January 26, 2014 at 02:45PM
"The individual is merely one phase in the process of individuation..." #readingToday

Pre-individual forces pre-exist and make possible the emergence of individuality, those forces which are actualized in the individual. They not only predate the individual, but also they constitute both the individual and the potentialities that the individual contains that sustain and transform it. The individual is always more than itself, for it is an individual with the ongoing potential to undergo further changes after it is constituted as such. These pre-individual forces also constitute the milieu within which the individual is located, which provide the ongoing virtualities with which the individual must engage. The individual is merely one phase in the process of individuation, which is surrounded both before and after its emergence by pre-individual forces, potentialities. Being is at once pre-individual, individuating and individuated; it becomes something, something emerges or erupts, but it leaves in its context or milieu a residue or excess that is the condition for future becomings.

(Moon+ Reader Pro v2.3.4, Gilbert Simondon: Being and Technology)