Social network theories favor a relational approach
in answering the ontological question about their existence: actors
are determined by the relationships they hold together with other actors
in their social network. In this context, the traditional philosophical
ontology of individuality (Kant, Nietzsche, Pierce etc.) shifts towards
an ontology of relational processes that operates as a duality between
the micro and the macro-level. In particular, this duality amounts to
a structural relational ontology of processes of individuation and processes
of the social construction of relationships. However, there are many
philosophical answers to questions related to such processes. An example
is the work of Gilbert Simondon, who - similarly but independently from
social networks theorizing - had advanced a project to know the individual
through processes of individuation rather than the other way around.
His theory of individuation, starting from a 'pre-individual' stage
and passing through 'transduction' in a 'meta-stable' environment, was
an important influence to the thought of Gilles Deleuze. An other example
is Alain Badiou, who in his 'Being and Event' has reconciled a notion
of the subject within a relational ontology throughout a number of set-theoretical
propositions. Thus, in this section, our aim is to discuss such innovative
philosophical approaches (not only Simondon's and Badiou's) on the relational
ontologies underlying the phenomenology of social networks.
