What Are Propensities?

“Furthermore, a situation can never be pinned down. It is not a place, not a site. Pulled this way and that by its polarity, its configuration is constantly changing; it is always oriented by a propensity.” (Francois Jullien).

What happens when we shift our attention from what things are to what things tend to do? Propensity is a concept that invites us to sense the active tendencies, inclinations, and directional pulls of systems, situations, or assemblages. Rather than focusing on fixed properties, meanings, uses, functions or intended purposes, propensity draws our attention to the emergent likelihoods—what is more probable to happen, given the specific configuration of relations at play. In short, a propensity is the statistical leaning or shaping force of an assemblage: the way a situation, through its very makeup, bends reality toward certain outcomes over others.

Propensities are the emergent, statistically weighted tendencies of a system or assemblage to afford certain actions, outcomes, or events rather than others. They are not properties of individual parts, nor are they reducible to intentions or purposes. Instead, propensities arise from the dynamic, relational interplay of materials, practices, histories, and environments. They shape what is likely to occur, often irrespective of anyone’s intentions, by enabling and constraining the field of possible actions and outcomes.

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How Can Propensities Be Used in a Creative Practice?

In creative practice, propensities are the invisible currents that shape what is possible, probable, and even thinkable. They are not deterministic laws, but fields of likelihood—what the system is “inclined” to do, given its current configuration. Creativity, then, is less about imposing ideas and more about skillfully sensing, experimenting with, and modulating these propensities.

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What are the Features of Propensities?

Features of Propensities include:

• Emergent: Propensities arise from the whole configuration, not from any single part.
• Relational: They are properties of the relations among things, not of things themselves.
• Enabling and Stabilizing/Constraining: Propensities both open and limit what is possible, shaping the field of affordances.
• Dynamic: They can shift as the assemblage changes, often through feedback and feedforward loops.
• Non-neutral: Every system, tool, or practice has its own propensities—there is no neutral ground.
  To engage creatively is to sense, probe, and experiment with the propensities of the systems we inhabit and co-create. This means:
• Moving beyond intentions: Focusing less on what we want to happen and more on what the system is tending toward.
• Experimenting with assemblages: Actively reconfiguring relations to shift propensities, rather than seeking singular solutions.
• Embracing unintended outcomes: Recognizing that the most innovative results often emerge from the system’s unintended propensities—the accidents, errors, and exaptations that arise when we probe the field of possibilities.
• Sensing overall direction: Developing an attunement to the overall “feel” or directionality of what is emerging, rather than fixating on isolated effects or intentions.

Understanding and working with propensities is central to creative practice. It shifts the focus from ideation and intention to active experimentation with the relational dynamics of configurations. The creative act becomes one of sensing, probing, and modulating propensities—surfing the emergent currents of possibility, rather than dictating outcomes from above. In this way, creativity is less about being the author of novelty and more about participating skillfully in the co-emergent unfolding of novel worlds.

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See also: Assemblage, Configurations