Individual

INDIVIDUO. –

I. PHILOSOPHY

The term i. is commonly used to signify concrete reality, that is, reality essentially determined in itself and therefore by its nature incommunicable, as it is given or can be given in experience.

The Latin adjective individuum corresponds to the Greek ἄτομος, and thus etymologically means indivisible; in fact, this was its fundamental sense in the usage of classical Latin. The first technical use of the substantive ἄτομος is found in Democritean terminology, where it indicates the ultimate indivisible element of the physical world. Plato used the term εἶδος ἄτομον to signify the idea not further divisible into other subordinate ideas, that is, the lowest species realized in the material world; and he used the word ἄτομον to signify a singular concrete whole (Soph., XVI, 229 b). Aristotle identified the reality of the εἶδος ἄτομον with the reality of the οὐσία πρώτη and of every other essence, asserting that no reality can exist other than the concrete or singular (cf. Met., VI, chaps. 4 and 8). Singular reality is called by Aristotle τὸ δὲ τι or ἐν τι καὶ τὸ δὲ τι (which the medieval thinkers translated literally as unum quid et hoc aliquid), and also, with a plural term, τὸ καθ' ἕκαστα, that is, singulars. After Boethius, the Latin term individuum went beyond its etymological meaning to assume the Aristotelian meaning of concrete reality, in opposition to every universal reality or abstract concept. In this fundamental sense the term passed into common usage.

The philosophical doctrine of the i. has epistemological, ontological, and logical developments. From the epistemological aspect, the i. is the concrete intelligible object. As such, its content consists of intelligible notes referred to the empirical datum present to the senses with its actual spatiotemporal determinations, as, for example, when one considers “this tree” or “this man.” By virtue of this reference, the human intellect is able to reach concrete reality, distinguish this i. from that one, and formulate judgments of experience (v. GIUDIZIO; INTUIZIONE). From the metaphysical aspect, the i. is the concrete being. The commonly accepted Thomistic definition, “being undivided in itself and divided from every other” (Sum. Theol., 1°, q. 29, a. 4), is a formula that seeks to take account of the etymology by highlighting how concrete being is essentially one, and, insofar as it is one, undivided and such as to be distinct from every other. In this sense the i. is reality essentially determined, by its nature incommunicable, and, as is commonly said today, unrepeatable and punctual. Although the i., through its individual determinations, differs from other i., it nevertheless remains similar to them in its specific notes, and is therefore intrinsically sufficient to ground legitimate common essential concepts, both analogous and univocal. From the logical aspect, the i. is the concrete subject, that is, the term of which other terms are predicated and which is not predicable of anything else. It is from this point of view that i. and singular coincide (v. SINGOLARE).

The doctrine of the i. finds its completion in the doctrine of the principle of individuation (v.), person (v.). In our day it has particular relevance because it makes it possible to assess certain motives proper to contemporary existentialism, for example, the vindication of the singularity of individual existence in opposition to the idealist transcendental conception. This vindication is more than legitimate, provided it is not exaggerated to the point of denying the specific similarity of i.; otherwise existential philosophy would logically end by becoming a philosophy devoid of common essential concepts, that is, a form of ineffable and incommunicable solipsism. The philosophical problem is not resolved through opposition, but through the balanced synthesis of essence and existence. V. INDIVIDUALISMO.

Indivisibility, inherent in the etymology of the word i., is lacking in cases where the individual unit is divided by fission, budding, etc. (v. RIPRODUZIONE). The products of such processes may become free or may remain temporarily or permanently joined to one another in isomorphic or polymorphic colonies, as occurs in numerous protozoa, worms, coelenterates, echinoderms, tunicates, and in plants capable of vegetative multiplication by runners, cuttings, layering, etc.; if the division has been carried out experimentally, regeneration of the missing parts occurs. A similar uncertainty regarding the limits of the i. may arise in the emergence of two or more units free from a single egg (monovular twins, polyembryony in the insect litomastix truncatellus and the armadillo tatusia hybrida) or from a single larva (paedogenesis with sporogony in the worm fasciola hepatica; V. ANIMAZIONE; GEMELLI). The difficulties increase further when one turns to the field of natural or experimental anomalies (Siamese twins; grafted plants and animal or plant chimeras in which organs and tissues of different species or breeds are associated with a viable outcome).

The definition of autonomy is equally problematic. Between patent dependence on other organisms and more or less pronounced self-sufficiency, numerous intermediate cases may be found, which account for divergent judgments. Thus a certain autonomy may be recognized in the fertilizing arm or hectocotylus of the male argonaut, in the blood leucocytes, in tissues and organs that can be cultured in vitro, and finally in the individual cells of multicellular organisms. Conversely, physiological autonomy, despite morphological autonomy, may be denied to parasites, symbionts, and the members of an insect society. Finally, the presence of peculiar characteristics is also open to controversy in its assessment. Indeed, apart from the frequent practical difficulty of distinguishing these characteristics from the collective ones proper to the group of belonging (breed or species), and of differentiating transient environmental influences from the action of intrinsic factors, it should be noted that individual characteristics generally vary to a greater or lesser extent over time: the modifications are considerable during embryogenesis and, in cases of metamorphosis, even after birth; but, strictly speaking, no i. remains unchanged during the successive moments of its life. On the other hand, characteristics may be very similar in i. possessing the same genetic endowment (monovular twins, pure lines, clones). Finally, exclusive peculiarities may be found in symbiotic associations: thus, in lichens, the alga and the fungus, although they can also live separately, acquire, when associated, a functional individuality marked by characteristics lacking in the individual components.

These observations have given rise to divergent views in the historically successive definitions of the i.; these have also been influenced by the knowledge acquired and the theoretical conceptions prevailing at different times.

As long as the fixist-discontinuous doctrine prevailed, the elementary nature of the i., as a component of the species and of other systematic entities, was accepted without discussion in its empirical meaning. Its unitary value was initially accentuated by the continuous evolution which, following Lamarck’s example, considered only i. to be natural realities and taxonomic complexes to be transitory appearances (v. CLASSIFICAZIONE). But this very revaluation led to the disintegration of the concept of the i. when an attempt was made to determine its meaning rationally. On the one hand, the cell theory, driven toward micromerism; on the other, the progress of knowledge concerning generation and the forms of associated life, under the influence of materialism and mechanism, led to the assertion that the i. could be divided into progressively subordinate units, down to the ultimate and hypothetical vital units (biononodi, biofori, bionolecole). Hierarchies of i. of different orders or degrees were thus established, each of which was considered to result from the association of i. of a lower degree. Thus, in his “scale of morphonts,” Haeckel arranged in ascending order the cell or plastid, the animal person or plant bud, and the colony or corm. While, on the one hand, societies of separate elements and even entire metagenetic cycles were considered i., on the other, all multicellular beings were regarded as colonial, their more or less conspicuous metamerism being seen as the vestiges of ancient linear colonies.

Subsequent discoveries concerning vital phenomena involving the organism in its entirety (neuroendocrine processes, the totipotency of the egg, the directive action of organizers, phenomena of vicariation and self-regulation, relations between somatic cells and germ cells), together with the recognition of psychological elements and, in human beings, spiritual elements rejected by materialism or interpreted by it in mechanical terms that proved untenable, discredited the mosaicist tendency and replaced it with the opposite tendency, which considers the i., in its usual meaning, a unitary whole in the totality of its manifestations, independently of its morpho-anatomical structure. Among certain, though still debated, expressions of this tendency may be included the modern holistic conceptions, which some trace back to W. Goethe and according to which the i. is an indivisible whole, not identifiable with the mere sum of its parts, but rather governing those parts themselves. The current biotypological and constitutionalist conceptions concerning the human person in its indivisible somatic-psychic and spiritual unity may be placed within the same framework.

The definition of i. thus encounters difficulties similar to those concerning the definitions of taxonomic complexes, which may be summarized as the impossibility of drawing exact, natural limits valid in all cases. In any event, it must be borne in mind that individuality, as a synthesis of peculiar characteristics, is not necessarily exclusive to the individual i., but may also manifest itself in collectivities when their isolated members lack certain attributes recognizable in their totality: thus an insect society has its own individuality, although it is composed of numerous i. On the other hand, individuality may become evident or may diminish in successive stages of development: the first case is found in the aforementioned phenomena of polyembryony, paedogenesis, and vegetative multiplication; the second in those of parasitism or late symbiosis. This makes it necessary to consider the i. not only statically in space, as a harmonious and distinct ensemble of parts, but also in its temporal dynamism, as the totality of all its stages of development and activity: in this sense, an egg or a larva, rather than being an i., is a transitory stage of the i. Moreover, the i. presents not only exclusive characteristics, but also all the characteristics proper to the systematic group to which it belongs (breed, species, etc.), and therefore its value cannot be fully understood when it is considered in isolation and detached from the complex to which it belongs. Finally, it may be observed that uncertainties concerning the limits of the i. gradually diminish as one proceeds from the germ to the adult and from lower to higher organisms, that is, with the progress of morphophysiological differentiation. In the human being, the i. attains that completeness which permits it to be called a “person.”

In conclusione si può dire che le moderne vedute hanno rivalutato il concetto naturale d'i., mentre la questione della sua esatta circoscrizione non è più ritenuta attuale in quanto non necessaria per affermarne l'oggettività e la pratica afferrabilità.

III. ETHNOLOGY

There have been, especially during the second half of the last century, and there are still today, scholars of ethnology, the history of religions, and related sciences who have denied and continue to deny any value to the individual in the life of peoples as compared with society. Here only a few of the very numerous testimonies that could be adduced in support of this theory are reported—a theory fraught with such serious consequences for the sciences mentioned above. Bastian asserted that the thought of the individual is sterile; only social thought is fruitful, for it produces the psychic creations that the spirit can contemplate and study. Indeed, he added, it would be better to say that the thought of the individual does not acquire the possibility of existing except after and within social thought. Once man, as a social being, has cast his reflections onto the ethnic horizon—that is, into the social products of customs, usages, myths, legends, languages, etc.—he can observe himself, and, through a sound method of analysis, every individuality will once again reveal itself. For in reality man exists only as a social being: the individual exists only in abstraction. This “psychology of the thought of peoples” would be ethnology (Der Völkergedanke im Aufbau einer Wissenschaft vom Menschen, Berlin 1886, pp. 6–20).

Gumplowicz, an Austrian sociologist, maintained even more vigorously than Bastian that “the greatest error of individual psychology is to suppose that man thinks. From this error arise the perpetual inquiries into the source of the intellectual activity of the individual, and into the causes that make him think in one way rather than another; from it theologians and naïve philosophers take the opportunity to make observations and, indeed, to give advice on how man ought to think. For, in the first place, what thinks in man is not he himself, but the society that surrounds him; the source of his intellectual activity is not within him, but in the social environment in which he lives, in the social atmosphere that he breathes; and he cannot think otherwise than as the influences of the social environment, which are concentrated in his brain, require” (Grundriss der Soziologie, Vienna 1885, p. 167).

Post, the founder of legal ethnology, held that individual psychology cannot serve as a basis for science, because only a small part of psychic life reaches the individual’s consciousness; most of it everywhere escapes him. Observing that individual psychology had remained stationary from the time of the Greeks to his own day, he added: “But immense progress will be possible when social psychology is substituted for individual psychology, when, on the basis of the customs and social ideas of all the peoples of the earth, a history of the evolution of human consciousness is written. The great idea of the social science of our times is that it strives to know the nature of the human spirit through its influences in every sphere of the life of peoples” (Die Grundlage des Rechts und Grundzüge seiner Entwicklungsgeschichte. Leitgedanken für den Aufbau einer allgemeinen Rechtswissenschaft auf soziologischer Basis, Oldenburg 1884, p. 478; id., Einleitung in das Studium der ethnologischen Jurisprudenz, ibid. 1886, p. 10). In short, when reading these authors one gains the distinct impression that society is regarded as a living being that thinks, wills, acts, and achieves—that is, that it is attributed the qualities proper to the individual; hence, a genuine reversal of values.

Yet it is enough to reflect for a moment on the fact that all modern progress in the sciences and their applications is principally the fruit of individual efforts for the colossal error of this position to become immediately apparent: it admits the value of the individual among peoples of high civilization, but denies it among those of lower civilization.

Vierkandt, for example, although vigorously combating this mentality, initially admitted it in the case of primitive peoples. “The difference in the position of the individual,” he says, “with respect to the totality of barbarian and civilized peoples generally consists in this: among the former, the individual rises less above the others than among the latter. We can apply to this difference the two terms bound individual and free individual, insofar as the former is characterized by the subjection of his will, feeling, and thought to the corresponding characteristics of the community, while the latter is distinguished by a relative independence with respect to these characteristics. The free individual is possible only in full civilization; among savage and semicivilized peoples, even the great individuals who possess important practical and political activity rise above the mass only through their dynamic qualities, not from a theoretical point of view. Man’s herd instinct reveals itself so powerfully in this period that the individual is nothing other than ‘a living animal in a herd’” (Herdengeschöpf: A. Vierkandt, Naturvölker und Kulturvölker, Berlin 1896, p. 171).

Spencer, in his work Principi di sociologia (London 1876; Italian translation, Padua 1922), when treating the original external and internal factors of social phenomena, recognized the necessity of studying them historically. He did so by showing what the present-day primitive man is from the physical, emotional, and intellectual point of view, because he regarded him as the most faithful representative of prehistoric man. He is an individual lacking ideas and abstract principles, lacking inventive imagination; he is credulous and possesses neither religious ideas and feelings nor moral sentiments. In conclusion, Spencer expresses how he conceived the whole individual in relation to society. “The reader,” he says, “will have observed that the intellectual characteristics of the savage are found among civilized children. As a final clarification, we shall indicate that the development of the highest intellectual faculties always proceeds pari passu with social progress, as both cause and consequence. The progress of primitive man is retarded by the absence of capacities that only progress can bring into being” (Principi di sociologia, Italian translation, p. 17). In more recent times, Th.-W. Danzel likewise said that “the individual of a primitive group or community is almost entirely lost in the life of his community. The thought and conduct of primitive man are collective, etc.” (Kultur und Religion des primitiven Menschen, Stuttgart 1924, p. 5). The importance of this theory has been great, when one considers that from it arose various theories concerning the origin of society, the family, the State, morality, and religion, such as the school of Durkheim and Lévy-Bruhl, Tylor’s animism, and the various views on the origin of religion from the different forms of magic—that is, from the irrational.

It is the very great merit of Fr. Schmidt, as Lowie, Koppers, and Mühlmann acknowledge, to have reacted vigorously against this false evaluation of the individual, as well as against the methodological errors that followed from it, and to have practically encouraged research into the individual among primitive peoples. In his important work L'ethnologie moderne, in which he set out the program of the distinguished international journal of ethnology and linguistics Anthropos, founded by him in 1906, he clearly pointed out the false path on which ethnology had embarked. “Modern ethnology,” he said, “is entirely dominated by collectivist principles; there can be no doubt about the wide diffusion of these ideas. We must add that, in practice, these principles govern ethnological studies far more sovereignly than might be imagined from the theoretical assertions we have reported. It may simply be said that studies other than those of groups are unknown to the ethnology of our times. Modest beginnings in other directions, which appear here and there, cannot be regarded as substantial changes, because they have often been inspired by very different motives, although in certain tendencies we note with satisfaction that they contribute to breaking the dominion of collectivism” (p. 617).

Fr. Schmidt always held that ethnology is the science of the group, the science of peoples; indeed, he assigned it a very broad specific field, defining it as the science whose object is the development of the spirit and of the external activity of man, guided by the spirit, in the life of peoples. At the same time, however, he saw the necessity of studying the variations and different evaluations of a people’s civilization arising from the individual, without which an exact knowledge of the present state of civilization cannot be obtained—the state from which ethnology proceeds in order to reconstruct its history. Therefore, in proposing the study of the individual among primitive peoples, he rightly observed that one must not be content merely to note and study the great agglomerations of peoples and tribes and their universal conceptions, customs, and usages; attention must also be directed to the fluctuations and variations within these agglomerations, whether they proceed from small groups, from a few isolated families, or chiefly from particular individuals. In this latter respect, primary importance must be given to individuals who distinguish themselves from their surroundings through exceptional talents, whether in the arts and crafts or in warfare, or in the social, intellectual, and religious spheres; their entire formation must be made a particular object of study, together with what they have received from the environment around them and the influence they exert upon II. In all this, as Fr. Schmidt rightly observes, there is only the negative aspect of the problem, insofar as one or more individuals are found to differ from the community. But it is even more important to study when and how certain individuals can act positively upon society, supplementing, adding, enriching, and perfecting it, either by developing what already exists or by introducing innovations of greater or lesser originality.

Mühlmann points out the necessity and the very great importance of biographies of the primitive individual, written from the psychological standpoint of personality, using the accounts of relatives, neighbors, friends, and enemies concerning the life of the individual in question, or even autobiographies. From these biographies and autobiographies one can discern the influences that the individual receives from others and exercises upon others, and thus better understand the civilization of primitive peoples.

Following the warning issued by Fr. Schmidt, studies of the primitive individual in relation to society and in general multiplied. Vierkandt himself, who, as has been seen, had paid his tribute to the prevailing current that entirely devalued the primitive individual, changed his view and published his study on Individuali dirigenti presso i popoli primitivi. There have been scholars, such as Leroy, Bellon, Krause, Lowie, and Schmidt, who have generally criticized the various theories that base religion, morality, and social life upon the irrational; they rejected the French sociological school of Durkheim, especially Lévy-Bruhl’s prelogical theory. Missionaries, explorers, and scholars of every nation have turned their attention to the primitive individual in every part of the world. Among many others, mention may be made here of Fr. Koppers for the Yamana of Tierra del Fuego, Koch-Grünberg for the primitives of the Amazon River in Brazil, Nordenskiöld for the Ciriguami and Ciané, Sapper for the Checina, Radin for the Winnebago, Fr. Schebesta for the Pygmies of Ituri and the Malay Peninsula, Stephan for the primitives of New Pomerania in Melanesia, and Beck, Knabenhaus, and Basedow for those of Australia, etc. Regarding the latter, given the supreme importance attributed to them by evolutionist authors, and especially by the French sociological school, it will be interesting to report here the judgment of Basedow, who took part in fifteen exploratory expeditions among them. “Among the members of a tribe,” he says, “there are differences of character and talent exactly as are observed in a modern society, including orators, warriors, artists, and buffoons.”

Studies of the individual undoubtedly need to be developed further; nevertheless, as many as five decades ago they had already taken the right path. Koppers, in concluding one of his studies, could affirm in 1928 that “in the light of the new investigations, primitive peoples appear increasingly rehabilitated. An old injustice has been repaired. I call it an injustice,” he added, “because to deny a man individuality ultimately means nothing other than depriving him of what belongs to him as specifically human. This has now been restored to primitive peoples. Through the power of facts, the contrary a priori theories have been surpassed; they may now be regarded as definitively destroyed” (Individualforschung unter den Primitiven [V. BIBLICA.], p. 364). If the study of the individual is necessary for obtaining a correct knowledge of the present civilization of primitive peoples, as stated above, it is even more necessary for establishing cultural causality, which is closely linked to the determination of time. Until now, it is precisely in this respect that ethnology has been inferior to history based on written documents—an inferiority already noted by Gröbner: whereas in history one can ascertain the action of individuals, in ethnology this cannot yet be done. The study of tribal myths, especially a methodical investigation of the various figures of ancestors and culture heroes, may, according to Schmidt, provide numerous traces of individual history. A clear instance of this is found among the Maidu in the reformer Oankohtupeh, who brought the people back once more to a higher form of the earlier religion.

dans les sociétés inférieures, Parigi 1910; id., La mentalité primitive, ivi 1922; W. Koppers, Unter Feuerland-Indianern, Stoccarda 1924; W. Schmidt-W. Koppers, Völker und Kulturen. Gesellschaft und Wirtschaft der Völker, Ratisbona 1924, p. 38; Fr. Krause, Zum Problem der primitiven Völker, in Archiv f. d. gesamte Psychologie, 54, p. 294; O. Leroy, La raison primitive. Essai de refutation de la théorie du prélogisme, Parigi 1927, p. 55 sg.; W. Koppers, Individualforschung unter den Primitiven, im besonderen unter den Yamana auf Feuerland, in Schmidt-Festschrift, Vienna 1928, pp. 249-65; R. H. Lowie, Individual differences and primitive culture, ibid., pp. 493-500; K. L. Bellon, Antoue du problème de la mentalité primitive, in Anthropologie, 34 (1939), pp. 118-29; W. E. Mühlmann, Geschichtliche Bedingungen, Methoden und Aufgaben der Völkerkunde, in Lehrbuch der Völkerkunde, Hg. K. Th. Preuss e R. Thurnwald, Stoccarda 1939, p. 32 sg.; W. Schmidt, Das Menschenbild der Urkultur. Geist und Ethos des Menschen der Urkultur, in Wissenschaft und Weltbild, (1949), pp. 1-20; W. Schmidt-W. Koppers, Manuale di metodologia etnologica, Milano 1949, p. 222; C. Kluckhohn, H. A. Murray, ecc., Personality in nature, society and culture, 2ª ristampa, Nuova York 1949; W. Koppers, Lévy-Bruhl und das Ende des « prélogischen Denkens » der Primitiven, in Atti del XIV Congresso internazionale di sociologia*, Roma 1950.

Luigi Vannicelli