The New Clockwork:

Part I
Concerning Identity
Definitions
1. By that which is a self I mean a construct whose nature involves existence in time and space and
has deposits of awareness or contacts with such an awareness of this existence either through
self-reflection or sense-perception (self-reflection by interrogative speculation or intuition, and
perception by means of stimulated senses).
2. An identity is said to be mobile in that it is not static, that it has an area of mobility, is free-floating,
and exists temporarily in its momentary contacts and coagulation.
3. By resolution I mean compactness of form, solidified yet fluid concentration; that is, a focus in a
field of convergence. The resolution is planicentric.
4. By having I mean the fundamental aspect of things in existence in that it is a given that an existent
thing has existence as its first attribute; that is, an existent is having co-instantaneously with the
existence that it possesses.
5. By habit I mean that which is contracted over time, which is a fossil of past selves, and which
circulates in given periods; that is, it is a node on the scale of having, and as sedimentary, has
rules of structuration as well as definite or ambiguous contours.
6. By exhibition I mean the effect in a self of surfacing, of the presencing of symptoms, particles, a
heterogeneous showing which is constant and always disparate.
Explication
I say disparate because the exhibition is never unilateral. Things do not surface as singularities but
rather in clusters forming constellations. Such is the nature of the concrete assembly that is the self; it
is Theory in the archaic sense, as Sight or Scene. Also, by stimulation, I mean arousal, affection, or
impression.

7. The habit is said to be constitutive of the self, the identity, insofar as the habit is something that I
have; that is, insofar as I am a having being, my habits are outgrowths of my power of
existence, and help constitute concrete layers of self.
8. By fluidity I mean mobility, the capacity to be moved, which entails emotion, but also means that
all elements in the unity of the self are subject to movement, be it modification, metamorphosis, or
falsification (illusive semblance, concealment).
Explication

For the things that make up the self are said to be unstable in the sense that they have freedom of
movement, are in constant transition. The position of any one node in the system is also relative to a
center which itself can be dislocated.
AXIOMS
1. All existent selves are constituted by habits which are programmatic and prescriptive.
2. The body, thoughts, and behaviours (and therefore habits) are ones own insofar as they are
constitutive of the self as dynamic organism.
3. From a given habit there is a power of having as magnitude and a specific locality in the
sensory-motor complex for the senses that the habit arouses.
4. Habits are orbital, periodic, and therefore segmentary.
5. Something we possess also possesses us in the dialectic of possession, which breaks the boundaries
between possessor and possessed, uniting them in an organic relationship that crosses the
threshold of enclosure.
6. Relations are concrete insofar as one cannot exist without evident relations as differential qualities
which are definitive (formal-theoretic and physical).
7. The self exists as a collection, each part dependent on or integral to the others to form the
collection.
Proposition 1
Habits are multiple.
Proof
This is evident from Def. 6 in which exhibition is always disparate; therefore, habits, being exhibitions,
come in multilateral clusters.
Proposition 2
A persons relationship to time constitutes the primary contours of his identity.
Proof
Evident from Def. 1 and Axiom 4. Def. 1 states that the self is a construct whose nature involves
existence in time and space. Axiom 4 states that habits are orbital, periodic, and segmentary.
Therefore, the habit, as programmatic and prescriptive constitution of existent self (Axiom 1), has a
relation to the time and space it occupies (Def. 1), and relations being concrete, differential and
definitive qualities (Axiom 6), means that time (and space) organize the habits, determining their
contours and consequently the shape of the self as construct (Def. 1).
Proposition 3
The self is changed by time.

Proof
Def. 8 states that all elements in the unity of the self are subject to movement, be it modification,
metamorphosis, or falsification. It follows, therefore, that the existence of the self having a concrete
and definitive relation to time (Prop. 1), and the identity being mobile and temporarily fixed into
manifest existence by contacts and coagulation (Def. 2), the self is changed by time and consequently
by all its constitutive relations.
Proposition 4
Habits change.
Proof
Habits being orbital and periodic (Axiom 4), and time being that through which something periodical
reappears, it is evident that time changes habits.
Corollary
It also follows from Proposition 3 that if time changes the self and that the habits constitute the self
(Def. 7), the habits are also modified by time.
Proposition 5
Habits structure the self.
Proof
From Def.1 we know that the habit is contracted over time and is a fossil of past selves, therefore
indicating that as the self exists through time and space (Def.1), the periodical exigencies of the habit
(Axiom 4) in the sensory-motor complex and in thought would definitively give some sense of
organization to the self through its self-reflection and sense-perception.
Another proof
If habits have rules of structuration (Def.1) and habits are constitutive of the self (Def.7), it follows that
habits structure the self, this being why Axiom 1 calls the habit programmatic and prescriptive. The
self being a construct (Def.1) and a collection of parts (Axiom 7) also hints that the habit, as one of its
parts, helps define the nature of the construction/collection, of its integrity.

(Next: The body, thoughts, and behaviours (and therefore habits) are ones own insofar as they are
constitutive of the self as dynamic organism. Proposition 6: Identity is a habit. Proposition 7: Habits
have histories which can be traced. Following: How enclosure is pure capacity of holding, of
containing and how a Theory of Habitance explains these and other related matters of post-colonial
historiographic thought hereby called The New Clockwork. Esp. How a proper Theory of Identity and
of Habit is required.)