The Principle of Individuation

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

Content Individuation and Evolutionary Content Emergence

This short paper addresses two connected issues which were brought to some focused light by Searle’s comments on my contributed article to the anthology Searle’s philosophy and Chinese Philosophy: Constructive Engagement. The first issue concerns the claim that animals cannot have observer-independent intentional content of the same type as that of human beings. The second is my denial that mental content can be merely caused in specific brain states, given its holistic and normative character. I defend my position on the second issue by distinguishing content individuation from content realization while I elaborate my relatively more sophisticated argument for the first claim by clarifying two related senses or levels of ‘content’ and ‘self’, respectively associated with certain quasi-rational capacities from a third-person perspective and the subjective holistic consciousness from a first-person perspective with the explicit social-discursive dimension. Searle’s Connection Principle is briefly drawn on in this context, with an eye to showing its potential significance when it is extended into the evolutionary settings. In short, it is the full-blown rationality of human holistic discursive practice that ultimately grounds the content talk, which then becomes meaningfully ascribable to certain natural forms of animal existence

Applying individuation to conflicting social categories

The ability to differentiate individuals from their group memberships (individuation) is useful in forming impressions when social categorization fails to do so. This method is particularly valuable when encountering incongruent social category conjunctions (e.g., female bricklayer). We tested the notion that individuation is initiated when applying cognitively effortful explanatory, emergent attributes to incongruent conjunctions. Incongruent category conjunctions were more likely to be comprised of emergent attributes and individuation moderated the application of these attributes in Experiment 1. In Experiment 2, individuation again moderated emergent attribute application for incongruent conjunctions, but cognitive load attenuated the relationship. Allowing or preventing the generation of attributes did not affect individuation for incongruent conjunctions in Experiment 3. This ruled out the possibility that emergent attributes cause increased individuation, but does not rule out the notion that individuation precedes such explanatory attributes. Together these findings suggest that individuating those whose category memberships clash may be applied in the effortful application of explanatory emergent attributes

Individuation in the Main Characters of J.K. Rowling's HARRY POTTER Series

This paper examines the individuation of Potter and Voldemort in Harry Potter series. To be a holistic individual, a person needs to be individuated by managing their three main archetypes. The three main archetypes are persona, shadow, and anima or animus. Potter and Voldemort have to manage their archetypes their journey as human beings. Each of them has to know his persona including his appearance, behavior and role; confront his shadow; and balance his anima. In the end, Potter manages himself to be a individuated person who can lead a good life, while Voldemort fails to be an individuated person and, as a result, he died

DISSEMINATION OF THE CONCEPT OF PERSONAL INDIVIDUATION IN MODERN PHILOSOPHY AND PSYCHOLOGY (THEORETICAL AND HISTORICAL OVERVIEW OF THE CONCEPT DEVELOPMENT)

The article aims to reveal the concept of Individuation. Individuation is perceived as a conscious decision to constantly create one’s qualitative life by realizing one’s creative strengths and personal human needs. It can and is also perceived as a (self)educational process, which occurs in an educational environment that is suitable for the self-expression and individuation of a person. The following article reveals the philosophical and psychological approaches towards the concept of personal individuation. The concepts of individuation of the following authors are being reviewed: I. Kant, F. Schiller, F. Nietzsche, J. Dewey, R. Rorty, G. Jung, C. Rogers and A. Maslow.

Transformation and Individuation in Giordano Bruno's Monadology

The essay explores the systematic relationship in the work of Giordano Bruno (1548-1600) between his monadology, his metaphysics as presented in works such as De la causa, principio et uno, the mythopoeic cosmology of Lo spaccio de la bestia trionfante, and practical works like De vinculis in genere. Bruno subverts the conceptual regime of the Aristotelian substantial forms and its accompanying cosmology with a metaphysics of individuality that privileges individual unity (singularity) over formal unity and particulars over substantial forms without sacrificing a metaphysical perspective on the cosmos. The particular is individuated as a unique site of desire, continually transforming but able to entrain itself and others through phantasmatic ‘bonding’, the new source of regularity in Bruno’s polycentric universe. Bruno thus tries to do justice to the demands of intelligibility as well as transformative eros. The essay concludes with a note on Bruno’s geometry as it relates to his general conception of form