Individuality

What is individuality? Do you honestly think I can answer that question? At the very least I would have to examine holism, both methodological and descriptive; personhood; reduction; identity; time; and embodiment.

Let me remain simple and give a cursory definition or explanation of each of those terms while recognizing I am distorting the extraordinary complexity of thought contained within such concepts.

Holism maintains that the whole has some properties that its parts lack. Descriptive emergentism holds that properties of the whole cannot be defined by the properties of its parts. Descriptive individualism, however, insists that all properties of the whole can be defined by the properties of its parts. Explanatory holism posits that the whole has properties that interact “back” with the properties of its parts. Positivist beliefs made distinctions between social “wholes” and individualism; social wholes (the reality of society beyond individual persons and their properties and relations) are metaphysical and non-empirical whereas individualism is non-metaphysical and empirical, relying on observable properties in describing and explaining social phenomena.

Personhood is the condition or property of being a person in relation to moral and metaphysical realms. Traits of persons include agency, reason, language (intentionality and self-consciousness), and relational abilities. I-It and I-Thou relationships are explorations of where a person ends and an “other” begins. The beginnings and endings of personhood are controversial, particularly in relation to abortion and euthanasia.

Reduction is far broader in scope than merely exploring individuality though language and mental properties seem always to be in focus which does bring it into the realm of individualism. Reduction, at its most basic level, is the replacement of one expression by a second expression that differs from the first in prima facie reference. An example is the approach of logical positivists to reduce theoretical vocabulary to an observational vocabulary. Sense-datum theory and predicate logic played significant roles in this regard. Identity theory (of mind and body) would have us reduce psychology and the social sciences to the language of physics, but there are serious problems in identifying and connecting mental properties with complex physical properties. Neuroscience is attempting to do something like this, but is in nascent stages of its attempts.

The issue with reduction, remember, is language. Fodor’s example, from economics, is that in the right circumstances any physical object could count as a piece of money. Thus, finding a closed and finite statement (which is what reduction is attempting to do) in the form “being a piece of money is …” with only predicates from physics appearing in the statement after “is” seems improbable. Another example recognizes the difficulties of physical realization in crafting identity and linguistic meaning: The property of being a calculator can be physically realized by an abacus, devices with gears and levers, objects with vacuum tubes or silicon chips, and so on.

As is evident, dependence on context arises in both cases because the property constitutes a functional property rather than an identity property; the relevant functional system (calculational practices and monetary systems) are larger than the property-bearing object in question. These examples raise questions of whether mental properties depend on relations to things outside the organisms that have mental properties [One of the ways in which “the self does not end at the skin.” It also throws a huge monkey wrench into the possibility that such a thing as an individual or person exists in any of the ways considered legally, politically, socially, or conceptually.]

Identity … too complex. For our purposes, let’s just take a peek at tensed identity and relative identity. Tensed identity assume a class of time-bound properties, properties an object can have at a time regardless of properties it has at other times (a statue’s shape, location, or elegance). A bronze statue in 2010 may not have the same identity as the “same” bronze statue in 2014, whether because of movement of the statue, alteration of the statue’s appearance, or a shift in public conception of the statue’s meaning. Relative identity states that object and object b may be identical relative to one concept or predicate but not to another. Thus, the statue may be held to be the same lump of matter as the bronze but not the same object of art.

Time … forget it. How can I summarize at all? Even “past, present, future,” is ridiculous as a summary because each of those concepts contain universes of meanings and contradictions, and they certainly don’t encapsulate the vastness of the multiverse of time-related concepts.

Embodiment: the bodily aspects of human subjectivity. It is related to phenomenology. There is the objective body regarded as a physiological entity and the phenomenal body, as Merleau-Ponty labeled it, which is my body as I experience it. While it is possible to experience my body as a physiological entity—and I do at times—it is more typical to experience my body as the potential to do “this” or “that”: writing a blog entry, throwing a baseball, walking across the street, etc. My sense of my motor capacities does not require an understanding of the physiological processes involved in performing various actions. Embodiment, thus, is a concept unrelated to the body understood physiologically but to the role the body plays in object-directed experiences.

How do all of these ideas play together to define individuality or to determine whether such a thing as individuality exists? You expect an answer in a blog post written in a day (actually a couple hours)? There’s no way. I don’t even want to provide an answer. My interest in the subject is primarily related to the commonly held belief that humans are individuals. In the U.S., at least, there is a widespread belief that individuality exists. A person thinks, “I am an individual.” But if I ask a given person what being an individual means I am all but guaranteed an incomprehensible and contradictory answer, one that is almost certainly ill-formed because there has been very little consideration of the meaning of what it might be to be an individual.

My thought is that each “persons” belief that he or she is an individual is a concept passed down over generations from historical philosophical and political thought, constituted from concepts such as property rights and freedom of speech as well as economic and legal practices. In some ways it’s simple to identify oneself as an individual. For example, when I get punched in the stomach no one else but me feels the physical pain. On the other hand, when I am with others and we are watching a child dropped from a fourth story window, our emotional reactions may be so similar that it’s all but impossible to say that my reaction to the event was unique. Even a sociopath can’t claim individuality if there were other sociopaths present.

In a way, individuality boils down to differentiation versus sameness. But even then resemblance confuses matters, a sort of gray area between differentiation and sameness. Plus, each being is in relation to the surrounding environment. There is no solitary existence of a being. If there was, nothing but a totality of alienation could be experienced … except that the mind itself is vast; how many variations of myself exist as idea? Can I not play with these different variants with my imagination? If I daydream about you then “you” exist within me. You as you actually are? Does it matter? Not in this context. I’ve created a self that is myself as “you” within myself as “me.” We coexist within my supposed individuality. My identity, in this case, shifts as well. I am no longer I but I-(You as I). I’ve expanded my self-conception, my identity. Has my individuality shifted?

I don’t know. I still don’t know what individuality means. I don’t think it’s a coherent concept at all. If you ask me what “parts” make up my individuality I am not going to have a coherent answer for you. Is it because the parts are endless? No, not really. I think it’s because too many “parts” of me include what is external to my body and even my mind. Even the most complicated self-definition a being may create is going to be a reduction of the totality of what might constitute a being. I think beings are limitless, unknowable in their entireties. It’s fascinating to explore and develop hypotheses and theories, though. I value fascination so limitlessness is heavenly. I certainly don’t think in philosophical terms when I think of myself. I don’t want to have to put quotation marks around every word I use to denote that the term is under question! I do it sometimes, but damn, I would have a constant headache if I did that. But if I don’t think philosophically at all I’ll be in danger of shrinking as a being. I don’t want that.

I’m trapped by language, ultimately. Pronouns of I and me. I’m trapped by my name as if eight or twelve letters say anything about me. I have to use I and me and my even when challenging the notion of individuality, of my existence as a person, as a singular being separate from other beings and objects. This is one of the reasons why academic language in philosophy, gender studies, linguistics, and other fields are so esoteric. They are desperately trying to figure out ways of using language to communicate definitions, explanations, and descriptions of all that is in ways that aren’t so damn convoluted and limiting. It’s a process destined to fail, but the effects do change the way things are as well as changing perspectives, perceptions, beliefs, values, and experiences.

I’m intrigued by how others think just as much as I am fascinated by my own thinking. I have no idea what comes next. You don’t either. It seems like we do because urban designs don’t change overnight so if we see the same things the same way day after day it seems like “this is the way things are.” This is why travel is so essential to expansion of mind. To see differences in geographic space presents challenges to perceptions of “how things are” and “how things should be.”

You can’t grow up in Atlanta and then move to Paris to live for a decade without radically changing your identity, perspective, perceptions, beliefs, and values. It is not just the different languages and cultures; it’s the physical layouts that are so strikingly different visually that create different sounds and smells and ways of moving throughout each respective space. Look at aerial views of the cities, find them online, and that alone tells a story of how radically different it is to move about Atlanta versus Paris. If you think movement through urban spaces is insignificant in terms of creating self-concepts then you need to move to a city that has a radically different layout than where you currently live. Stay for a year and then tell me you’re the same person with the same outlook on life as you’ve had. The differences are that radical.

That’s why building cities that look exactly the same as every other is a nightmare. If every town has the same box stores (I’m thinking of you, Wal-Mart) then the peoples of those towns are going to resemble one another in thought processes more and more. In a country like the U.S. that prides itself on what it calls individuality (which at best can be defined as differentiation) I would think there’d be an outcry against homogenization.

Then again, “individuality” in the U.S. isn’t considered to be subject to external influences such as spatial arrangements or time regulation (working 9 to 5; going to school from 8 to 3; and on and on). This, as much as anything, is why individuality is an incoherent concept. Even as a reductive term it causes problems. It would be one thing if the term was simply useless. It’s far worse than that; the word does harm. It distorts and confuses thought and makes invisible how spatial arrangements and time-based constraints impact the quality and complexity of living. I wouldn’t complain but because words like individuality are interpreted in such bizarre ways cities are designed in ways that diminish my quality of life and the beings with whom I interact are lesser than they would be which, again, diminishes the quality of my life. I’m not being selfish here; if everyone becomes richer and more complex as beings we all gain from it. We have unmeasurable potentials … but we can only reach as high as our physical, legal, political, and social environments allow.