Everything about Individual totally explained
As
commonly used,
individual refers to a
person or to any specific object in a collection. In the 15th century and earlier, and also today within the fields of
statistics and
metaphysics,
individual means "indivisible", typically describing any numerically singular thing, but sometimes meaning "a person." (q.v. "The problem of
proper names"). From the seventeenth century on,
individual indicates separateness, as in
individualism.
Individuality is the state or quality of being an
individual; a person separate from other persons and possessing his or her own needs, goals, and desires.
Descartes
In his statement
Cogito ergo sum ("I think therefore I am"),
Rene Descartes posits the notion the individual subject, distinct from the world around him or her. This is the most famous articulation of subject-object dualism (see
subject-object problem) in the Western philosophical tradition.
Empiricism
Early
empiricists such as
Ibn Tufail and
John Locke introduced the idea of the individual as a
tabula rasa ("blank slate"), shaped from birth by experience and education. This ties into the idea of the liberty and rights of the individual, society as a
social contract between
rational individuals, and the beginnings of
individualism as a doctrine.
Hegel
Hegel regarded history as the unfolding of
God's plan through a process of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. The role of the individual in this view was as an agent of this unfolding--a part of a greater whole.
Existentialism
With the rise of
existentialism,
Kierkegaard rejected Hegel's notion of the individual as subordinated to the forces of history. Instead, he elevated the individual's subjectivity and capacity to choose his or her own fate. Later Existentialists built upon this notion.
Nietzsche, for example, examines the individual's need to define him/her own self and circumstances in his concept of
the will to power and the heroic ideal of the
Übermensch. The individual is also central to
Sartre's philosophy, which emphasizes individual authenticity, responsibility, and
free will. In both Sartre and Nietzsche, the individual is called upon to create his or her own values, rather than rely on external, socially imposed codes of morality.
Martin Buber's I and Thou
In
I and Thou,
Martin Buber presents the individual as something that changes depending on how he or she's relating to the outside world, which can be in one of two ways: In the
I-it relation, the individual relates to the external world in terms of objects that are separate from him or herself (an "I" looking at an "it"). In the
I-thou relation, the individual has a personal connection to the external, and feels almost a part of whatever he or she's relating to; the subject-object dichotomy disappears (see
Nondualism).
Buddhism
In
Buddhism, the concept of the individual lies in
anatman, or "no-self." According to anatman, the individual is really a series of interconnected processes that, working together, give the appearance of being a single, separated whole. In this way, anatman, together with
anicca, resembles a kind of
bundle theory. Instead of an atomic, indivisible self distinct from reality (see
Subject-object problem), the individual in Buddhism is understood as an interrelated part of an ever-changing, impermanent universe (see
Nondualism).
Further Information
Get more info on 'Individual'.
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