reverse course of ontogenesis

Compiled with AI assistance and selectively reviewed. Please consult the cited passages; the books remain the authoritative source. About this companion

Editorial synthesis · provisional

Definition

The reverse course of ontogenesis is Simondon’s figure for anxiety unweaving established individuation, as quoted and interpreted in The Possible Book. It describes formed organization returning toward unresolved potential rather than a literal reversal of chronological or biological development. Another individuation is possible but not guaranteed, and the subject may remain unresolved without the needed collective or transindividual relation.

Explanation

The essay places the formulation beside Jung’s account of regressive psychic energy while retaining their different explanatory registers. Simondon’s crisis concerns a partial undoing of an established individual and its relation to the preindividual. The author’s English translation and the native bibliography identify that attribution; they do not turn the passage into a fresh experimental finding.

The alchemical comparison supplies an image of dedifferentiation preceding a possible new differentiation. The source distinguishes that loss of organization from simple degradation and uses the conditional may rather than promising a successful outcome. The figure should not be read as a physical mechanism in which time runs backward or an adult literally becomes an embryo.

The perhaps receives explicit emphasis, followed by a warning that transformation is not owed. Maroni’s stronger language about regression and individuation is separately qualified, and no crisis receives a metaphysical warranty. The proposed subentry therefore records a precise attributed phrase under anxiety while preserving its limits and refusing a clinical instruction to cultivate breakdown.

Scope and attribution

Retain the attributed subentry and its relation to anxiety without inventing a developmental mechanism.

PB — The Possible Book

The figure remains Simondon-attributed, translated and qualified rather than a literal developmental reversal.

Occurrence locators: 117, 118, 119; Epigraph: 114.

Background used in the editorial explanation

Named theories and mechanisms are distinguished from neighboring background, homonyms and the author’s own synthesis. Reproduced AI passages retain their separate voice.