Lapoujade, D. (2021). The Lesser Existences: Étienne Souriau, an Aesthetics for the Virtual (E. Beranek, Trans.). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. doi:10.5749/j.ctv1p3xjzq. (Original: Les existences moindres, Minuit, 2017.)
Key takeaways
Registered from metadata, not a reading. As it is usually described, the book reads Souriau’s pluralism of modes of existence and his account of how a work, or any being, is brought into fuller existence. Its title term names beings whose existence is weak and needs to be taken up by others.
Why this is here
Bencherki, Brummans & Vézy 2024 (LIT-1902) borrow the term “lesser existences” for their account of responsibility (p. 1366). They define lesser existences as “those whose process of individuation has not yet found its way into others and who are still at risk of disindividuation”. They say we have a duty to help them and should “exercise caution in the way our individuation might affect ‘weaker,’ ‘lesser’ existences that need our solicitude”.
They say they “borrow a term”. The definition they give is in their own Simondonian vocabulary of individuation and disindividuation, not in Souriau’s or Lapoujade’s. No page of the book is cited. So the parent uses the book for a term and a moral tone, not for an argument. Whether the borrowing is faithful cannot be judged without the book.