Individual
under an individual (lat.: indivisibly, in addition, not to dividing) one understands something particular in its whole with all peculiarities and characteristics, those in its total structure again is determining for its individuality. It designates thus that spatially and qualitativelyunique single natures (more rarely also single thing).
The term individual is applied on organisms and to humans; Unit and intact entireness are vitally necessary with them. Within the range of “ artificial intelligence “and in the Science Fiction literature he is applied to systems, which exist the Turing test.Cynics ask whether exemplarily ELIZA is to be already regarded here as an individual; practically and to be Internet-tested Chatbots actually of human interlocutors understood in such a way.
Generally an individual a something , which know a thinking , and a thing with consciousness is more special.
With humans becomes instead ofabout “individuals” also about” persons “to talk, their individual characteristics and interests the characteristics, which prevail in a person's group (community , society , collective), be then confronted can. One calls this circumstances subjectivity.
the term “individual” in history of ideas
thoseMeaning of the individual varies in history of ideas both in the temporal dimension (epoch dependent) as well as in the spatial dimension (cultures). The modern trend, which determines today Europe and North America, stresses the individual in the historical as also in the intercultural comparison very strong.This strong stress of the individual is called also individualism, contrary to the collectivism.
The spirit-historical point of issue is after the meaning of the particular compared with the community, in which it lives. In more recent time this became in the extreme positions of max Stirner (“The only one and its property”) and the national socialism (“you are not anything, your people are everything”) particularly clearly. Thought systems come to meet the individualism like that anarchy mash or the liberalism much. The opposite standpoints to the Indiviualismus take particularly socialist systems. There are however exceptionsof this rough orientation. Thus for instance the liberal max of webers stresses the people as high value, while there are socialists, who aim at a social order, in whom the particular without social connection live can.
One first, those in the European abendländischen culture area the relationship of individual andAristoteles, which called humans in its politics zoon politikon, thus as a community organism, brought up for discussion, was community. In more recent time it was above all Jean Jacques Rousseau, which took care of the topic. It differentiated with respect to the society between the will of all (individuals)on the one hand and the general will of the community. This distinction finds today z. B. Application in the insurance paradox. Afterwards each individual Versicherte has an interest to take out as much as possible of the insurance. If do this however everything, the insurance becomes always expensive, which the interest thatInsuring community contradicts.
The dependence of the moral and ethics on the society worked the sociologist Emile out Durkheim. According to it there is moral at all only by the collective. The individual actually does not know moral. After Durkheim so also crimes are not anything as an offenceagainst collective of feelings.
In the liberal restaurant economics following Adam Smith however - completely contrary to the statement of Rousseau and Adam Smith - is assumed the sum of the single egoisms can lead automatically “to the greatest possible luck of the largest number” (Jeremy Bentham). The state is to limit its activities to few exceptions (and internal security expresses), what polarize-mix frequently as idea by the night watchman state one designated.
individual, mass and personality
with the coming up of the special meaning of each individual developed terms such as mass and personality. Individuals become without social integration lonely measures, as the sociologist David Riesmann called it. The Spanish philosopher Ortega y gas set diagnosed a rebellion of the masses. It comes from the combination to individuals isolated.
By a personality one understandsgenerally an individual, who succeeded to rise from the mass. Thus the criticism at the individualism sees two possibilities: Anonymous coming up of the particular in the mass, which are perhaps organized by collectivistic movements and then to become historicalpregnant to be able. Thoseother possibility is the high development of the individual to the independent, emanzipierten personality.
From it two directions of motion result. An optimistic assumes that most individuals can develop themselves further to the personality and the Indivualismus therefore a progress on the way to a better society are. The opposite pessimisticassumed the fact that the individuals do not create this but as mass only ball of a minority is and/or. or by Demagogen will be used, the individualism therefore an erroneous trend is.
individual in the intercultural comparison
the individual has completely a different one under a religious göttlichen viewMeaning as in the modern trend. It is individual humans, who become blessed, but this is seen not so much contrary to the society, but in relation to God. The individualism of the modern trend presupposes therefore the secularization. Where this did not take place, hasthe individual a very personal meaning in relation to God, but not in relation to the society. That becomes recognizable for example to the fact that in the Middle Ages artists, who decorated churches did not draw their works individually. The signature of a work of art arose only, when the individual began, a social meaning tooattain.
Also the Islam has such an anonymous adjustment in far courses, strengthened by the picture hostileness in the Koran. In contrast of the modern trend and the Islam so also different conceptions hit one on the other over the meaning and the value of the individual.
Particularly from IndianInfluences determined asiatic thinking attaches to the individual likewise a clear smaller value. The anti-western currents are also fed from it. It never gives individual humans also in asiatic thinking, but in the strong stress as in the western modern trend. There the Indiviuum is much more strongly merged into the eternal cycle and/or. into the tradition of the family, as this becomes clear in China in particular.
sciences, with the individual are concerned
- the sociology are concerned with the integration of the Indivduums into the society.
- Philosophy treatsthe topic individual and community in the broadest sense. Special fields such as anthropology and political sciences pick out single areas of the individual.
- The psychology is concerned in particular with individual problems, which come from the relationship of the individual to the society.
- The behavior research is concerned with the genetic conditions ofIndividual and group.
- The jurisprudence treats the standards, the one society ( the state) the individual individuals gives and determines the relationship between the individual and the collective interests.
- In biology individuals are single organisms of a kind.
- Theology takes itself the relationship of theOn and the moral brings up for discussion single people to God.
- The research over artificial intelligence aims both at an understandable definition of the term “individual” and at a construction of it.
- In the game theory the individual can as a player in the mass, who n-persons described play,, that its interests are egoistically pursued.
views in the antique one and in the Idealimus
in antique philosophy the term was used mainly for the “atom”, later, particularly with the earlycivil revolution in Europe also for the individual organism and the particularHumans.
Idealistic and religious views is limited application to the nature, to which a immatrielle soul is awarded. In the more recent time an individual organization and humans are predominantly named, in addition, other material objects, e.g. for individual elementary particles.
The system properties regarding characteristics of an individual
in principle each material system is to be regarded as an individual, there it over characteristics (i.e. System properties) ordered, none of his elements detached by the other elements of the system possesses and in this specific development due to his development in oneconcrete specific environment also no other system.
As an individual each system distinguishes itself spatiotemporally and qualitatively from its environment, with which it stands in reciprocal effect, so that of a dialectic reciprocal effect can be spoken, which creates specific conditions for the individual.
From it resultsthe relative independence of the individual, the ability to own development due to inherent impulse forces, to it peculiar movements and reactions to effects from the environment.
the development of the individuality
of the degrees of the relative independence, characteristic and peculiarness becomes also the degree thatIndividuality designates. The degree of the individuality of each system depends on that of the superordinate comprehensive system and its own elements.
In processes of integration usually the individuality degree of systems increases and that of their elements off (integration (philosophy)). The dehydration of the individuality, particularlyindividual humans, individualism one calls.
In the sense of the view of the individual, specified above, one knows however also different dehydrations of the individuality (e.g. a terrotialen unit, an occupational group, a people, a nation, which human civilization on earth) as different forms of the individualism understand. From thisalso the Staatsräson results.
the term of the individual in biology
in biology was referred during long periods the term of the individual almost exclusively to the individual organism. This dehydration became in 20. Century gradually taken over under criticism of the “Organismozentrismus”.After the discovery the vegetable and animal cell stepped into 19. Century temporarily a certain overestimation of the Individulität of the cell to the disadvantage of the individuality of the total organism on (“cell state theories”).
In the biological discussion around the center 20. Century was there an overestimation of the individuality of the kind to the disadvantage ofthe organism. Such overestimations are to a large extent overcome in the today's conceptions of the hierarchical order of living systems.
the individual in the logic
in the modern logic is designated under an individual each object outside of and within consciousness, characteristics possesses and anyRelations exhibits, but not even characteristic or relationship forms.
The individuals in this general and abstract sense with their characteristics and relations assemble individual ranges, on the logical expressions, statements among other thingsrefer. There the logical laws generally for arbitrary (does not empty) individual rangesapply, usually more near one does not determine, which nature these individuals are. If the validity of a logical law depends on the number of individuals, who belong to the which is the basis individual range, then only this number is indicated. The term of the individual belongs to the fundamental ideas of the modernLogic, which are accepted within their framework as indefiniert and also there not to be defined at all to be able.
With applications of the logic must be determined however exactly, what in the context of the regarded individual range as an individual is to be regarded. Becomes in particular the distinction between the individuals on the one hand andthem on the other hand strictly kept, the danger of the occurrence does not exist coming characteristics and relations more logically, i.e.syntactic Antinomien. In the context of different applications of the logic however the same object can be regarded once as an individual, another time than characteristic. One wants z.B. certain characteristics and their relations examine, without considering their relations with the individuals, whose characteristics are them, likewise, may it like individuals and be allowed to do their characteristics and relations like such first stage are treated.
The advantage of this procedure consists of the fact that one notits difficulties connected by the stage logic with with use to make must, but enfacheren with that substantially predicate calculus of the first stage gets along. In representations of the predicate calculus one uses individual variable, in order to be able to meet Existential or universal propositions over the individuals of the appropriate Individuenbeichs. With applicationsthe logic must one possibly also individual constant introduce.
individual in the economy
see: Homo oeconomicus (= individual (economics))
individual in the society
see: Homo sociologicus
individual in the policy
see: Homo politicus
Individual in the culture
see: Homo ludens
literature
- Franciscus Suarez: Over the individuality and the Individuationsprinzip (fifth metaphysical Disputation), Latin - German, given change, translated and with explanations from Rainer woodpecker, 1976 Charles Taylor
- provide Hamburg: Sources of the even. ThoseEmergence of the modern identity. Frankfurt A.M. 1996
see also
| Wiktionary: Individual - word origin, synonyms and translations |
- individual statement
- individualizing
- individual property
- individual term
