than himself as a whole, and to the outer self, which is larger than him. At the same time, it combines both orders of magnitude. Therefore, to say that living things are problematic is to consider becoming as a dimension of life: living things exist by their becoming, which mediates this existence^{[2, p.27]}. That's why the whole history of evolution is the history of the emergence of new life forms capable of solving previous problems. Hence, it can be assumed that a living individual is a system for resolving disparate pairs.

What does Simondon mean in this case? He means that not all the activity of a living individual is focused on its limit, as in the case of a physical individual. "The living lives at the limit of itself, at its own limit… <..The polarities characteristic of life reside at the membrane level; it is here that life is essentially present as an aspect of a dynamic topology, which itself supports the metastability by which it exists... <..The entire content of the inner space is in topological contact with the content of the outer space at the limits of life; in fact, there is no distance in topology; the entire mass of living matter contained in the inner space is actively present in the outside world at the limit of life... <...> Belonging to the inner means not only being inside, but also being on the inner side of the limit... At the level of a polarized membrane, the inner past and the outer future collide..."^{[3, pp.140-141]}. Moreover, Simondon argues that there is a more complete mode of internal resonance in the inner sphere of a living individual, which constantly supports metastability and communication. That is, there are factors that are important conditions in the pursuit of a vital individual's life. As a result: "A living being is able to develop due to the fact that it has an "internal resonance" with its environment, and it never passively adapts to the environment. Consequently, the attitude of individuation is not at all the attitude of individuals, but always acts as an aspect of internal resonance that characterizes the system of individuation. Such resonance requires continuous communication and maintenance of metastability as a precondition for formation"^{[4, p.775]}.

In other words, there is an inspired repetition of the theme of the Bergsonian image as a fold of matter, later picked up by J. Deleuze (1925-1995), for whom life should be able to be determined only on the plane of immanence of material forces. This is exactly what Simondon does: life, according to him, does not depend on the specific chemical components of individuals, which are not noticeable at the physico-chemical level, but it is determined only by the difference in their spatial arrangement. Vital subjectivity is never anything more than a topological scheme or otherwise - as a spatial unfolding, translated by chronogenesis. This occurs not only because of a sudden break in the forms of special structural or energetic conditions, but also because of a simple twisting of materiality. Moreover, this occurs on the basis of complete spatial individuation, which contributes to the appearance of a specific membrane tissue endowed with selective permeability and possessing the chemical property of functioning as a limit^[5]. All this allows for the emergence of a new property of time at the level of the living phase mode of individuation. That is, from the moment of the origin of the vital individual, the differentiation of multiple temporal reality is added to his metastable formation, distinguishing itself at the level of present relevance in the form of intermittent flows of the past and the future. Ultimately, the individuation (ontogenesis) of a living individual is always the discovery or invention of a new ontogenetic organization that allows combining the stresses of life itself – "eternal individuation"^{[2, p.204]}. That is why, before we grasp the full force and originality of the Simondonian theory of "genetic ontology," we must identify its scientific and philosophical context.

It should be noted that Simondon devotes half of his dissertation to the study of the evolution of living forms and the multiplicity of living systems (from protozoa to mammalian colonies), based on the work of biology, zoology, ethology and psychology, as evidenced by his analysis of the works of Ch. Darwin (1809-1883), J.B. Lamarck (1744-1829), A. Weisman (1834-1914), K. Goldstein (1878-1965), A.L. Gesell (1880-1961), M. Merleau-Ponty (1908-1961) and others. It is important to emphasize here that back in 1942, Merleau-Ponty rethought the problem of psychophysiological relations, which he viewed in terms of traditional antifysicalism, with which Simondon wanted to break. The task of Simondon, who became interested in this problem in 1952, was to reconcile materialism with the recognition of the specifics of the fact of life. In other words, if reductionist materialism presents matter as an atomized, mechanical, passive and inert principle, then non-reductionist materialism presents matter as something capable of generating subjectivity and meaningfulness, as a place of spontaneous and unpredictable energy. It is within this framework that the concept of life becomes central, and the main problem of the specificity of the vital individual in relation to the physical individual becomes increasingly important for Simondon. Thinking about living and mental systems, without completely detaching them from its material dimension, requires not only intensive ontological, but also epistemological reflection, through which the processing of psychophysiological relationships becomes possible.

It is generally believed that K. Goldstein^[6], M. Merleau-Ponty^[7] and Simondon saw the basis of biological knowledge in the concept of "tropism" denoting the tendency of the vital organism to restore certain physiological balances. And therefore, from their point of view, biology is not limited to physics: it studies the living tropistic behavior of organisms with its important biological significance, which is not present in the phenomena of the physical world. In addition, to understand a living individual, Simondon agrees with another researcher, A. Adler (1870-1937)^[8]. According to Adler, it is not enough just to study the behavior of a living individual, since this is only an external manifestation of his internal relationships and goals, but it is always necessary to consider the real, specific conditions of the ontogenesis of a living individual. Moreover, the main idea of Simondon^[2] in the context of these arguments consists, in our opinion, precisely of a meaningful dialogue with Merleau-Ponty about the importance of matter and its ability to provide conceptual tools for understanding the genetic and essential nature of life. The whole point of Simondon's reflections was not only to evaluate non-reductionist materialism, since it is energetic and neotenic, but also to break with the theory of "antifysicalism" (antimaterialism), with the help of which Merleau-Ponty only hoped to realize an understanding of the specifics of a living individual. In this case, the concept of "neotenic", according to Simondon, is something alive, which is postulated as a slow and prolonged development of the physical phase of individuation, since living systems arose from inanimate systems. Therefore, here we will talk about how, in the face of Goldstein's biologism and the Merleau-Ponty phenomenology directly inherited from it, to show Simondon's materialist point of view, which turns out to be one of the key points of French Marxist thought. Moreover, the main purpose of this study is to assess the extent of materialism, to develop a non-reductionist way of thinking about life, which involves: firstly, understanding how this gap with Merleau-Ponty occurs, and secondly, determining in what sense one can speak about materialism in relation to the teachings of Simondon.

So, from the very beginning, agreeing with Goldstein's biology, Merleau-Ponty recognizes that living systems are different from systems of purely physical existence. However, according to Merleau-Ponty, such a fundamental heterogeneity between living and physical systems cannot be understood independently of a certain form of uniformity. In other words, if vital systems belong to a certain type, they cannot exist outside the physical substrate. Therefore, it is important for our research to clarify the nature of this relationship between a living system and a physical system. In this regard, Merleau-Ponty argues that he achieves such an understanding of the nature of the relationship between a living and physical system using a phenomenological method that proceeds from the perceptual experience of consciousness, which allows one to perceive, understand, navigate and interact with the surrounding world. Moreover, here it is the phenomenal experience of a living individual (this is a living individual, either a biologist or a phenomenologist), who meets and perceives another living individual who has become an object of knowledge. In other words, such an experience is similar to that of a child who: "... understands the joyful meaning of a smile long before he sees his own smile..."^{[7, p.169]}. It is in this context that we understand the meaning of vital behavior. The living appears to us in the meaningful form of dynamism. That is, the living, which has already become the object of knowledge, refers to a certain meaning. Therefore, Merleau-Ponty's concept of one's own body acquires such an evolutionary meaning, which constitutes the fact that the boundary between object and subject is blurred under the syncretic influence of the concept of "life". Actually, the concept of the body means what is perceived as "living knowing" and "living known". It follows from this that the organism with which biology deals is such an "ideal unit" ^{[7, p.165]}, namely, a whole and significant living system for consciousness. In other words, according to Merleau-Ponty's amazing Platonic expression, such an understanding of the relations between physical and vital systems is equivalent to fragmentary phenomena that: "... participate in ideas without enclosing them in themselves" ^{[7, p.165]}.

As a result, the central problem of the behavior of a living system really lies in the problem of immanent cognition of the physical system^{[7, p.170]}. At the same time, the vital thing is the content of the semantic content that biologists and phenomenologists understand when living things appear before them. And this is really the phenomenon (what it seems to consciousness) that they are looking for in the very heart of physical systems. This problem of immanence is related to the problem of ontogenesis precisely because it raises the ontological question of living and mental systems endowed with certain structures of behavior, or, in other words, a set of stable connections (relationships) between the elements of these systems. Regarding these structures, Merleau-Ponty notes that the existence of such vital significance presupposes the existence of a common function of behavior organization, an organization that occurs at the level of the physical substrate^{[7, p.74]}. Hoping to go beyond neurophysiology, inspired by academician I.P. Pavlov (1849-1936), as well as the ideas of A. Pieron (1849-1936) and Goldstein, he draws the following conclusion. The general structure of behavior is for the fragmentary nervous system the same as the principle is for the consequence, or in a different way than the signifier is for the sign^[7,p.70]. Moreover, and he insists on it, that the physico-chemical (brain) substrate coordinates and ultimately subordinates itself to a meaning incomprehensible from the point of view of elementary physics. Simply put, coordination now represents the creation of a semantic unity, expressed in comparable parts of certain relations that have no obligations to the materiality of the terms they combine^{[7, p.96]}.

It is for this reason that C.S. Sherrington (1857-1952)^[9], who was the first to comprehend the concepts of "integration" and "coordination", put forward the central idea for all subsequent neurophysiology that the appearance of a vital or mental function in a physico-chemical body is integration and refers to a progressive and increasingly complex neural network. However, within the framework of a radical rejection of reductionist materialism, according to Merleau-Ponty, the physiological laws of brain functioning alone, as Sherrington imagined (synaptic associations, chronax modulations) cannot be sufficient to explain the appearance of a structure of behavior, the meaning of which is really vital. In addition, Merleau-Ponty exposes the "ambiguous" nature of the correlative concepts of neural integration and coordination^{[7, p.84]} and replaces them with the concepts of "common function" and "redistribution". In this regard, the concept of "redistribution" means the reorganization of a neural network in such a way that it performs a specific function, where such a reorganization occurs according to a non-physical principle. Therefore, the analysis leads to a special type of structuring, which is really important and cannot be reduced to a simple complication by combining and combining physical processes.

As a result, associating the general function not with an external cause or with a hypothetical active principle having the rank of being, Merleau-Ponty refers this structure to a form ^{[7, p.166-173]}, which he conceptualizes, like I. Kant (1724-1804), as a meaning or phenomenon. That is why the transition from the concept of "structure" to the concept of "meaning for consciousness" is actually the key, and perhaps also the limit, to the phenomenological method adopted by Merleau-Ponty. It follows from this that Merleau-Ponty, using Goldstein's functional concept, seeks not to conduct a discourse about being and about real structures, but a descriptive discourse. Its object becomes nothing more than the subjective perception of behavior, the real structures of which, at the level of a living system, are only supposed to be irreducible to physical structures. As a result, vitalism is being replaced by biologism. That is, the concept of "vital force", which served the purpose of an ontological explanation, is being replaced by the concept of "vital significance". In this case, the sole purpose of life value is to serve as a heuristic principle for future neurophysiology. However, having subsequently made a rather unexpected turn, Merleau-Ponty stops this ontological understanding, since he refuses any explanatory claims to purely descriptive phenomenology.

The meaning of this turn at the ontological level, in our opinion, is similar to the organizing function of the Aristotelian ergon. This ergon denotes a presumptive and defining function (vegetative, sensitive, motor or intellectual), which the being in potency implements in its action. That is, Merleau-Ponty stubbornly opposes finalism, but in his work The Structure of Behavior (1942), everything happens as if he agrees with this finalism, which he canceled out of caution. Of course, the "functional concept" that he borrows from Goldstein subordinates indefinite matter to a general redistributive function. A general function really refers to a principle that results in a physical organization. But since he refuses to conduct an ontological discourse about being, since he prefers to adhere to a purely descriptive discourse, he does not go so far as to make the function in question equivalent to the Aristotelian action, that is, the principle of individuation. "Nothing obliges," Merleau-Ponty points out, to think that the cycle of physico-chemical actions can be completed through the phenomenon of the organism, that the explanation may coincide with the data of the description" ^{[7, p.172]}. That is why he actually refuses to explicate ontogenesis precisely in order not to take a hasty position on the ontological level. In the Merleau-Ponty phenomenological project, there is no place for ontogenesis, which can take into account the essential and genetic character of living beings, despite its desire to describe a specifically vital form of structuring.

So why not create this phenomenon using Bachelard's formula (1884-1962), namely through constructive reflection on matter, which would simultaneously explain the genesis and reflect on the essence of life. This, in short, is the essence of the "realism of relations" of Simondon's project, which opposes the Merleau-Ponty point of view not only on an ontological but also on a methodological level. On the ontological level, Simondon suggests reflecting on the origin and autogenic nature of living beings. But what is so important is not to repeat the traditional gap between the vital and the physical. As for tradition, F. Jacob (1920-2013) in his work "The Logic of the Living"^[10] shows very clearly that the biological attitude arose when, at the end of the 18th century, there was a transition from one classification of beings to another. The ancient classification, which distinguished beings depending on whether they belonged to one of the three kingdoms: mineral, vegetable or animal, is being replaced, in particular, by naturalists such as J.B. Lamarck (1744-1829) or F. Vic-d'Azyr (1748-1794) by dividing into inert and living entities. However, it is the criterion of organization that underlies this new classification. In fact, there is a division between the disorganized, inert, on the one hand, and the living, well–organized, since it has an internal principle of organization, on the other.

Obviously, in the name of this criterion of organization, something is being asserted that is perhaps more specific to the life position, namely the rejection of any physicalist, reductionist and continuist explanation of the organism. In this case, for example, Lamarck re-accepts physicalism and continualism against vitalism, but at the same time does not abandon the biological point of view. That is, for vitalism, a living being cannot be the result of a simple complication of material processes or a product of causality internal to matter itself. Hence the reference to external causality, such as the life force. Thus, in his physiological studies, K. Bisha (1771-1802)^[11] really opposes physicalism, as well as the Cartesian concept of an "animate mechanical body", by simply observing the irreducibility of the properties of biological phenomena to the properties of physical objects. In addition, contrary to Descartes (1596-1650) and all forms of animism, Bichat also argued that emotional, sentimental, and intellectual processes are integral to the life force of animals. Where animism views life and matter as subordinated to spiritual causality, vitalism describes the subordination of material and spiritual orders to the living. The variability and heterogeneity of the metabolism of plants and animals, their sensitivity and mobility, for example, disrupt the immutability and uniformity of physical phenomena. That is why the study and analysis of the living, just as we study and analyze the inanimate, leads only to the substitution of life for death. Therefore, anyone who studies animal fluids and secretions as simple physical and chemical realities defends what Bichat calls the "cadaveric anatomy of fluids." Against this chemistry of death, Bichat calls for "physiological chemistry"^{[11, p.58]}, a more appropriate biological science that does not reduce an organism to a physico-chemical body. From this it is easy to understand that the science of organized bodies should be considered completely differently from the one whose objects are inorganic bodies. As a result, you can use a different language. After all, most of the words transferred from the natural sciences to the sciences of the animal or plant world constantly remind us of ideas that do not fit in any way with the phenomena of this science.

At the same time, it was this vitalist attitude that Merleau-Ponty partially inherited when, under the influence of biologism and Goldstein's functional concept, he criticized reductionist and continualist physicalism. That is, when, due to the variability and heterogeneity of vital behavior, he argued that the norm of life cannot be reduced to a physical law ^{[7, p.161]}. And it is precisely this vital position and this long-standing criticism of continualist physicalism that Simondon considers unfounded. Indeed, tradition makes us think that living beings cannot come from physical beings, because they are superior to the latter due to their organization. However, this attitude itself is a consequence of the original postulate, according to which inert nature cannot contain high organization ^{[2, p.159]}. Moreover, in fact, Bachelard has already condemned this custom of those philosophers who not only failed to update their scientific knowledge, but also did not comprehend the true wealth of materialism. According to Bachelard: "... we will have to persist for a long time on the ineffectiveness of mass materialism, immobile materialism."… <..It is precisely this mass, naive, outdated materialism that serves as a target for too light criticism of idealistic philosophy. Thus, too many philosophers struggle with the old-fashioned ghost"^{[12, p.3]}.

However, for Bachelard, this wealth of genuine materialism is due to a new understanding of matter, viewed as the chemical side of existence, which is relational and dynamic because it is energetic. "Materialism of matter"^{[12, p.3]}, to use Bachelard's expression against "materialism without matter"^{[12, p.4]}, which has become the target of a philosophy afraid of ghosts, should be understood as: "... energetic materialism, which is clarified by establishing the true existentialism of energy"^{[12, p.177]}. In other words, energy means what matter lives and exists by, what structures the being that it forms. Being is a node of material activity in the sense that any atom can be quantified at the energy level ^{[13, p.82]} (an atom consists of a nucleus, which, in turn, consists of protons, neutrons and an electron cloud). Moreover, matter is a place of energy exchanges and relationships that change its structure, as it happens, for example, in chemical mixtures. Matter carries energy: and energy is the active principle of the formation of matter, which the vitalists sought on the side of the vital force (or principle), therefore, on the side of the causal relationship external to matter. As a result, any change in the structure of material existence is a reflection of an energetic shift in the relationship between energetically disparate and, consequently, materially heterogeneous elements that are the driving force of this energetic and material life.

Considering living systems in which information serves as a working substrate, and inspired by scientific discoveries in thermodynamics, and above all by the amazing role of M. Planck (1858-1947) and K.E. Shannon (1916-2001), Simondon also insists on the role of energy in autonomous structures of matter. In this case, such a description of the ontogenesis of a living system suggests a transition from inert matter to operational materiality, indicating the deep processes taking place in it. This circumstance is noted in their philosophical research by J. Deleuze (1925-1995) and F. Guattari (1930-1992). The thing to which: "... we are referring not so much to matter subject to laws as to materiality with a nomos" ^{[14, p.690]}. Moreover, in their opinion: "... Simondon exposes the technological insufficiency of the matter–form model, because it assumes a fixed form and matter, considered as homogeneous. It is the idea of law that ensures the coherence of this model, since it is laws that subordinate matter to one form or another, and vice versa, laws realize in matter this essential property derived from form. But Simondon shows that the "hylomorphic scheme" does not affect many things, active and affective. On the one hand, to formalized or formable matter, it is necessary to add all the energetic materiality in motion, carrying singularities or these, which are already similar to implicit forms, topological rather than geometric, and which are combined with deformation processes – for example, waves and variable twisting of wood fibers, which set the rhythm of chopping wood into logs. On the other hand, to the essential properties of matter arising from the formal essence, it is necessary to add intense variable affects, which sometimes follow from the operation, and sometimes, on the contrary, make it possible – for example, a more or less porous, more or less elastic and durable tree"^{[14, p.690]}.

Therefore, does this mean that Simondon is after all the heir of Bachelard, whose materialism he could rethink with the help of schemes taken from other fields of physics? There is no exact answer. However, surprisingly, Simondon claims that he has no idea about the work of Bachelard, whom he even calls simply a "poet" ^{[15, p.415]}. Nevertheless, there is a connection between the two authors, and it concerns primarily their rejection of antimaterialism illuminated by modern physics. As a result, disagreeing with the conclusions of Merleau-Ponty, who denied that a single body owes its semantic unity to the materiality of agreed terms, Simondon believes that only materiality provides the conditions for the emergence of vital structures: "Life is not a substance other than matter; it involves processes of integration and differentiation, which in no way they can be defined by nothing other than physical structures"^{[2, p.162]}.

No matter what the theory of "vitalism" says, matter is really animated and capable of self-organization. And the organization of vitalism is not the result of causality external to it. Indeed, the concepts of "integration" and "differentiation" that Simondon uses here refer to two aspects of the same genetic process, where matter is the site of such a process. They denote, respectively, the interiorization of the external structural and energetic order through the reorganization of internal structures and the active adoption of a form by the system, which is reorganized as an operational structure. As a result, the difference in the mode of individuation between the physical and the vital is not due to the existence of different structuring processes, but to a common system and operations that involve these material processes of integration and differentiation. A living system completely takes over the material reality, and we must understand the structural and energetic, that is, the genetic and operational reality, which, in turn, supports it. Methodologically, it looks like "energetic materialism," which detaches Simondon from a purely descriptive approach and gives him a starting point other than a living phenomenal experience. Instead, matter becomes its starting point. His method is realistic rather than phenomenological, and the real thing is the energetic and, consequently, material relationship from which individuation proceeds through integration and differentiation.

It is generally believed, however, that it is problematic to talk about materialism in relation to Simondon, since he himself says that his doctrine is not materialism^{[2, p.158]}. Therefore, to place Simondon in the tradition of Bachelard in the name of the general intuition of energetic materialism is nothing more than misleading researchers. In fact, the whole question is to what extent Simondon can really present himself as a new type of materialist. Perhaps not the direct heir of Bachelard, but undoubtedly anticipated by him.

Our proposed answer suggests reducing Simondon's distrust of outdated materialism, which is also criticized by Bachelard, and recognizing that the concept of "materialism" is not a simple and unambiguous concept. Materialism, with which Simondon does not identify himself, is structured by the traditional division into living and inert entities, based, therefore, on the criteria of organization, which we discussed earlier. It is the validity of this criterion that Simondon directly attacks when he dissociates himself from materialism and debunks the alternative between materialism and spiritualism. It follows that materialism, which is unacceptable to him, is reductionism. And it is precisely the science that is unacceptable, which sees in the complication of processes inherent in inert matter, the only way to explain vital structures and, consequently, psychosocial structures. Instead of relying on such a reduction of the complex to the simple, it is important for him to assume a sequence from physical reality to higher biological forms, without making distinctions of classes and species ^{[2, p.158]}. That's why Simondon advocates some form of continualism (for some continuity between matter and life). However, such a continualism, firstly, is still compatible with the gap between the physical and the vital, and secondly, it has lost its classification, which raises great doubts. Irreducibility to continuity is really related to the transformation of the organization, as well as changing the ways in which individuation occurs, rather than simple complication: "If we assume from the very beginning that matter is a system with a very high level of organization, then we cannot so easily prioritize life and matter. Perhaps it should be assumed that the organization is preserved, but transformed during the transition from matter to life" ^{[2, p.158]}.

Thus, it seems possible to consider Simondon's theory of "individuation" as "reinterpreted materialism" in the sense that it refers to the concept according to which a living system manifests itself within the framework of a completely and exclusively material reality. However, this living system is not reducible in its organization and ways of functioning to a physical system. We speak materially to the extent that the transition from the vital phase to the psychosocial phase of individuation must be understood in terms of the transformation of the organization of a still material being, and not as a transition from one substance to another. It follows from this that Simondon's statement that everything is material means that in his concept matter can be everything that it is not in traditional reductionist materialism, or even everything that it is not, only in a simple system of physical individuation. This is precisely the strong meaning behind Simondon's revision of materialism: it justifies our point of view on his theory. We must begin by recognizing that the concept of "materialism" is not simple; it is necessary to single out in his theory of "individuation" precisely non-reductionist materialism, which differs from reductionist and traditional materialism. In this case, the whole question lies in the fact that, in addition to its energetic aspect, Simondonian materialism really allows us to think about the normality of life and the autogenetic nature of living things, which recognizes the important role of external factors in its ontogenesis.

Therefore, for Simondon, continualism does not mean reductionism. From the point of view of continualism, Simondon rightly opposes Goldstein's functional concept, which Merleau-Ponty once again accepts. "Unfortunately, the holistic systematics of biologism," writes Simondon, "presented by Goldstein, is understood as necessarily macrophysical, encompassing the entire totality of a complex organism. Goldstein's Parmenides ontology excludes any connection between the study of the living and the study of the inert, whose processes are microphysical. There may be an intermediate order of phenomena between the partial microphysics and the macrophysical unit of an organism; this order would be the order of genetic, chronological and topological processes, that is, the processes of individuation common to all levels of reality in which ontogenesis occurs"^{[2, p.229]}.

Simply put, the desire to comprehend what the essence or genetic character of an entity is, which is actually vital, but radically related to its materiality, leads Simondon to ontological reflection on what he calls the "pre-individual." That is, to reflect on being: structural and energetic differences (or incompatibilities) that resolve themselves and underlie every individuation, every form-taking. Contrary to the ontology of Parmenides, Simondon in some way returns to the ontology of Heraclitus. He considers the process of individuation based on differences in being. In this regard, the pre-individual refers to all heterogeneous states, at the energy and structural level, constituting existence. That is, states that are equally not only assumed, but are also contemporaries of the individuation process. As a result, this pre-individual state is relational and metastable. The metastable state (a concept inherited by Simondon from thermodynamics) is neither stable nor purely unstable, in fact, it is a relationship rich in potentials arising from extinction itself and initiating energetic and structural changes (individuation). Therefore, the living system does not just develop through assimilation, it condenses and represents everything that was developed in the beginning – in a pre-individual existence.

It is in this context that matter is the common support for two modes: physical and vital individuation. At the same time, their difference lies in the fact that a living individual maintains metastability, while a physical individual has become stable and exhausted its potentials. Without going into details of the transition from the regime of physical individuation to the regime of life, we only note that the concept of "neoteny", to which Simondon refers, directly allows us to constitute this transition, which is not a simple materialistic continuity. Simondon's hypothesis is that the life phase of individuation is not only the life phase of individuation in anticipation, but also retains and expands the earliest phase of physical individuation. In other words, instead of exhausting its potential in creating a final and stable structure, a living entity retains something of the pre-individual tension within itself, from which structures arise^{[2, p.152]}.

In principle, the meaning that Simondon gives to the term "neoteny" is close to its etymology, since it was formed at the end of the 19th century by the anthropologist J. Kohlmann (1834-1918) by comparing the Greek prefix "neo" meaning "new" and the verb "teinein" meaning "expand". In addition, it can be noted that the thesis about the neotenic character of man originally appeared in Louis Bolk (1866-1930), an anatomist and biologist who really became famous for his theory of the "fetalization of the human body." According to this theory, the development of a human embryo will paradoxically consist of such slowdowns that will become permanent by the end of its life. That is why the adult age in primates is only temporary and juvenile. This thesis about "human neoteny" was later picked up by the psychoanalyst J. Lacan (1901-1981) and the American paleontologist, theorist of the evolution of life Stephen Jay Gould (1941-2002) and B. Stigler (1952-2020). As a result, living systems retain the ability to structure, namely, the ability to transduce, thanks to which biological species can expand indefinitely. In addition, according to Simondon, it is affectivity that maintains metastability in living individuals and, therefore, designates the relationship between an individualized individual and a pre-individual environment. That is why Simondon argues that affectivity is not only a system of transduction, but also a system that retains its ability to transduce, namely, the desire for polarization and structuring. "Transduction," says Simondon, "is carried out through affectivity and all the systems that play the role of transducers at various levels in the body. As a result, an individual would always be a system of transduction, but although this transduction is direct and one-level in a physical system, it is indirect and hierarchical in a living being"^{[2, p.161]}.

Thus, unlike the direct type of transduction that can be found in an inert physical system, this indirect allagmatic type of transduction is inherently inventive. It leads to a kind of "quantum leap", to a state that cannot be obtained from the previous one. Therefore, vital individuals carry out transductions not by spreading in a homogeneous environment, but by resolving the initial state of dephasing or disparation (from Latin disparatio – to be incomparable) between two systems in favor of a new pairing or coupling. In other words, in the vital individual, transduction is not direct, but indirect ^{[2, p.160]}. As a result, for Simondon, transduction means the process of structuring reality through which individuation occurs. It follows that transduction consists in the transfer of activity from one individual to another through the gradual structuring of the realm of reality. Strictly speaking, any individuation is understood as information or taking form through transduction. At the same time, if Simondon understands affectivity as the essence of an individualizing relationship between integration and differentiation. And therefore, every integration and every differentiation represents a structural and energetic reorganization of the system, which results in a deepening of the pre-individual reality, updating or enriching the problem from which individuation proceeds as a solution. In other words, it is precisely the disparations (tensions between incompatible, as yet unrelated dimensions or potentials in being) from which individuation arises, and with them the internal problems of the system, that are renewed as a result of integration and differentiation. If there is a preservation of the structuring force, it is in the sense that each new integration and each new differentiation is accompanied by a new reinforcement.

That is why it is necessary to place an important emphasis on this concept of "affectivity", which is central to Simondon's reflections on living beings. And, moreover, to pay attention to the synthetic and polarizing role of affective qualities, which allow complex products of integrating and differentiating activity to combine into the identity and unity of the subject^{[2, p.162]}. It is through the concept of "affectivity" that Simondon suggests addressing the problem of psychophysiological attitudes that initially interested him. Suffice it to say that this concept breaks with Parmenides' ontology, according to which, if there is a genesis, it comes from the same thing. Contrary to this statement, Simondon proposes to consider the emergence of a life system from a physical system, the emergence of a change in the order of reality, which directly contradicts the ontology of Parmenides. If you believe the "Poem" of Parmenides, "from what is "it is impossible" to give birth to something else" ^{[16, pp.49-52]}.

Finally, based on Goldstein, Simondon argues that equilibria already exist in the body, and the question of the emergence of behavioral norms that achieve them is not raised. Any change in balance when adapting to a destructive environment is to restore the same balance. It follows that a new equilibrium arises insofar as, in order to be restored, it exists in the body at least virtually, as a set of necessary physiological conditions. This is the meaning of those "virtual conditions" ^{[7, p.157]}, according to which, for example, Merleau-Ponty asserts the specificity of life behavior in comparison with physical phenomena in the structure of behavior. But these are virtual physiological conditions (we are thinking about different homeostatic equilibria) They still do not allow us to imagine the structure of behavioral and individual norms through which they are restored.

That is why replacing the concept of "real potential" with the concept of "virtual", as Simondon does, provides a conceptual means for understanding normativity. Which means, for example, that J. Kangilema (1904-1995)^[17] life is understood not just as the application of pre-established norms, but as a movement of spontaneous and gradual development of norms. Normality, which, according to Cangillem, essentially characterizes life, refers to the ability to review and establish norms, namely a certain set of norms of life and behavior. That is why talking about normality means, instead of considering the implementation of norms as a mechanical application of a pre–established authority, to show how a specific movement of norms develops. That is, these norms are life patterns, in search of conditions for their implementation, gradually developing the power that they produce both in form and content. As a result, Simondon allows us to talk about such a structuring force, about such a normativity, comprehended at the level of the individual, more precisely, the subject, and not the species. Then normativity does not refer to the presence of biological constants or to the structured nature of collective or individual behavior. This once again indicates the existence of a force capable of producing norms. Cangillem has already insisted enough (and Simondon, by the way, does not ignore him) that we are more than normative entities. The norms should be "hacked" and updated, as he put it. And we ourselves must be this hacking and updating, strictly speaking, living beings ^{[17, p.106]}.

Therefore, the ontology of pre-individual existence may well be a way for Simondon to lay the foundations of what Cangillem always rejected, namely philosophical biology, which takes into account not only pre-established dynamism, but also reflects the ontological foundations of life normativity instead of the biologist. But we should be a little more precise and point out that Simondon differs from Merleau-Ponty in a very special attitude to biology. While Merleau-Ponty takes a step back to the origins of the biological attitude, drawing inspiration from the vitalist tradition, Simondon is content to put forward guiding hypotheses that are themselves inspired by the physical and biological sciences. In this regard, considering the analysis of the modern researcher J.-G. Barthelemy, it can be noted that epistemology is necessary for ontology. And this means recognizing what Simondon attributes to the sciences, or rather to modern physics, and what Bachelard said about the theory of "relativity" by A. Einstein (1879-1955), calling it an "inductive value." In other words, this should be understood not as the ability of a physical theory to construct itself through induction, but as a philosophical sphere that allows philosophical ontology to build itself on the basis of what physics teaches it ^{[18, p.9]}.

As a result, for Simondon, it is not about replacing philosophical biology with scientific biology, but about the mutual enrichment of biology and philosophical ontology. In other words, hypotheses philosophically constructed on the basis of science can provide the latter with some opportunities for research. In addition, Simondon believes that the topology of a living system now requires a related chronology of that system. In this case, according to Simondon, two spatiotemporal conditions are always required to define life: spatial or topological determination (folding) and its chronogenetic consequence (the embodiment of temporality), which outlines the edges of life in its path and bifurcates due to the differentiation of life relative to the inner and outer. For example, a similar differentiation can be seen if we consider the formation of living systems in terms of complex organisms, whether as in the biologist K. Goldstein^[19] or as in the Psychology of psychologist K. Levin (1890-1947)^[20], who analyzes "living space" as the result of successive movements of a highly organized individual. A living individual solves problems not only by adapting, that is, by changing his attitude to the environment, but also by modifying himself, namely by inventing new internal structures. According to Simondon, a living individual is both an individualizing living system and a system that individualizes itself. And that is why the development of a living individual is increasingly focused on invention.

Thus, the phenomenological discourse and the realistic discourse of Simondon cannot be combined with each other. Such an attempt is tantamount to ignoring the radical difference between the two registers of discourse, the first of which concerns subjective data and the process of forming a transcendental subject, and the other – the reality of physical processes. These two projects are incompatible both in terms of the epistemological and ontological biases that structure them, and in terms of the methods and goals that govern them. Therefore, establishing a dialogue with Merleau-Ponty or, more generally, phenomenology with Simondon can have only one function: to always further limit this epistemological and ontological distinction. That is why, to make sure of this, it is enough to turn to the problem of an adequate understanding of the essence of life. Traditionally, we want to think about life through the rejection of materialism with the help of outdated antiphysicalism. However, Simondon's strength lies in showing that we think about life only within the framework of a reinterpreted materialism. Indeed, to reflect on the nature of a living being is equivalent to Simondon's search for the material ontological conditions of individuation, namely, to reflect on partial changes in the ways of physical individuation that mark the emergence of a vital autogenetic system.

Ultimately, all this allows Simondon to avoid the following problems. Firstly, by excluding a simple description that is unable to give an idea of what a system of vital structuring should be. Secondly, to direct thinking so as not to question the reliable connection of continuity between the physical and vital orders of reality. Thus, the Simondonian theory of "individuation" uses, in contrast to the simple subjective understanding of life behavior, which is an unresolved problem of the immanence of vital significance to the physical, the concept of "ontogenesis of the individual" capable of at least hypothetically showing both continuity and gap between the physical and living individuals. Repeating Bachelard's amazing formula: matter "exists" because it is a place of energy exchange, and it is this rich existence that ultimately explains the autogenic nature of life.