Timothy Jackson: The Ontogenetic Alternative to Hylomorphism and Physicalism

The Ontogenetic Approach

• 💡 The talk introduces the ontogenetic method, which focuses on the genesis of determinate forms of beings in general, not just organism development.
• 🧠 Drawing heavily from Gilbert Simondon, ontogenesis is considered "first philosophy," seeking the principle of individuation in a reality that precedes individuation itself.
• 🎯 This approach aims to understand how individuals come into being without presupposing pre-constituted individuals or fixed categories like form and matter.

Challenging Traditional Metaphysics

• ⚠️ The presentation critiques substantialism and hylomorphism, arguing both assume a prior principle of individuation, which is a "no-no" for understanding true genesis.
• 🛠️ Hylomorphism (form and matter) is described as an analytic method where form is imposed on passive matter, exemplified by brick molding, but it obscures the real dynamism of individuation.
• 🔬 Physicalism is deemed "not enough" because it functions as a dualist, rationalist model that externalizes the genesis of form and relies on predefined, closed systems.

Reclaiming Plato's Khôra

• 🔍 The discussion highlights the often-overlooked concept of Plato's khôra, described as a "mass of plastic material" or a "matrix" that is devoid of character but receives all forms.
• ⚡ The khôra represents an unruly, non-equilibrium state with "khôric necessity," undergoing endogenous coarse-graining to form incipient elements before external shaping.
• 💡 This concept offers an alternative to mathematical Platonism, suggesting a richer, more dynamic understanding of the "quasi-space of quasi-determinate possibilities."

Open-Ended Evolution and Imminent Alterity

• 🌱 Ontogenesis is presented as an open-ended process, which effective theories, with their definitionally closed spaces, struggle to accommodate.
• 🚀 Darwin's core insight is emphasized: the overproduction of variation (difference/excess) as a first principle, making his logic fundamentally anti-mechanistic.
• 🔄 The talk argues that neodarwinism is regressive and hylomorphic, treating genes as forms and bodies as passive matter, thus missing Darwin's original anti-mechanistic logic.
• ✅ The concept of imminent alterity is crucial, positing that any system modeling its own evolution must rely on external, ungeneratable parameters, meaning the universe cannot be truly unitary.

Life as Effective Theorization

• 🧩 Living systems are characterized as "effective theorizers" themselves, constantly extending their "map" and departing from predefined state spaces.
• ⏳ Organisms defer complete individuation indefinitely, maintaining an internal problematic and potential for becoming, rather than being fixed or unitary.
• 💬 Individuation is elicitation, occurring relationally when an external alterity interacts with an organism's internal constitutive variation, leading to a "chyrotic encounter."
• 🌟 This perspective suggests that there cannot be an effective theory of life, as life itself embodies the processes of creating and transcending effective theories.