This is the second chapter of my book Transformation of the Self. It concerns Schleiermacher's understanding of the principle of individuation, in dialogue with Kant, Jacobi, Leibniz and Spinoza.

Introduction, the central experiences. - The concrete universal. - Uniformity and general law not antagonistic to individuality. - The teleology of finite consciousness, a sub-form of individuality. - Bodily basis of mind as a whole of content. - Self-consciousness as the clue to the typical structure of reality. - Ourselves and the absolute. - Individuality as the logical criterion of value. - Freedom and initiative. - Nature, the self, and the absolute.

ABSTRACTThis paper attempts to shed light on Hegel’s recurring comment that Spinoza’s philosophy lacks the ‘principle of individuality’. It shows that this criticism can have three distinct meanings: that Spinozism cannot account for the multiplicity of finite individuals; that Spinozism leads to a moral devaluation of the finite individual; the form of substance is indifferent and lacks a differentiating principle. It is shown that Hegel argued, somewhat incoherently, for all three.

Forms of contemporary life attest to the dissolution of the concept of the ‘people’ and the renewed importance of the idea of the ‘multitude’. Though they took center stage in the seventeenth century debate that spawned much of our ethico-political lexicon, these two notions are polar opposites. The ‘people’ is by its very nature centripetal. Converging towards a general will, it acts as an interface between citizens and the State. The ‘multitude’ is plural. Fleeing all political unity, it shuns negotiations (...) with the sovereign and refuses to delegate its rights to that power; it is a recalcitrant and disobedient entity with a taste for certain forms of non-representative democracy. For example, Hobbes claims that citizens in rebellion against the State represent “the multitude against the people.” But while Hobbes spotted the greatest hindrance to the workings of the State within this multitude, Spinoza found in it the roots of liberty. The political existence of ‘multiples’ as such has been stricken from the horizon of modernity: not only by Absolute State theorists, but also by Rousseau, the liberal tradition, and the socialist movement itself. (shrink)

First published in 1930 this book was written under the leadership and inspiration of Alfred Adler. He and a group of physicians and educators organized 28 child guidance clinics in Vienna, Berlin and Munich in the years prior to publication. Conducted according to the tenets of Individual Psychology, these clinics revealed many new and stimulating problems that they felt were as applicable to conditions in America and England at the time as in the experimental countries. The book was designed as (...) an organized and connected account of the problems, accomplishments and failures encountered in the daily work, reported from actual experience by the experts in charge. Adler edited the volume and assigned each subject to the specialist in that field. The result was designed to be of value to the welfare worker, the physician, and the forward-looking parent of the time. Today it can be read and enjoyed in its historical context. (shrink)

First published in 1930 this book was written under the leadership and inspiration of Alfred Adler. He and a group of physicians and educators organized 28 child guidance clinics in Vienna, Berlin and Munich in the years prior to publication. Conducted according to the tenets of Individual Psychology, these clinics revealed many new and stimulating problems that they felt were as applicable to conditions in America and England at the time as in the experimental countries. The book was designed as (...) an organized and connected account of the problems, accomplishments and failures encountered in the daily work, reported from actual experience by the experts in charge. Adler edited the volume and assigned each subject to the specialist in that field. The result was designed to be of value to the welfare worker, the physician, and the forward-looking parent of the time. Today it can be read and enjoyed in its historical context. (shrink)

The principle of individual medical confidentiality is one of the moral principles that Africa inherited unquestioningly from the West as part of Western medicine. The HIV/AIDS pandemic in Southern Africa has reduced the relevance of the principle of individual medical confidentiality. Individual medical confidentiality has especially presented challenges for practitioners among the Bantu communities that are well known for their social inter-connectedness and the way they value their extended family relations. Individual confidentiality has raised several unforeseen problems for (...) persons living with HIV/AIDS, ranging from stigma and isolation to feelings of dejection as it drives them away from their families as a way of trying to keep information about their conditions confidential. The involvement of family members in treatment decisions is in line with the philosophy of Ubuntu and serves to respect patients’ and families’ autonomy while at the same time benefiting the individual patient. (shrink)

Lately, more and more authors have asserted their belief that one of the criteria which, together with the medical ones, can and should be applied in the policy of selecting and/or prioritizing the patients in need for the allocation of medical resources with limited availability, is the principle of individual responsibility for illness. My intention in this study is to highlight some very serious obstacles looming against the attempt to apply this principle in the distribution of the medical (...) services with limited availability. Although there are numerous such obstacles, I shall only discuss five of them (the most important, in my opinion). These are: 1) the impossibility to establish with certainty whether a patient got ill due to his lifestyle; 2) the lack of a feasible and reliable method of establishing an individual’s responsibility for his lifestyle; 3) a patient’s right to privacy; 4) some moral requirements and principles and, last but not least, 5) the ethics of the medical profession. (shrink)

In this work the problem of individuation is examined both in its historical framework and in the context of contemporary discussion. In the first chapter, Gracia lays out the theoretic framework for subsequent examinations. He views the problem of individuation, or individuality, from a variety of perspectives: logical, metaphysical, epistemological, and linguistic. These he characterizes in terms of the following issues: the intention of individuality; the extension of individuality; the ontological status of individuality in the individual and its (...) relation to the individual's nature; the cause of individuation; the discernibility of individuals; and the function of proper names and indexical terms. Gracia points out that traditionally only the fourth and fifth were regarded by scholars as "the problem of individuation" proper; Gracia's contention, however, is that all six issues were discussed by medievals and must be studied more thoroughly by scholars. In this context, Gracia correctly argues that individuation must not be confused with related issues of difference and common nature. (shrink)

Henry’s view of individuation makes him a nominalist; this doesn’t stop him from talking about the principle of individuation.

This essay explores the reception and used of Suárez’s philosophy by two canonical early modern philosophers, René Descartes and Gottfried Leibniz. It is argued that Descartes’ theory of distinctions does not betray any indications of being Suárezian, despite many claims to the contrary. Leibniz, however, was a very different reader of Suárez’s works, it is argued, and his thinking about individuation was clearly influenced by Suárez even if he did not adopt the Suárezian position in the end.

This paper analyses Etienne Balibar’s thesis of an “ontology of relation”, considering two moments of his theoretical production: his reading of Marx’s 6th thesis on Feuerbach as the grounds for a relational ontology or a thought on transindividuality; and an analysis of the development of this thesis in terms of what Balibar calls “anthropological differences”. Following Balibar, in this paper I suggest that the basic theoretical elements of a thought on transindividuality can be found in both Althusser and Balibar’s contributions (...) to Lire Le Capital (1965), which opens the possibility of conceiving a “Marxist principle of individuation”. I conclude by discussing the limits and the effects of Balibar’s proposal. (shrink)

A lean hylomorphism stands as a metaphysical holy grail. An embarrassing feature of traditional hylomorphic ontologies is prime matter. Prime matter is both so basic that it cannot be examined (in principle) and its engagement with the other hylomorphic elements is far from clear. One particular problem posed by prime matter is how it is to be understood both as a principle of individuation for material substances and as pure potency. I present Thomas Aquinas’s way of squeezing (...) some intelligibility out of prime matter by modeling it on the idea of logical genus. Such a modeling provides insight into understanding prime matter as substratum, as maximally indeterminate, and as ontologically vague. One of the unusual but exciting things that fall out from this analysis of prime matter is the Entirety Thesis: “For any substance x, if x has prime matter then the prime matter of x is the same* as x,” where ‘same*’ is understood as “indeterminately identical.”. (shrink)

The book is a systematic study of the issue of self-individuation in the scholastic debate on principles of individuation. The point of departure is a general formulation of the problem of individuation acceptable for all the participants of the scholastic debate: a principle of individuation of x is what makes x individual. The book argues against a prima facie plausible view that everything that is individual is individual by itself and not by anything distinct from (...) it. The keynote topic of the book is a detailed analysis of the two competing ways of rejecting the Strong Self-Individuation Thesis: the Scotistic and the Thomistic one. The book defends the latter one, discussing a number of issues concerning substantial and accidental forms, essences, properties, instantiation, the Thomistic notion of materia signata, Frege’s Begriff-Gegenstand distinction, and Geach’s form-function analogy developed in his writings on Aquinas. In the context of both the scholastic and contemporary metaphysics, the book offers a framework for dealing with issues of individuality and defends a Thomistic theory of individuation. (shrink)

본 논문은 하이데거와 들뢰즈의 존재론 안에서 핵심적인 존재론적 원리로 제시되는 존재론적 차이와 개체화 원리를 분석함으로써, 두 철학자의 생성에 대한 의미를 비교하는 것을 목표로 한다. 하이데거의 존재론적 차이는 ‘존재와 존재자의 차이’만을 의미하는 것이 아니라 ‘존재 자체와 존재자의 존재와의 차이’도 함축하고 있다. 들뢰즈의 개체화 원리도 잠재적인 것과 현실적인 것을 이어주는 과정만을 의미하는 것이 아니라, 심층과 표층 그리고 상층으로 이어지는 시간적 이해와 미분화-개체화-극화-분화로 이어지는 개체의 발생에 대한 포괄적 의미도 함축하고 있다. 필자는 두 철학자의 시간성에 대한 비교를 통해 이중적인 두 원리의 구도를 분명히 드러낼 (...) 것이다. 나아가 ‘반복하는 순간’으로 제시되는 존재 자체와 차이 자체에 대한 이해를 통해 존재를 생성의 차원으로 해명하는 두 철학자의 존재론에 대한 동일한 성격을 밝혀낼 것이다. 끝으로 사이-나눔과 ‘이념과 강도’에서 나타나는 서로-나름과 점진적 규정에 대한 비교를 통해 두 철학자가 제시하는 생성에 대한 의미가 정확히 무엇인지를 분석할 것이다. 이는 두 철학자가 제시하는 내재적이고 초월론적인 존재론안에서 핵심적인 역할을 하는 ‘생성’을 분석함으로써, 현대존재론이 나아가야할 방향성과 의미 지반을 찾으려는 작업이다. (shrink)

This paper focuses on the major work of Edith Stein, Finite and Eternal Being. It seeks to determine whether her mature philosophical synthesis is correctly viewed as Thomist. It strives to accomplish this by focusing mainly on her treatment of the problem of individuation.

이 글은 들뢰즈가 주장했던 개념에 대한 분명한 이해를 목적으로 기획되었다. 일찍이 들뢰즈는 사르트르의 타인-구조에 대해 구조주의의 선구자로서의 면모를 갖추었다고 상찬한 바 있지만, 그것을 ‘시선’을 통해 정의함으로써 결국 타자를 또 다시 주체와 대상의 범주로 떨어지게 만들었다며 아쉬워했다. 부정과 모순 을 기반으로 하고 있는 주체철학의 구도에서 축조된 사르트르의 타인이론은 결국 에 머물 수밖에 없기 때문이다. 게다가 능동적인 의 재인능력은 만을 가능하도록 이끎으로써 우리의 사유를 치명적으로 제한하는 문제점을 안고 있다. 따라서 들뢰즈는 서양철학에서의 선-철학적 전제로 인해 재현적 사유만이 가능한 인격 적인 주체 개념을 비인격적 (...) 개체인 로 대신하였을 뿐만 아니라, 재인으로부터 를 구하기 위해, 즉 에 관심 을 쏟았고 그러는 가운데 로 을 지목함으로써 의 구도를 벗어나게 된다. 그 과정을 톺아보면 사르트르의 타인-시선 구조는 들뢰즈에게 전 해져 지각장의 한 구조로서의 타인과 절대적 구조인 으로 좀 더 면밀 히 구분되는데, 이 절대적인 구조는 그것을 채우는 항들에 앞서 존재하는 것이 아니라 중 단 없이 연속적으로 변이하며 전개되어 간다. 이처럼 타인-구조와 개체화는 긴밀히 연관 되어 있기에, 만약 우리가 진정 새로워지고 싶다면 우선 재현의 개체화만을 일으키는 기존 의 타인-구조를 와해시킴으로써 창조적 사유자인 로 거듭나기 위한 조건을 만들 어야만 한다. 이는 우리의 사유가 어떻게 재현의 방식을 벗어나 자유로워질 수 있는가 하 는 방법의 문제이기도 하며 뒤집어 말해, 우리 사유의 독특성과 다양성에 대한 설명이기도 하다. 들뢰즈의 이론을 통해 타인은 투쟁의 대상이나 유사함과 감미로움의 대상을 넘어, 이라는 고유한 의미의 타인으로 새롭게 태어난다. (shrink)

Background:Moral courage is defined as courage to act according to one’s own ethical values and principles even at the risk of negative consequences for the individual. In a complex nursing practice, ethical considerations are integral. Moral courage is needed throughout nurses’ career.Aim:To analyse graduating nursing students’ moral courage and the factors associated with it in six European countries.Research design:A cross-sectional design, using a structured questionnaire, as part of a larger international ProCompNurse study. In the questionnaire, moral courage was assessed with (...) a single question (visual analogue scale 0–100), the questionnaire also covered several background variables.Participants and research context:The sample comprised graduating nursing students (n = 1796) from all participating countries. To get a comprehensive view about graduating nursing students’ moral courage, the views of nurse managers (n = 538) and patients (n = 1327) from the same units in which the graduating nursing students practised were also explored, with parallel questionnaires.Ethical considerations:Ethical approvals and research permissions were obtained according to national standards in every country and all participants gave their informed consent.Results:The mean of graduating nursing students’ self-assessed moral courage was 77.8 (standard deviation 17.0; on a 0–100 scale), with statistically significant differences between countries. Higher moral courage was associated with many factors, especially the level of professional competence. The managers assessed the graduating nursing students’ moral courage lower (66.5; standard deviation 18.4) and the patients slightly higher (80.6; standard deviation 19.4) than the graduating nursing students themselves.Discussion and conclusions:In all countries, the graduating nursing students’ moral courage was assessed as rather high, with differences between countries and populations. These differences and associations between moral courage and ethics education require further research. (shrink)

Philippe van Parijs (2003) has argued that an egalitarian ethos cannot be part of a post- Political Liberalism Rawlsian view of justice, because the demands of political justice are confined to principles for institutions of the basic structure alone. This paper argues, by contrast, that certain principles for individual conduct—including a principle requiring relatively advantaged individuals to sometimes make their economic choices with the aim of maximising the prospects of the least advantaged—are an integral part of a Rawlsian political (...) conception of justice. It concludes that incentive payments will have a clearly limited role in a Rawlsian theory of justice. (shrink)

Philippe van Parijs (2003) has argued that an egalitarian ethos cannot be part of a post- Political Liberalism Rawlsian view of justice, because the demands of political justice are confined to principles for institutions of the basic structure alone. This paper argues, by contrast, that certain principles for individual conduct—including a principle requiring relatively advantaged individuals to sometimes make their economic choices with the aim of maximising the prospects of the least advantaged—are an integral part of a Rawlsian political (...) conception of justice. It concludes that incentive payments will have a clearly limited role in a Rawlsian theory of justice. (shrink)