Introduction: Not the Individual, but Individuation
If phasing allows construal to scale across collectives, then what becomes of the individual within such a system? The modern Western frame tends to take “individuals” as primary: the basic units of society, identity, and agency. But a relational ontology inverts the frame.
Individuals are not givens. They are not atomic, pre-social units that enter into meaning. Rather, they are relational becomings — patterned perspectival formations within the ongoing phasing of collective construal. They emerge through social formation, not prior to it.
This post reframes individuation as a perspectival cline between the symbolic potential of a collective and the structured construals that differentiate across it. From this view, persons are not containers of meaning, but differentiated inflections of the symbolic field.
1. The Individual as Phase-Cut
An individual is not an isolated node. Nor are they merely a point in a network. They are a phase-cut through the relational field — a perspectival locus where multiple construals align and differentiate.
To be individuated is to enact a patterned relation to:
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One’s social roles and affiliations
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One’s place within symbolic systems
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One’s histories of alignment and disalignment
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One’s construal of others and their construal of oneself
This patterned relation is not fixed. It is dynamic — it phases with the evolving symbolic formations of the collective.
Individuation is not a state, but a trajectory of perspectival coordination.
2. Social Formation as a Field of Possibility
A collective does not contain individuals. It generates the field of their possible formation. This field includes:
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Discursive roles (e.g. speaker, author, teacher, citizen)
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Embodied perspectives (e.g. gendered, racialised, aged)
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Value positions (e.g. insider, marginal, deviant, exemplary)
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Symbolic enactments (e.g. genres of personhood, styles of presence)
These are not scripts handed down by a social order. They are reflexive formations — semiotic positions made possible by patterned construal within the collective.
To take up a role or identity is to actualise one of these positions. But actualisation is never neutral: it is perspectival, contested, and responsive to alignment or misalignment within the broader symbolic field.
3. Aligning and Differentiating: The Work of Personhood
Individuation is not isolation — it is patterned differentiation within shared construal. This process involves at least three interwoven dynamics:
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Symbolic alignment: taking up construals that cohere with others in the field
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Symbolic resistance: reframing or disaligning from expected construals
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Symbolic inflection: modifying or modulating construals from a distinct perspective
These dynamics are neither merely subjective nor structural. They are enacted in symbolic practice — in what we say, how we move, which genres we inhabit, which horizons we foreground.
In this sense, personhood is not a category but a semiotic process. It is the ongoing construal of oneself as an individuated locus within a shared symbolic phase-space.
4. Reflexive Density and the Formation of Identity
Not all individuations are equal in reflexive density. Some become densely sedimented through repetition, institutional reinforcement, or mythic amplification. These are often called “identities” — stable patterns of personhood sustained across time and context.
But even the most sedimented identity is still a formation — not an essence. It is held in place by patterned construal:
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A profession construes a person as an “expert”
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A racial category construes them as a “type”
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A moral system construes them as “guilty” or “virtuous”
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A genre construes them as “protagonist” or “antagonist”
These identities are not inner truths. They are relational construals, maintained through symbolic alignment across scale. They can be re-cut, re-phased, or disrupted — but never entirely outside the symbolic field from which they emerged.
5. Emergence and Mutation
As collectives transform, so too does the field of individuation. New symbolic positions become possible. Others become unstable, obsolete, or saturated with contradiction.
This is where symbolic innovation becomes political. To forge new forms of personhood is to mutate the phasing of the collective itself. These mutations may:
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Open new positions within the symbolic field
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Rearticulate the meaning of collective life
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Destabilise sedimented roles or identities
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Realign value and construal in unforeseen ways
Individuation, in this light, is not only a response to the collective. It is a potential agent of collective reformation.
Conclusion: The Person as Phase-Shift
The self is not a given. It is a pattern. A modulation. A perspectival cut through the symbolic field of the collective. To individuate is to phase meaning in a particular way — to enact a distinct trajectory through the potential of a shared symbolic horizon.
In the next post, we will examine how these individuated construals become agentive: not merely patterned, but dynamically responsive — capable of initiating symbolic rephasing in ways that shift the collective’s path.