Notes on Simondon’s Individuation. Against Subtantialism and Hylomorphism

Simondon starts his investigation into the concept of individuation by claiming that throughout the history of philosophy there has been a mischaracterisation of the ontological status of the individual. In my book The Future is Not Lost: On Music, Technology, and the Creation of New Worlds (2026) I delve into this question by showing how Simondon’s theory of individuation seeks to solve this mischaracterisation, and how his thinking on this subject was a huge influence on the work of Deleuze and Stiegler. Beyond his influence on these two important thinkers I believe that Simondon shows us how a rethinking of the individual can lead to new forms of collective understanding whilst creating new potentials for group organisations and collectivisations, from anti-hauntology, to solarpunk, and beyond. However, in this article I want to provide some background philosophical context on Simondon’s thinking and show how he came to consider the idea of individuation as a primary philosophical problem.

Simondon claims that the Western tradition of ontology has generally been guilty of categorising the individual on the basis of two distinct viewpoints: substantialism and hylomorphism. The substantialist or atomist view “which considers the being as consisting in its unity, given to itself, founded on itself.” (Simondon, 2020, 1) Although Simondon himself does not mention the names of any particular philosophers in relation to the founding of substantialism, we can trace a progression from the Hellenistic tradition of atomism, most notably found in Epicurus and Lucretius, to the early modern Monadology of Leibniz. When summarising the views of the atomists in relation to the concept of the individual Simondon states:

“[E]verything] that can be a support of relation already shares the same mode of being as the individual, whether this be the atom, the eternal and indivisible particle, the first matter, or the form: the atom can enter into a relation with other atoms via the clinamen,1placeholder thereby constituting an individual (be it viable or not) through the infinite void and endless becoming” (Simondon, 2020, 2).

Here Simondon is claiming that the substantialists equate the atom with the primary individual, thus making the atom the primary substantial reality of which other individuals are composed. The clinamen, or unpredictable atomic ‘swerve’ is used by Lucretius to explain both how atomic collisions take place, and to denote the necessity of free will in nature (Lucretius in Fowler, 2002, 2.216-293). The clinamen in itself is not “reducible to a definite direction but is simply a deviation from any given definite or determinate direction: an oblique movement, an imperceptible bend, or unthinkable twist in atomic motion” (Johnson, 2017, 102). The atomists, in the Epicurean-Lucretian tradition, therefore, presume that we must begin any investigation into the nature of being with the already constituted individual, and subsequently ask about how it becomes. In doing so they start by thinking the nature of individuation in terms of the particular features of this already given individual.

Secondly, the hylomorphic view claims that “the individual is considered to be created by the coming together of form and matter” (Simondon, 2009, 4). The term hylomorphic originates from the Greek hylē (ὑλο), or ‘matter,’ and morphē (μορφή), or ‘form,’ and it represents a philosophical tradition which claims that individuals are formed through a combination of these two distinct properties. Here we can trace a line of thought from Aristotle’s empirical hylomorphism (which seeks the ontological grounding through which we can understand objects) to Kant’s transcendental hylomorphism (which seeks to explain the epistemological requirements for our experience of objects).2placeholder Indeed, in the Metaphysics, Aristotle analyses substance through the dichotomy between these two properties (form and matter), using the idea of substratum as a ‘third realm’ in which form and matter are joined together. The substratum is “of itself neither a particular thing nor of a particular quantity nor otherwise positively characterized; nor yet negatively” (Aristotle, 1991, 91). In other words, it is what exists when we remove the form and content from the material reality which makes up the world. Substratum, therefore, does not exist in actuality, or entelecheia (ἐντελέχεια), but only in potentiality, or dunamis (δύναμις). Thus, form and matter are the two primary categories of which substance consists, while substratum denotes a part of material reality in which form and matter are grounded; it cannot be directly accessed through sense experience, only through rationality. Matter and form pre-exist their coming together and therefore already exist in the same mode of being as the individual that they are intended to account for.

However, to Simondon, both the hylomorphic schema which consists in this dichotomy between form and matter, and the substantialist schema which relies on a ‘self-centred monism’ reminiscent of Epicurus, make a fundamental mistake in regards to the existence of the individual: “both presuppose the existence of a principle of individuation that is anterior to the individuation itself, one that may be used to explain, produce, and conduct this individuation” (Simondon, 2009, 4). In other words, they start logically from the constituted individual as something given and subsequently step back in order to understand the conditions or grounding of its existence. He goes on to argue that both the hylomorphic and substantialist traditions must therefore seek a principle of individuation that is capable of explaining the individual’s characteristics “without a necessary relation to other aspects of being that could be correlatives of the appearance of an individuated reality. Such a research perspective gives an ontological privilege to the constituted individual” (ibid.). They assume a fixed reality in which the individual can be understood logically without reference to the process that brings it into being. It is this reliance on the ontological primacy of the constituted individual that Simondon feels it is necessary to overturn. Indeed, due to this insistence on a principle of individuation which is necessary for the ‘ecceity’3placeholder of the individual, Simondon makes the argument that both the substantialist atomist schema and the hylomorphic schema directly avoid the problem of ontogenesis,4placeholder or the problem of the becoming of individual beings.

Bearing this in mind, Simondon claims that in the atomist view the composition of composite individuals has only a ‘precarious and ephemeral unity’ which arises from a chance encounter between atoms. Once the cohesive force that binds the atoms together in their ‘compound unity’ is overcome by a greater force the individual can once again dissipate into its atomic elements. Simondon’s important claim here is that this cohesive force which determines the nature of the compound atomic individual is itself a principle of individuation. These cohesive forces are therefore

“placed into the structure of the elementary particles that exist for all of eternity and that are the true individuals. In atomism, the principle of individuation is the very existence of the infinity of atoms: it is always already there at the moment thought attempts to grasp its nature. The individuation is a fact: for each atom, individuation is its own given existence, and for each compound, individuation is the fact that it is what it is–a compound–by virtue of a chance encounter” (ibid., 5).

In other words, Simondon claims that the atomists misunderstand the individual in that they claim that atoms exist as the one true primary substance, yet within that substance exists a principle of individuation that determines the organisation and structure of those atoms. They account for the genesis of the individual by presupposing a principle, or ‘first term’, that explains why the individual is individual. This principle must therefore exist logically prior to the atoms themselves. Following this reasoning we can infer that the principle of individuation must serve as the transcendental condition of any individuated atom, or collection of atoms, and therefore atomism is based on a contradiction.

On the other hand, hylomorphism claims that the individuated being is not apparent to us from our initial consideration of the two concepts of which it consists, i.e. matter and form. There is a process required for the principle of individuation to do its work. This relies on the assumption of an ontological distinction between the principle of individuation and the operation that puts the principle into practice. In this view, we do not witness ontogenesis (the becoming of being) because we already presuppose ourselves as existing prior to the ‘taking-form’ of which this becoming consists i.e. the combination between matter and form. As Simondon states: “One supposes that the principle is contained either in the matter or in the form, because the operation of individuation is not considered capable of providing the principle itself, but only of putting it to work [metre en oeuvre]” (ibid., 5). In other words, the operation of individuation must be explained by an ontologically prior principle that the operation merely puts into practice. Therefore, the hylomorphic schema relies on the presupposition of the existence of a logical succession which goes thus: (1) a principle of individuation exists (2) the principle undertakes an operation of individuation (3) a fully constituted individual is formed.

Consequently, as we have seen, Simondon rejects the assumptions of both of these views on the basis that they both presuppose substances that are already individuated through a principle of individuation. However, in Simondon’s view “a philosophy that truly wishes to address individuation must separate what tradition has always conflated, to distinguish being as such from being as individual (Combes, 2012, 2). Here Simondon seems to follow Heidegger’s ontic/ontological distinction, yet his concerns are of a different nature. He argues that to understand individuation we must instead turn to a process which constitutes this principle rather than merely putting it to work. In doing so we must choose to place individuation in place of the individual, and process in place of principle. Indeed, Simondon summarises the foundational argument of his primary thesis when he states that in order to overcome the problems posed by atomism and hylomorphism, we must seek to “know the individual through the individuation, rather than the individuation through the individual” (Simondon, 2009, 5). In other words, he wants to show that it is the process of individuation which must be considered ‘primordial’ since it is this process that brings the individual into being and “determines all the distinguishing characteristics of its development and organisation” (Simondon, 1992, 5). As the individual is no longer the primary source of inquiry, we can start to reconceptualise it in terms of this process of individuation, with the individual being understood as a singular phase in the becoming of being. As Combes states, “Simondon’s approach entails a substitution of ontogenesis for traditional ontology, grasping the genesis of individuals with the operation of individuation as it is unfolding” (Combes, 2012, 3).

The implications of this way of thinking are large and wide ranging. In The Future is Not Lost I attempt to show how Simondon’s thinking, through Stiegler and Deleuze, can give us a whole new set of tools to approach questions concerning technology, culture, and everything in between. To see process as metaphysically fundamental can, if applied correctly, lead to a whole new way of seeing and imagining the future. So, from the ancient thinking of Aristotle, to the cultural theory of today, truly understanding individuation can and should be seen as one of the primary goals of any forward thinking philosophy.