Non-Identity-Based Sense

Inkpin's coinage for the mode of sense-realization in which particulars (works) matter as such and are balanced with — but not reduced to — generality (style). Coined as the structural counterpart to Husserlian identity-based sense, where particulars matter only as tokens of a universal type. The distinction is the structuring axis of Inkpin's typology of sense-realizing practices: geometry produces identity-based type artefacts (each performance identically the same); painting produces non-identical concrete artefacts (no two paintings are identical and "pure and simple repetition is impossible in art," PdM 116). Together with the integration-vs-accumulation axis on sedimentation modes (sedimentation), this distinction grounds Inkpin's claim that the cultural world cannot be conceived as a homogeneous whole governed by one mode of sense-transmission.

Key Points

  • The distinction itself: Two extremes of sense-realizing practice. Identity-based: practices producing artefacts whose particulars are vehicles for one universal type, and whose constitutive evidence requires arbitrary repetition with identity-recognition (Husserl 370). Non-identity-based: practices producing artefacts whose particulars matter precisely in virtue of their differences, and whose generality (style) emerges as analogically grounded patterning rather than rule-governed type-instantiation.
  • Why painting is non-identity-based (Inkpin §3, p. 7): (i) "no two paintings are ever identical" (PdM 116); (ii) "pure and simple repetition is impossible in art" (PdM 116); (iii) at the second level (style), the patterning is irreducible to "techniques" or rules — Merleau-Ponty highlights the "excess" of expressive acts (PdP 447), the "fecundity" defining institution (PdM 96; IP 50, 162), and denies that an "inventory" of means could capture style (PdM 82, 97-98); (iv) the formulation captures ordinary usage of "style" — grouping works that "manifest formal similarities despite varying in manifold ways."
  • Why geometry is identity-based (Inkpin §1, pp. 2–3): each performance of a geometric operation is identically the same regardless of language or instantiation; particular instances matter only as "tokens" of a "type"; geometry produces artefacts that are types both syntactically and semantically (Inkpin fn 10); geometric operations are constitutively accompanied by an awareness that the same identical structure is referred to ("evidence of identity"), permitting "arbitrary repetition with evidence of identity" (Husserl 370).
  • The distinction is structural, not normative: Inkpin explicitly resists reading it hierarchically (e.g., as higher/lower or cognitive/noncognitive). Both modes are legitimate, productive ways meaning is realized in human practices. The point is to make the kinds of practice visible, not to rank them.
  • The two-extreme structure projects a range of intermediate cases (Inkpin §3 close, p. 9): tools (functionally identical instances but practical, not type-constitutive aim) and language (words as type artefacts but meaning functioning either type-constitutively or analogically — depending on the language-game) are intermediate cases. Geometry and painting "lie at one extreme" each.

Details

The Two Levels in Painting

Inkpin's reading of Merleau-Ponty (§2, drawing on PdM 79, 82, 100, 126; IP 105, 112-113, 115) identifies two levels of sedimentation in painting:

  1. Individual works as primary products and basic units of sedimentation, functioning as "matrices of symbols," "cores," "pivots" of the cultural field (IP 112-113; cf. PdM 126: "matrices of ideas").
  2. Styles as secondary patterns built up over multiple works (IP 105: "the collective history is that of styles or of procedures that are imitable, shareable, sedimented").

The non-identity character cuts at both levels. Individual works are non-identical to each other; styles, as analogically grounded patterns over non-identical works, are not reducible to inventoriable rules. As Merleau-Ponty puts it: "the 'logic' of painting, i.e. the circulation of symbolic forms that are imitable and shareable, of general 'styles', rests entirely on the most individual operation" (IP 115).

This contrasts with the structure of geometric practice. In geometry, the "primary products" — operations, theorems, derivations — are identical type artefacts; the "secondary level" of organization (axiomatics, the structure of a deductive science) is rule-governed. The Husserlian privileging of geometry over tools (Husserl 368) precisely turns on the type-character of geometric primary products: tools too can be functionally identical, but their use does not aim at constituting a universal meaning. Geometry's distinguishing feature is that producing type artefacts is the aim of the practice, not an incidental property of its instances.

How Patterning Works Without Rules

The hardest problem for non-identity-based sense is to show that there can be patterning without rules. If style is not a set of identifiable techniques, what holds works of one style together as a style? Inkpin's formulation (§3, p. 7) is: "type-free, analogically grounded patterns, the constituents of which (e.g. works) are assumed to be (irreducibly) non-identical."

The painting case again provides the model: stylistic similarity is recognizable even when not formalizable, as in the way "the notion of style routinely functions to group together works that manifest formal similarities despite varying in manifold ways (and whether or not they share the same motif)" (Inkpin §3, p. 7). The recognition rests on a kind of analogical pattern-matching that does not require — and would be falsified by — a rule that subsumes its instances.

Merleau-Ponty's earlier formulation in coherent-deformation gives the operative version: style is a "system of equivalences" by which a work's elements "mark the same deviation" without the deviation being a formula (Signs p. 52). The painter "is" the system, not its legislator. Inkpin's "non-identity-based sense" is the broader category under which Merleau-Ponty's coherent deformation is one operation: the category covers any sense-realizing practice (not only expressive ones) where particulars matter qua particulars and generality emerges analogically.

What the Concept Does

Non-identity-based sense does three argumentative jobs in Inkpin's paper, each of which extends what was implicit in Merleau-Ponty into an explicit typology:

  1. It diagnoses Husserl's intellectualism (§1 closing). Husserl's choice of geometry as paradigmatic for cultural transmission rests on its identity-based character — and Husserl himself notes that this distinguishes geometry from tools (Husserl 368). But Husserl then generalizes the geometric model to the cultural world (368) without recognizing that the generalization smuggles in the identity-character. Inkpin's diagnosis: Husserl is "tacitly intellectualist in seeking to generalize a view based on the exercise of our maximally rational abilities."

  2. It grounds the integration/accumulation distinction in a structural difference (§3). Merleau-Ponty's distinction between integration (PdM 142: "to conserve old formulations as it changes them in themselves") and accumulation (PdM 139: paintings "add themselves to the works already made: they do not contain them") is philological — it rides on Merleau-Ponty's reading of how paintings relate to predecessors. Inkpin's typology grounds this philological distinction in a structural one: integration is the sedimentation mode appropriate to identity-based artefacts (where past truths can be contained as special cases); accumulation is appropriate to non-identical concrete artefacts (where past works cannot be totalized into a present synthesis). The two axes — type/concrete and integration/accumulation — are not independent; they are coordinated structural features of the same practice-type.

  3. It is the structural ground for concrete mediation (§4). concrete-mediation is the mode by which individuals relate to a cultural world through touchstones — limited, personal, idiosyncratic actual influences. Concrete mediation is possible only where the cultural field admits non-identity-based sense: if the field were identity-based, the relation to the field would be type-sharing (abstract mediation), not particular-mediation. The §4 application to cultural identity (Englishness via 1066, fish and chips, Shakespeare) and the §4 critique of Heidegger/Foucault's top-down approaches both rest on the type/concrete distinction at this page.

What It Rejects

Non-identity-based sense rejects three closely-related rival positions:

  • The Husserlian identity-paradigm for cultural transmission. Husserl's claim that geometry has "exemplary significance" for "the entire cultural world" (Husserl 366, 368) overgeneralizes a specifically intellectualist case. Inkpin's typology rejects the universalization without rejecting Husserl's analysis of geometry itself.
  • Rule-based formalism for style and other patterned practices. The view that style is a set of techniques inventoriable in principle, or that patterning requires rules subsuming instances, is rejected on textual and phenomenological grounds. Merleau-Ponty's "fecundity" (PdM 96; IP 50, 162) and "excess" (PdP 447) of expressive acts mark precisely what rule-based readings cannot capture.
  • Sheer heterogeneity / aesthetic pluralism. Equally rejected: the view that, since particulars are non-identical, there is no genuine patterning. Style is not chaos; it is analogically grounded patterning. The category covers practices where generality emerges from non-identical particulars — neither identity-based nor random.

Stakes

If the typology is accepted, three things change in how the wiki reads sedimentation, expression, and the cultural world.

First, sedimentation stops being a single concept with multiple applications and becomes a structurally pluralized family. The integration/accumulation distinction (PdM 142), already present in the wiki, is foregrounded as the named axis of one structural difference; the type/concrete distinction adds a second. Together they generate a typology with named extremes (geometry, painting) and projected intermediate cases (tools, language). Sedimentation's "scaffolding function" (Inkpin's framing) operates differently depending on which kind of artefact is being scaffolded.

Second, the cultural world stops being conceivable as a homogeneous whole. cultural-world becomes a heterogeneous network of practices, each with its own sedimentation mode. This rules out both Husserlian totalization (one mode for all) and Merleau-Pontian totalization (another mode for all) — and it grounds Inkpin's Wittgensteinian commitment (fn 35) to overlapping practices and forms of life.

Third, the critique of top-down approaches in concrete-mediation gains its diagnostic apparatus. Heidegger's Ge-stell and Foucault's épistémè are diagnosable as cases of abstract mediation precisely because they treat cultural-historical phenomena as type-instances of abstract structures. The non-identity-based-sense category names what they cannot describe.

Problem-Space

The deeper problem this concept addresses: how can a practice generate genuine generality (intersubjectively recognizable patterns) without subsuming its particulars under a rule that abstracts from their differences? This is a recurring philosophical problem — under different vocabularies — across:

  • Wittgenstein on family resemblance and rule-following
  • Merleau-Ponty's lateral-universal (universals "of existence" rather than "of essence")
  • Merleau-Ponty's coherent-deformation (style as system of equivalences)
  • Adorno on the non-identical
  • Hermeneutic accounts of the "case" in legal and aesthetic judgment

Non-identity-based sense names the broader structural feature these traditions individually pick out: that intelligibility can be analogical rather than type-instantiating. Whether the recurrence is sufficient to warrant a problem-space concept page in its own right is a Phase 8 question; for now this section flags the recurrence.

Connections

  • is the structural ground for concrete-mediation — concrete (vs abstract) mediation is possible only where the cultural field admits non-identity-based sense
  • grounds the typology that pluralizes sedimentation — the integration/accumulation distinction (PdM 142) is the named axis of one structural difference; type/concrete adds the second
  • is the operative concept for the cultural-world thesis at cultural-world — heterogeneous-network reading
  • coordinates with coherent-deformation — Merleau-Ponty's coherent deformation is one operation under the broader category; type-free analogically-grounded style
  • is one form of lateral-universal — Merleau-Ponty's lateral / concrete universal of existence (vs essence) is a closely related register; both reject identity-based generalization without losing genuine generality
  • contrasts with identity-based sense (Husserlian geometry) — the structural rival; both are extremes of the typology, not exhaustive alternatives
  • projects intermediate cases — tools (functionally identical instances, practical aim), language (type-syntactic units, dual-mode semantics)
  • grounds the critique of "top-down" approaches in concrete-mediation — Heidegger's Ge-stell and Foucault's épistémè fail to make their abstract structures intelligible because they treat cultural-historical phenomena as type-instances rather than non-identical concrete artefacts
  • Inkpin's broader theoretical context: the patterning-without-rules thesis is developed for style in Inkpin 2019 ("Merleau-Ponty and the Significance of Style," European Journal of Philosophy 27: 468-483) and for language community in Inkpin 2021 ("Complex Community"). Neither is in raw/; both are referenced as theoretical infrastructure

Open Questions

  • The integration/accumulation bright line. Inkpin's §2 treatment admits painters operate within "an integrated field" and that accumulation is "somewhat weaker than integration in not systematically 'conserving' or 'containing' past meaning and acts" — risking a difference of degree rather than of kind. Is the typology robust to this concession? The structural type/concrete axis must be doing the load-bearing work the integration/accumulation axis cannot.
  • Analogical grounding of patterns. The hard problem: how does analogical pattern-matching work without covertly invoking a type? Inkpin gestures at his 2019 paper for the answer; the present typology is hostage to whether that argument succeeds.
  • Wider applicability. Inkpin foots intermediate cases (tools, language); but how do other practices fit? Music as performance is closer to painting (non-identical particulars); music as score is closer to geometry (type-artefactual). Sport, ritual, dance? The typology generates predictions but the application is largely unworked.
  • Heideggerian/Foucauldian replies. As noted in Inkpin's source page, Ge-stell and épistémè could be defended as articulating intelligibility-frameworks rather than empirical-causal explanations. The typology may not engage their best version of the position.

Sources

  • inkpin-2026-painting-sedimentation-cultural-world — the primary source for this concept; §§1-3 develop the type/concrete typology, §4 applies it. Inkpin's coinage of the phrase "non-identity-based sense-realization" is at p. 7, with the structural distinction running through the whole paper. The Husserl 368 passage (geometry vs tools, "identically the same") and the PdM 116 passage ("pure and simple repetition is impossible in art") are the textual anchors. Inkpin 2019 (on style) and Inkpin 2021 (on language community) are the underspecified theoretical infrastructure.
  • merleau-ponty-1973-prose-of-the-world — PdM 116 ("pure and simple repetition is impossible in art"); PdM 82, 96, 97-98 (style as irreducible to inventory); PdM 126 ("matrices of ideas"); PdM 139-141 (paintings adding themselves without containing predecessors); PdM 142 (the integration/accumulation distinction). The textual backbone Inkpin reads.
  • merleau-ponty-2010-institution-and-passivity — IP 50, 105, 112-113, 115, 117, 136, 162. The two-level (works/styles) reading, the works as "matrices of symbols" and "pivots," and the IP 117 passage on knowledge integrating-and-cancelling its precedents (which painting does not do).