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Primary
polyadisation is a term adapted from post-Vygotskian psychology’s concept of primary dyadisation to refer to the process,
‘necessary for individuation, hence self-identity’ (DG: 402, P: 106), whereby the human infant arrives at a complex,
differentiated consciousness of SELF and world. It is possibly intended as a dialectical foil to the non-CR concept, primary
socialisation. The primary polyad comprises the infant and the context of people (the mother in the first instance, constituting
a primary dyad), material objects and social relations with which she comes into contact. In this context, ABSENCE (lack,
want) is experienced as DESIRE, the first intuitive acts of REFERENTIAL DETACHMENT by which the infant separates herself and
the act of desiring from the desired object, leading to a recognition of ALTERITY (difference) and to individuation, and
inaugurating the DIALECTIC OF DESIRE TO FREEDOM . (See Archer 2000 for a detailed socio-theoretic account of this process).
Difference is therefore ontogenetically PRIOR to IDENTITY, i.e., its priority is transcendentally necessary for self-identity to
occur (‘whoever AUTOGENETICISED themselves?’ [D: 230]), and primary polyadisation scientifically grounds ‘the phenomenon
of the EXISTENTIAL CONSTITUTION or permeation of one entity or category by another’ (D: 380). This means inter alia that the
human self is constituted by its 2E geo-historical processes of formation and the 3L wider context. We are profoundly
rhythmic and interdependent creatures from the outset.
Polyad (n., F. Gr. Poly, muchos + -ad, un grupo de [personas, cosas, etc.], adj.
Polyadic).