:: Title: UNIFORMITY and VARIABILITY - An Essay in the Philosophy of Matter 1995

:: Written by: Manuel DeLanda

The development of the science and engineering of materials in this century has many aspects which promise to enrich the
conceptual reservoir of the philosopher of matter. In this essay I would like to explore a few of the philosophical issues
raised by new developments in materials science, particularly the new awareness of the importance of studying the
behaviour of matter in its full complexity. This awareness has, in turn, resulted in part from the creation and
experimentation with materials which involve a heterogenous meshwork of components, such as fiberglass and other
composites, as opposed to the simpler and more predictable behaviour of uniform, homogeneous materials such as
industrial-quality steel.
Cyril Stanley Smith, a metallurgist and an expert in the history of materials, has explored the development of the
philosophy of matter in the West, from the ancient Greeks to the present day, and has concluded that for the most part, the
study of the complexity and variability of behaviour of materials has always been the concern of empirically oriented
craftmen or engineers, not of philosophers or scientists. In his own words:
"Through most of history, matter has been a concern of metaphysics more than physics, and materials of neither. Classical
physics at its best turned matter into mass, while chemistry discovered the atom and lost interest in properties...[In both
metaphysical speculation and scientific research] sensitivity to the wonderful diversity of real materials was lost, at first
because philosophical thought despised the senses, later because the . . . the new science could only deal with one thing at
a time. It was atomistic, or at least, simplistic, in its very essence." {1}
This author claims that by the time Greek philosophers like Democritus or Aristotle developed their philosophies of matter,
practically everything about the behaviour of metals and alloys that could be explored with pre-industrial technology, was
already known to craftmen and blacksmiths. For at least a thousand years before philosophers began their speculations,
this knowledge was developed on a purely empirical basis, through a direct interaction with the complex behaviour of
materials. Indeed, the early philosophies of matter may have been derived from observation and conversation with those
"whose eyes had seen and whose fingers had felt the intricacies of the behaviour of materials during thermal processing or
as they were shaped by chipping, cutting or plastic deformation." {2} For instance, Aristotleis famous four elements, fire,
earth, water and air, may be said to reflect a sensual awareness of what today we know as energy and the three main
states of aggregation of matter, the solid, liquid and gas states.
As metaphysical speculation gave special meanings to these four elementary qualities, their original physical meaning was
lost, and the variability and complexity of real materials was replaced with the uniform behaviour of a philosophically
simplified matter about which one could only speculate symbolically. It is true that sixteen-century alchemists recovered a
certain respect for a direct interaction with matter and energy, and that seventeen-century Cartesian philosophers
intensely speculated about the variable properties of different ways of aggregating material components. But these early
attempts at capturing the complexity of physical transmutations and of the effect of physical structure on the complex
properties of materials, eventually lost to the emergent science of chemistry, and its almost total concentration on simple
behaviour: that of individual components (such as Lavoisieris oxygen) or of substances that conform to the law of definite
proportions (as in Daltonis atomic theory).
There was, as Cyril Stanley Smith observes, an "immense gain" in these simplifications, since the exact sciences could not
have developed without them, but the triumph of chemistry was accompanied by a "not insignificant loss". In particular, the
complete concentration of analysis at the level of molecules caused an almost total disregard for higher levels of
aggregation in solids, but it is there where most complex properties of interest to todayis material scientist occurr. {3} As it
is usual in the history of science, there were several exceptions. Galileo studied the strenght of materials in the sixteencentury, and in the seventeenth while Newton was reducing the variability of material behaviour to questions of mass, his
arch-enemy Robert Hooke was developing the first theory of elasticity. As materials scientist James Edward Gordon has
remarked, "unlike Newton, Hooke was intensely interested in what went on in kitchens, dockyards, and buildings -the
mundane mechanical arenas of life...Nor did Hooke despised craftmen, and he probably got the inspiration for at least some
of his ideas from his friend the great London clockmaker Thomas Tompion...". {4} Despite the imporatnt exceptions, I
believe it is fair to say that, at least in England, much more prestige was attached to scientific fields that were not
concerned with these mundane mechanical arenas where materials displayed their full complex behaviour. This may be one
reason why conceptual advances in the study of materials, such as the key conceptual distinction between stress and strain
(one refering to the forces acting on a material structure, the other to the behaviour of the structure in response to those
forces), were made in France where applied science was encouraged both officially and socially. {5}

James Gordon has called the study of the strenght of materials the Cinderella of science, partly because much of the
knowledge was developed by craftmen, metallurgists and engineers (that is the flow of ideas often ran from the applied to
the pure fields), and partly because by its very nature, the study of materials involved an interaction between many
scientific disciplines, an interdisciplinary approach which ran counter to the more prestigious tradition of "pure"
specialization. {6} Today, of course, the interdisciplinary study of complexity, not only in materials but in many other areas
of science, from physics and ecology to economics, is finally taking its place at the cutting-edge of scientific research. We
are begining to understand that any complex system, whether composed of interacting molecules, organic creatures or
economic agents, is capable of spontaneoulsy generating order and of actively organizing itself into new structures and
forms. It is precisely this ability of matter and energy to self-organize that is of greatest significance to the philosopher. Let
me illustrate this with an example from materials science.
Long ago, practical metallurgists understood that a given piece of metal can be made to change its behaviour, from ductile
and tough to strong and brittle, by hammering it while cold. The opposite transmutation, from hard to ductile, could also be
achieved by heating the piece of metal again and then allowing it to cool down slowly (that is, by annealing it). Yet,
although blacksmiths knew empirically how to cause these metamorphoses, it was not until a few decades ago that
scientists understood its actual microscopic mechanism. As it turns out, explaining the physical basis of ductility involved a
radical conceptual change: scientists had to stop viewing metals in static terms, that is, as deriving their strenghth in a
simple way from the chemical bonds between their composing atoms, and begin seeing them as dynamical systems. In
particular, the real cause of brittleness in rigid materials, and the reason why ductile ones can resist being broken, has to
do with the complex dynamics of spreading cracks.
A crack or fracture needs energy to spread through a piece of material and so any mechanism that takes away energy from
the crack will make the material tough. In metals, the mechanism seems to be based on certain defects or imperfections
within the component crystals called dislocations. Dislocations not only trap energy locally but moreover, are highly mobile
and may be brought into existance in large quantities by the very concentrations of stress which tend to break a piece of
material. Roughly, if populations of these line defects are free to move in a material they will endow it with the capacity to
yield locally without breaking, that is, they will make the material tough. On the other hand, restricted movement of
dislocations will result in a stronger but more brittle material. {7} Both of these properties may be desirable for different
tools, and even within one and the same tool: in a sword or knife, for instance, the body must be tough while the cutting
edge must be strong.
What matters from the philosophical point of view is precisely that toughness or strength are emergent properties of a
metallic material that result from the complex dynamical behaviour of some of its components. An even deeper
philosophical insight is related to the fact that the dynamics of populations of dislocations are very closely related to the
population dynamics of very different entities, such as molecules in a rhythmic chemical reaction, termites in a nestbuilding colony, and perhaps even human agents in a market. In other words, despite the great difference in the nature and
behaviour of the components, a given population of interacting entities will tend to display similar collective behaviour as
long as there is some feedback in the interactions between components (that is, the interactions must be nonlinear) and as
long as there is an intense enough flow of energy rushing through the system (that is, the population in question must
operate far from thermodynamic equilibrium). As I will argue in a moment, the idea that many different material and
energetic systems may have a common source of spontaneous order is now playing a key role in the development of a new
philosophy of matter. But for materials scientists this commonality of behaviour is of direct practical significance since it
means that as they begin to confront increasingly more complex material properties, they can make use of tools coming
from nonlinear dynamics and nonequilibrium thermodynamics, tools that may have been developed to deal with completly
different problems. In the words of one author:
". . . during the last years the whole field of materials science and related technologies has experienced a complete
renewal. Effectively, by using techniques corresponding to strong nonequilibrium conditions, it is now possible to escape
from the constraints of equilibrium thermodynamics and to process totally new material structures including different types
of glasses, nano- and quasi-crystals, superlaticces . . . As materials with increased resistance to fatigue and fracture are
sought for actual applications, a fundamental understanding of the collective behaviour of dislocations and point defects is
highly desirable. Since the usual thermodynamic and mechanical concepts are not adapted to describe those situations,
progress in this direction should be related to the explicit use of genuine nonequilibrium techniques, nonlinear dynamics
and instability theory". {8}
Thus, to the extent that the self-organizing behaviour of populations of dislocations within ductile metals is basically similar
to the spontaneous collective behaviour in other populations, tools and concepts developed in very different disciplines
may apply across the board, and this may help legitimize the intrinsic interdisciplinary approach of materials science. As I
just said, however, the common behaviour of different collectivities in nonlinear, nonequilibrium conditions is of even
greater importance to the philosopher of matter. This is very clear in the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari
who are perhaps the most radical contemporary representatives of this branch of philosophy. Inspired in part by some early
versions of complexity theory (e.g. Rene Thomis catastrophe theory, and the theories of technology of Gilbert Simondon)
these authors arrived at the idea that all structures, whether natural or social, are indeed different expressions of a single
matter-energy behaving dynamically, that is, matter-energy in flux, to which they have given the name of "machinic
phylum". In their words: ". . .the machinic phylum is materiality, natural or artificial, and both simultaneoulsy; it is matter in
movement, in flux, in variation. . ." {9}
The term "phylum" is used in biology to refer to the common body-plan of many different creatures. Human beings, for
example, belong to the phylum "chordata", as do all other vertebrate animals. The basic idea is that of a common source of
form, a body-plan which through different foldings and stretchings during embryological development, is capable of

generating a wide variety of specific forms, from snakes, to giraffes to humans. Deleuze and Guattari, aware that nonlinear
population processes are common not only to animals and plants but to metals and other inorganic materials, have
extended this meaning to refer to a common source of spontaneoulsy generated form across all material entities. I began
this essay by quoting the opinion of a metallurgist, Cyril Stanley Smith, on the historical importance of sensually aquired
knowledge about the complex behaviour of metals and other materials. And indeed, in Deleuze and Guattariis philosophy of
matter, metallurgists play an important role:
". . . what metal and metallurgy bring to light is a life proper to matter, a vital state of matter as such, a material vitalism
that doubtless exists everywhere but is ordinarly hidden or covered, rendered unrecognizable . . . Metallurgy is the
consciousness or thought of the matter-flow, and metal the correlate of this consciousness. As expressed in panmetallism,
metal is coextensive to the whole of matter, and the whole of matter to metallurgy. Even the waters, the grasses and
varieties of wood, the animals are populated by salts or mineral elements. Not everything is metal, but metal is
everywhere. . . The machinic phylum is metallurgical, or at least has a metallic head, as its itinerant probe-head or
guidance device." {9}
One aspect of the definition of the machinic phylum is of special interest to our discussion of contemporary materials
science. Not only is the phylum defined in dynamic terms (that is, as matter in motion) but also as "matter in continuous
variation". Indeed, these philosophers define the term "machinic" precisely as the process through which structures can be
created by bringing together heterogenous materials, that is, by articulating the diverse as such, without homogenization.
In other words, the emphasis here is not only on the spontaneous generation of form, but on the fact that this
morphogenetic potential is best expressed not by the simple and uniform behaviour of materials, but by their complex and
variable behaviour. In this sense, contemporary industrial metals, such as mild steel, may not be the best illustration of this
new philosophical conception of matter. While naturally ocurring metals contain all kinds of impurities that change their
mechanical behaviour in different ways, steel and other industrial metals have undergone in the last two hundred years an
intense process of uniformation and homogenization in both their chemical composition and their physical structure. The
rationale behind this process was partly based on questions of reliability and quality control, but it had also a social
component: both human workers and the materials they used needed to be disciplined and their behaviour made
predictable. Only then the full efficiencies and economies of scale of mass production techniques could be realized. But this
homogenization also affected the engineers that designed structures using this well disciplined materials. In the words of
James E. Gordon:
"The widespread use of steel for so many purposes in the modern world is only partly due to technical causes. Steel,
especially mild steel, might euphemistically be described as a material that facilitates the dilution of skills. . . Manufacturing
processes can be broken down into many separate stages, each requiring a minimum of skill or intelligence. . . At a higher
mental level, the design process becomes a good deal easier and more foolproof by the use of a ductile, isotropic, and
practically uniform material with which there is already a great deal of accumulated experience. The design of many
components, such as gear wheels, can be reduced to a routine that can be looked up in handbooks." {10}
Gordon sees in the spread of the use of steel in the late nineteen- and early twenty centuries, a double danger for the
creativity of structural designers. The first danger is the idea that a single, universal material is good for all different kinds
of structure, some of which may be supporting loads in compression, some in tension, some withstanding shear stresses
and others torsional stresses. But as Gordon points out, given that the roles which a structure may play can be highly
heterogenous, the repertoir of materials that a designer uses should reflect this complexity. On the other hand, he points
out that, much as in the case of biological materials like bone, new designs may involve structures with properties that are
in continuous variation, with some portions of the structure better able to deal with compression while others deal with
tension. Intrinsically heterogenous materials, such as fiberglass and the newer hi-tech composites, afford designers this
possibility. As Gordon says, "it is scarcely practicable to tabulate elaborate sets of "typical mechanical properties" for the
new composites. In theory, the whole point of such materials is that, unlike metals, they do not have "typical properties,
because the material is designed to suit not only each individual structure, but each place in that structure." {11}
I do not mean to imply that there are no legitimate roles to be played by homogenous materials with simple and
predictable behaviour, such as bearing loads in compression. And similarly for the institutional and economic arrangements
that were behind the quest for uniformity: the economies of scale achieved by routinizing production and some design
tasks, were certainly very significant. As with the already mentioned homogenizations performed by scientists in their
conceptions of matter, there were undoubtedly some gains. The question is, what got lost in the process. I can think of
several things.
First, the nineteenth century process of transfering skills from the human worker to the machine, and the task of
homogenizing metallic behaviour went hand in hand. As Cyril Stanley Smith remarks "The craftman can compensate for
differences in the qualities of his material, for he can adjust the precise strength and pattern of application of his tools to
the materialis local vagaries. Conversely, the constant motion of a machine requires constant materials." {12} If its is true
as I said at the beggining of this essay that much of the knowledge about the complex behaviour of materials was
developed outside science by empirically oriented individuals, the deskilling of craftmen that accompanied mechanization
may be seen as involving a loss of at least part of that knowledge, since in many cases empirical know-how is stored in the
form of skills.
Second, as I just said, not only the production process was routinized this way, so was to a lesser extent the design process.
Many professionals who design load-bearing structures lost their ability to design with materials that are not isotropic, that
is, that do not have identical properties in all directions. But it is precisely those abilities to deal with complex, continuously

variable bahaviour that are now needed to design structures with the new composites. Hence, we may need to nurture
again our ability to deal with variation as a creative force, and to think of structures that incorporate heterogenous
elements as a challenge to be met by innovative design.
Third, the quest for uniformity in human and metallic behaviour went beyond the specific disciplinary devices used in
assembly-line factories. Many other things became homogenized in the last few centuries. To give only two examples: the
genetic materials of our farm animals and crops have become much more uniform, at first due to the spread of the
"pedigree mystique", and later in this century, by the development and diffusion of miracle crops, like hybrid corn. Our
linguistic materials also became more uniform as the meshworks of heterogenous dialects which existed in most countries
began to yield to the spread of standard languages, through compulsory education systems and the effects mass media. As
before, the question is not whether we achieved some efficiencies through genetic and linguisitic standarization. We did.
The problem is that in the process we came to view heterogeneity and variation as something to be avoided, as something
pathological to be cured or uprooted since it endangered the unity of the nation state.
Finally, as Deleuze and Guattari point out, the nineteen-century quest for uniformity may had had damaging effects for the
philosophy of matter by making the machinic phylum effectively unrecognizable. As the behaviour of metals and other
mineral materials became routine, and hence, unremarkable, philosophical attention became redirected to the more
interesting behaviour of living creatures, as in early twenty-century forms of vitalism, and later on, to the behaviour of
symbols, discourses and texts, in which any consideration of material or energetic factors was completly lost. Today, thanks
in part to the new theories of self-organization that have revealed the potential complexity of behaviour of even the
humbler forms of matter-energy, we are begining to recover a certain philosophical respect for the inherent morphogenetic
potential of all materials. And we may now be in a position to think about the origin of form and structure, not as something
imposed from the outside on an inert matter, not as a hierarchical command from above as in an assembly line, but as
something that may come from within the materials, a form that we tease out of those materials as we allow them to have
their say in the structures we create.
References:
1) Cyril Stanley Smith. Matter Versus Materials: A Historical View. In A Search for Structure. (MIT Press, 1992). p. 115
2) ibid. p.115
3) ibid. p. 120 and 121
4) James Edward Gordon. The Science of Structures and Materials. (Scientific American Library, 1988). p. 18
5) ibid. p. 21 and 22
6) ibid p. 3
7) ibid. p. 111
8) D. Walgraef. Pattern Selection and Symmetry Competition in Materials Instabilities. In New Trends in Nonlinear Dynamics
and Pattern-Forming Phenomena. Pierre Coullet and Patrick Huerre eds. (Plenum Press 1990). p. 26
9) Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari. A Thousand Plateaus. (University of Minnesota Press, 1980) p. 409
10) James Edward Gordon. op. cit. p. 135
11) ibid. p. 200
12) Cyril Stanley Smith. ibid p. 313