A fuzzy process of individuation

ABSTRACT

It is shown that an aspect of the process of individuation may be thought of as a fuzzy set. The process of individuation has been interpreted as a two-valued problem in the history of philosophy. In this work, I intend to show that such a process in its psychosocial aspect is better understood in terms of a fuzzy set, characterized by a continuum membership function. According to this perspective, species and their members present different degrees of individuation. Such degrees are measured from the membership function of the psychosocial process of individuation. Thus, a social analysis is suggested by using this approach in human societies.

KEYWORDS:

• Fuzzy sets
• species
• process of individuation
• belonging
• societies

Acknowledgments

This study was financed in part by the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior—Brasil (CAPES)—Finance Code 001. I would like to thank Alexandre Patriota for helpful suggestions, Elena Senik for reading the manuscript and an anonymous referee for important questions raised during the review process.

Notes

¹ An introduction to fuzzy sets and its applications is found in Zimmermann (1996, 2010).

² "I shall call time and space the principium individuationis, an expression borrowed from the old scholasticism (…)", (Schopenhauer, 1969, Second Book, §23).

³ Schopenhauer (1969, Second book, §21).

⁴ Nietzsche (2007, I). The mature Nietzsche rejected the primordial unity because his philosophy of wills to power is plural.

⁵ Ibidem.

⁶ Without Schopenhauer’s influence, the mature Nietzsche constructed his own work. In that period, the Apolline and Dionysian drives are not abandoned. From that period, they carry a totally natural sense: they are manifestations of wills to power.

⁷ “I intend therefore to study the forms, modes, and degrees of individuation in order to situate accurately the individual in the wider being according to the three levels of the physical, the vital and the psychosocial,” Simondon (1992, p. 311). As we can see, there are degrees, which will be interpreted as a continuum in the fuzzy approach, and three levels of individuation as well, which will be discussed hereafter.

⁸ Idem, p. 312. A possible non-classical logic is the fuzzy logic, which comes from the fuzzy sets.

⁹ Idem, p. 300.

¹⁰ See Müller-Lauter (1993).

¹¹ Nietzsche (2005, p. 12).

¹² Simondon (1992, p. 305).

¹³ It is worth mentioning that for Schopenhauer there were degrees of manifestation of the will. Men are higher degrees of manifestation, or higher degrees of objectivity, than ants. Then, in my interpretation, one can see indications for a fuzzy approach in Schopenhauer philosophy as well (see Schopenhauer, 1969, Second book, §21 and §24). A process of individuation with degrees of individuation was indicated in Neves (2019) (and as we saw in Simondon (1992)), but without a formulation in terms of fuzzy sets.

¹⁴ In Nietzsche (2003, p. 84, fragment 2 (127) of 1885), for example, it is found “the nihilist consequences of the political and economic way of thinking”. For the German philosopher, nihilistic individuals generate nihilistic societies and vice versa. Using Simondon’s framework, both systems, individual and society, are not stable, they interact with themselves. For Simondon, there are processes of individuation for societies as well: “Individuation in its collective aspect makes a group individual (…)” (Simondon, 1992, p. 307). Both processes, individual and social, are dynamical, generating mutual influences.

¹⁵ Nietzsche (2005, p. 173).

¹⁶ Ibidem.

¹⁷ Idem, p. 113.

¹⁸ Nietzsche (2006, p. 34). Today it is not sufficient to belong to a specific culture, the demand is for states. Terrorists and peoples, such as Catalans, aim to found states.

¹⁹ See Primoratz (2019) for a review on the notions of patriotism and their differences in relation to the notion of nationalism.

²⁰ According to Canovan (2000), the notion of patriotism may not be sufficient to join people in capitalist societies, thus questions about identity and values are also important for the sense of belonging.

²¹ The quotes indicate that a completely isolated individual does not exist. The individual has cultural and collective origins as well.

²² The Greek Olympus would be a good example for this type of society, but the Mount Olympus has a king, Zeus, then it has a hierarchy.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior.