Regimes (physical / vital / transindividual) In contrast to Maurice Merleau-Ponty in The Structure of Behavior, Simondon does not distinguish between

orders of beings but between regimes that, in line with the theory of the phases of being, are not substantial but possible phases of every being. In Simondons work, the psycho-social regime of individuation takes up a privileged place with the human being. However, at times the latter is able for example, through relations of work (in the sense that the ant works) to function as a living individual, rather than as a subject individuating itself into a psycho-social or transindividuated personality. On the other hand (and vice versa), certain animals can, in a highly ephemeral but nevertheless real way, access the psycho-social or the transindividual. Relaxation (the law of) Simondon introduces the law of relaxation in the second chapter of MEOT. This law has to do with the tripartite division element / individual / set. It affirms that in the evolution of technical objects, one can witness a passage of causal- ity that goes from the sets, which are anterior, to the elements, which are posterior. When these elements are introduced in an individual whose characteristics they modify, they enable technical causality to return from the level of the elements to the level of the individuals, and then from that of the individuals to that of the sets. From there, in a new cycle, technical causality descends through a process of production to the level of the ele- ments again, where it reincarnates itself in new individuals, and then in new sets. (MEOT 66) Such a law does not undermine the idea that there is an era of ele- ments, an era of individuals and an era of sets, since these denomina- tions are in any case relative and only define the successive, privilegedsites (the element, the individual or the set) of technical progress (see Element / individual / set).