Individual

An individual ( individual- latin, indivisible ',' individual thing ') is a thing, an entity or individual being, insofar as it can be clearly distinguished from objects, say, insofar as identity criteria can be specified.

The term "individual" is particularly applicable to people around them as moral subjects, to characterize that as bearers of rights, responsibilities and obligations. In this sense, also talked of "persons" instead of "individuals". In addition, people are individual characteristics, interests and characteristics from those of the human population ( community, society, collective ) which they originate deferred and allocated as subjective elements of the personality of the individual.

History of Ideas

One of the first who focuses on the relationship between individual and community in the culture of the European Occident, Aristotle, the man known as political animal, so as a community living beings in his policy was. This contrasts with the private individual, referred to as " idiotes ". In more recent times it was Jean -Jacques Rousseau, who treated the matter through its distinction of will of all ( all individuals ) on the one hand and general will ( the general will ) on the other hand new. The clear formulation of a gap between the interests of individuals and the interests of a systematic organization, which in turn serves certain interests of individuals, but since become primarily an issue of economics. In particular, game theory analyzes the resulting conflicts and interest balances, see, eg, the free-rider problem.

In the liberal economic theory, following Adam Smith, however, is - in contrast to the statement of Rousseau and Adam Smith himself - assumed that the sum of the individual self-interest can lead automatically " to the greatest possible happiness of the greatest number" (Jeremy Bentham ). The state should its activities with a few exceptions - ensuring the external and internal security - restrict what was polemically often referred to as an idea from the night watchman state.

The importance of the individual varies in the intellectual history of cultural relatively very strong. The modernity that defines the Western world today, the individual in historical as well as in intercultural comparison emphasizes very strongly. This strong emphasis on the individual is also called individualism and is opposed to collectivism.

The spiritual issue is about the importance and autonomy of the individual compared to the community in which he lives. In recent times this in the extreme positions of Max Stirner ( " The Ego and His Own " ) and the National Socialism ( " You are nothing, your people is everything" ) particularly clear. The individualism are systems of thought such as anarchism or liberalism very well. The opposing positions towards individualism take a particularly socialist systems. However, there are exceptions to this general orientation. So stressed about the liberal Max Weber the people as a high value, while there are socialists who seek a social order in which the individual can live without social bond.

The dependence of the morals and ethics of the society has worked out the sociologist Emile Durkheim. According to him, there is morality in the first place by the collective. The individual in itself has no morality. According to Durkheim so are crimes no more than a breach of collective emotions.

The individual and the mass

With the advent of the particular importance of each individual developed concepts like mass and personality. Individuals without social integration for lonely crowd, as the sociologist David Riesman called it. A revolt of the masses diagnosed the Spanish philosopher Ortega y Gasset. It takes place from the union of individuals to club tents.

Under a personality generally refers to an individual who has managed to rise from the ground. Thus the critique of individualism sees two possibilities: The anonymous merging of the individual in the mass, organized under circumstances of collectivist movements and can then be steeped in history. The other possibility is the higher development of the individual for independent, emancipated personality.

This results in two directions of movement. An optimistic assumption that most individuals can develop the personality and individualism, therefore, is a step forward on the way to a better society. The opposite pessimistic assumption that individuals do not achieve this, but as a mass only a plaything for a minority or are or will be exploited by demagogues, individualism, therefore, is an aberration.

Intercultural comparison

The individual has an entirely different meaning in the modern world under a religious and divine contemplation. While it is the individual person, he shall be saved, but this is not seen so much in contrast to society, but in relation to God. Therefore, the individualism of modernity presupposes the secularization. Where this is not done, the individual has a very personal meaning to God, but not to the Company. Be seen that, for example, the fact that in the Middle Ages artists embellished the churches, their works are not recorded individually. The signature of a work of art arose only when the individual began to gain social significance.

In the Monotheistic religions such as Judaism, Christianity and Islam is facing the individual is the responsibility of its creator. In the scriptures of these religions, such as the Torah, the Bible or the Koran, the individual is specifically addressed, at the same time but highlighted its importance for society, because the actions of every single person just is not only to his own well-being, but also always on general welfare of the people should be aligned. The selfless actions of preference shall be given, as this for the good in this life the actor is rewarded by the reward in the hereafter as food aid. The self-education away from egoism is thus mainly due to the fact that according to the ideas of these religions, the true and eternal life after the resurrection of more value than the worldly.

The determined mainly from Asian Indian influences thinking also puts the individual at a significantly lower value. The anti-Western currents are also nourished it. While there are also in Asian thought the individual, but never its strong emphasis as in Western modernity. The individual is much more integrated there in the eternal cycle or in the family tradition, as is apparent in particular in China.

Specialized sciences

• Sociology is concerned with the integration of the individual into society.
• The philosophy deals with the subject individual and the community at large. Special areas such as anthropology and political science single out individual areas of the individual.
• Social psychology deals with interactions between the individual and his social environment.
• The behavioral research focuses on the genetic conditions of the individual and the group.
• The law dealing with standards ( the state) are the individuals and a society determines the relationship between the individual and the collective interests.
• In biology, individuals are individual beings of a kind
• The theology assumes the ratio of single men to God and speaks about the morality.
• Research on artificial intelligence aimed it at both a tangible definition of the term "individual" as well as a construction.

In the systems theory

In principle, any material system is to be regarded as an individual because it (that is, system properties ) has properties that has none of its elements separately from the other elements of the system and in this specific version because of its formation in a concrete specific environment no another system.

As an individual, each living system ( Living System ) is adjacent in space-time and high on his environment with which it interacts, so that one can speak of a dialectical interaction, which creates specific conditions for the individual.

Hence the relative independence of the individual, the ability to own development due to inherent driving force to his own peculiar movements and reactions to influences from the environment.

Individuation and integration

The degree of relative independence, uniqueness and peculiarity ( individuation ) is also called the degree of individuality. The degree of individuality of each system is dependent on the parent comprehensive system and the elements of its own.

In integration processes usually takes to the degree of individuality of systems and their elements from (Integration (philosophy) ). The absoluteness of individuality, especially of the individual is called individualism.

For the purposes of the above conception of the individual can be, however, other absolutism of individuality (eg, a territorial unit of a professional group, a people, a nation of human civilization on Earth ) regarded as different forms of individualism. Hence also the reason of state.

In biology

In biology, the concept of the individual was almost exclusively based on the individual organism over long periods. This absolutism was gradually taken over under criticism of the " Organismozentrismus " in the 20th century. After the discovery of plant and animal cell occurred in the 19th century temporarily a certain overestimation of the individuality of the cell to the detriment of the individuality of the whole organism to ( " cell-state theory ").

In the biological discussion about the middle of the 20th century, there was an overvaluation of the individuality of the species to the detriment of the organism. Such over-valuations are largely overcome in the present views of the hierarchical order of living systems.

Individual differences in the genome are five to ten times larger than previously thought

In the logic

In modern logic is any object outside and inside the consciousness among an individual who owns properties and has any relationships, but is not itself property or relationship.

The individuals in this general and abstract sense with their properties and relations constitute domains of individuals to which the logic expressions, statements, inter alia, relate. Since the laws of logic in general for arbitrary ( non-empty ) domains of individuals apply, is usually not defined what the nature these individuals. Depends on the validity of a logical law of the number of individuals from belonging to the underlying domain of individuals, only this number is specified. The concept of the individual is one of the fundamental concepts of modern logic, which are adopted within its framework as indefiniert and also there can not be defined.

In applications of logic, however, must be determined exactly what is to be regarded as part of the observed individuals range as an individual. If in particular the distinction between individuals on the one hand and the other hand is not strictly adhered to their proper properties and relations, there is a risk of the occurrence of logical, ie syntactic antinomies. In various applications of logic, the same object once regarded as an individual, other times as a property, and however. If you want to examine, for example, certain properties and their relationships without taking into account their relations with individuals, their properties, they are also, they may as individuals and should be treated as such first stage their properties and relationships.

The advantage of this procedure is that you do not have to make use of the stage logic together with the difficulties associated with their use, but make do with the much simpler predicate logic of first stage. In representations of predicate logic using individual variables in order to make existential or universal statements about the individuals of the respective individuals can range. In applications of logic, one must introduce possibly individual constant.

The concept of the individual in other areas

• Individual in the economy: see Homo economicus
• Individual in society: see Homo sociologicus
• Individual in the policy: see Homo politicus
• Individual in the culture: see Homo ludens
• Individual in the jurisprudence: see Homo juridicus