individual
American Heritage Dictionary:
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in·di·vid·u·al
(ĭn'də-vĭj'ū-əl) 
adj.
adj.
- Of or relating to an individual, especially a single human: individual consciousness.
- By or for one person: individual work; an individual portion.
- Existing as a distinct entity; separate: individual drops of rain.
- Marked by or expressing individuality; distinctive or individualistic: an individual way of dressing.
- Special; particular: Each variety of melon has its individual flavor and texture.
- Serving to identify or set apart: "There was nothing individual about him except a deep scar ... across his right cheek" (Rebecca West).
- A single human considered apart from a society or community: the rights of the individual.
- A human regarded as a unique personality: always treated her clients as individuals.
- A person distinguished from others by a special quality.
- Usage Problem. A person.
- A single animal or plant as distinguished from a species, community, or group.
- A member of a collection or set; a specimen.
[Middle English, single, indivisible, from Old French, from Medieval Latin indīviduālis, from Latin indīviduus : in-, not; see in-1 + dīviduus, divisible (from dīvidere, to divide).]
individually in'di·vid'u·al·ly adv.USAGE NOTE The noun individual is normally used to refer to an individual person as opposed to a larger social group or as distinguished from others by some special quality: This is not only a crisis of individuals, but also of a society (Raymond Williams). She is a real individual. Since the 19th century, however, there have been numerous objections to the use of the word to refer simply to "person" where no larger contrast is implied, as in Two individuals were placed under arrest or The Mayor will make time for any individual who wants to talk to her. This use of individual is common in official statements, as the examples imply, and lends a formal or even pretentious tone that may be undesirable. The words person and people are acceptable, neutral options that are appropriate in almost any context.
Fowler's Modern English Usage:
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individual
When used as a noun, individual should denote a single person in contrast with a group of people or with society as a whole: the role of the individual in the community / She continues to treat them as individuals. It is less satisfactory, and can often sound quaint or affected, when used simply as a synonym for person, and in this use it is normally restricted to jocular or disparaging contexts: There was an odd individual standing by the door / Individuals arrived in their own cars.
| indistinguishable, indissoluble, indisputable | |
| indivisible, indoor, indoors, industrial action |
Roget's Thesaurus:
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individual
adjective
- Belonging to, relating to, or affecting a particular person: personal, private. See specific/general.
- Being or related to a distinct entity: discrete, particular, separate, single, singular. See include/exclude.
- Serving to identify or set apart an individual or group: characteristic, distinctive, peculiar, typical, vintage. See same/different/compare.
- Of, relating to, or intended for a distinctive thing or group: especial, particular, special, specific. See specific/general.
noun
- A member of the human race: being, body, creature, homo, human, human being, life, man, mortal, party, person, personage, soul. See beings.
- One that exists independently: being, entity, existence, existent, object, something, thing. See be, thing.
Antonyms by Answers.com:
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individual
adj
Definition: distinctive, exclusive
Antonyms: common, general, ordinary
adj
Definition: single
Antonyms: collective
n
Definition: singular person, thing
Antonyms: group
Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy:
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individual
The things counted as single for the purpose in hand. What is counted as an individual, therefore, depends on what kind of thing is being counted: an individual book may consist of many words and the individual words consist of many letters. See also sortal; individuation, principle of.
Gale Dictionary of Psychoanalysis:
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Individual
The concept of the individual is not especially Freudian, although analysis assumes that the analysand has a degree of psychic autonomy, individuality, and even identity. The term "individual" (Einzeln) is found in Freud, notably in Civilization and Its Discontents (1930a [1929]), where it stands in opposition to culture. More broadly, the concept is central to a variety of disciplines, such as ethnology, sociology, political theory, and philosophy.
Cultural historians have described the birth of individual love as an outgrowth of courtly love, the appearance of the individual feeling of finitude and death at the end of the Middle Ages, and the birth of the modern conception of childhood within the family in the eighteenth century (Philippe Ariès). With the Enlightenment and Romanticism, the child became "the father of the man." After 1900, childhood and adolescence became distinct age categories and stages of mental development. Scholars can trace the development of the concept of the individual across the political, social, cultural, and religious landscapes from the Renaissance to the Reformation to the Enlightenment.
While having universal scope, psychoanalysis is nonetheless marked with the imprint of Western culture, in which it was born. According to Claude Lévi-Strauss, this culture "vomits up" the individual, in contrast with group societies ("holistic" societies, according to Louis Dumont), which "swallow" the individual.
Ethnopsychoanalysis (Georges Devereux) examines differences in mental development according to culture. The Oedipus complex described by Freud refers to the symbolic figure of the father in Jewish and Christian cultures, and it affords the possibility of triangulation, which leads to individuation and identity construction. Other oedipal modalities are present in matrilineal societies, where the parent is differentiated from the maternal uncle, who represents the paternal function—an arrangement consistent with limited individuality and extended dependence on the social group. The history of European culture is marked by a gradual transition from a holistic society (during the Middle Ages) to a society of individuals, and accompanying this transition was the evolution of identity formation characteristic of modernity.
If a conception of the individual is a precondition for the development of psychiatry, the existence of the self, the subject, is a precondition for the creation of psychoanalysis. When the individual perceives his ego as a double and perceives the uncanny nature of his division, this perspective can be presented as a cure for the suffering that the individual experiences in the face of modernity. In Totem and Taboo (1912-1913a), Freud hypothesized that a "mass psychosis," a collective soul, in his text, "culture" (Kultur) in the sense of a collective mental formation situated above the individual, to a large extent conditions the individual's mental functioning. Freud elaborated the concepts of the ego ideal and superego, transitional formations located between culture and the individual. He also showed that the repression associated with anality in modern culture has an impact on the modalities of identity formation during adolescence.
During the 1950s Margaret Mahler defined "individuation" as a process of separation to escape the primary union of the mother-child symbiosis. Working with the uncertainties of individuation in infantile psychosis, Mahler described a "symbiotic" stage of child development, prior to the separation and individuation that ends absolute dependence. John Bowlby, using an ethological approach to the mental development of the infant, developed the concepts of attachment and separation. José Bleger, employing the concepts of symbiosis and ambiguity, showed that traces of primitive undifferentiation persist, even among the most evolved individuals, in the form of an "agglutinated nucleus."
Research by Alain de Mijolla (1981) and data from group psychoanalysis and family therapy have shown connections between subjectivity and the Other in culture, in the family, and across generations, that is, connections among the intrasubjective, intersubjective, and intergenerational dimensions of the psyché.
Bibliography
Ariès, Philippe. (1962). Centuries of childhood: A social history of family life (Robert Baldick, Trans.). New York: Vintage Books. (Original work published 1960)
Bleger, José. (1981). Symbiose et ambiguïté:Étude psychanalytique (A. Morvan, Trans.). Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. (Original work published 1967)
Dumont, Louis. (1986). Essays on individualism: Modern ideology in anthropological perspective. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. (Original work published 1983)
Freud, Sigmund. (1912-1913a). Totem and taboo. SE, 13: 1-161.
——. (1930a [1929]). Civilization and its discontents. SE, 21: 57-145.
Mijolla, Alain de. (1981). Les Visiteurs du moi: Fantasmes d'identification, confluents psychanalytiques. Paris: Belles Lettres.
—HENRI VERMOREL
Word Tutor:
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individual
IN BRIEF: Of or for one person or thing; single, separate.
Few things help an individual more than to place responsibility upon him, and to let him know that you trust him.
— Booker T. Washington
LearnThatWord.com is a free vocabulary and spelling program where you only pay for results!
Sign Language Videos:
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individual
sign description: The I-hands are moved straight down in front of the body.
Saunders Veterinary Dictionary:
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individual
A unit member of a population; peculiar to an individual animal.
- i. animal productivity — production record of an individual animal.
- i. cow lifetime record — a cow's record of production or health or both kept as a continuing separate record.
- i. distance — the distance that a bird assumes as its private domain and inside which it will attack any intruder.
- i. times — e.g. cow-years at risk, dog-months of protection.
Random House Word Menu:
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categories related to 'individual'
Bradford's Crossword Solver's Dictionary:
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individual
See crossword solutions for the clue Individual.
Wikipedia on Answers.com:
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Individual
For other uses, see Individual (disambiguation).
 |
This article includes a list of references, related reading or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations. Please improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (September 2010) |
An individual is a person or a specific object. Individuality (or selfhood) is the state or quality of being an individual; a person separate from other persons and possessing his or her own needs or goals. Being self expressive, independent.
From the 15th century and earlier, and also today within the fields of statistics and metaphysics, individual meant "indivisible", typically describing any numerically singular thing, but sometimes meaning "a person." (q.v. "The problem of proper names"). From the seventeenth century on, individual indicates separateness, as in individualism.[1]
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Contents
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Empiricism
Early empiricists such as Ibn Tufail[2] and John Locke introduced the idea of the individual as a tabula rasa ("blank slate"), shaped from birth by experience and education. This ties into the idea of the liberty and rights of the individual, society as a social contract between rational individuals, and the beginnings of individualism as a doctrine.
Hegel
Hegel regarded history as the gradual evolution of Mind as it tests its own concepts against the external world. Each time the mind applies its concepts to the world, the concept is revealed to be only partly true, within a certain context; thus the mind continually revises these incomplete concepts so as to reflect a fuller reality (commonly known as the process of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis). The individual comes to rise above his or her own particular viewpoint, and grasps that he or she is a part of a greater whole insofar as he or she is bound to family, a social context, and/or a political order.
Existentialism
With the rise of existentialism, Kierkegaard rejected Hegel's notion of the individual as subordinated to the forces of history. Instead, he elevated the individual's subjectivity and capacity to choose his or her own fate. Later Existentialists built upon this notion. Nietzsche, for example, examines the individual's need to define his/her own self and circumstances in his concept of the will to power and the heroic ideal of the Übermensch. The individual is also central to Sartre's philosophy, which emphasizes individual authenticity, responsibility, and free will. In both Sartre and Nietzsche (and in Nikolai Berdyaev), the individual is called upon to create his or her own values. Rather than rely on external, socially imposed codes of morality.
Buddhism
In Buddhism, the concept of the individual lies in anatman, or "no-self." According to anatman, the individual is really a series of interconnected processes that, working together, give the appearance of being a single, separated whole. In this way, anatman, together with anicca, resembles a kind of bundle theory. Instead of an atomic, indivisible self distinct from reality (see Subject-object problem), the individual in Buddhism is understood as an interrelated part of an ever-changing, impermanent universe (see interdependence, Nondualism, reciprocity).
Objectivism
Ayn Rand's Objectivism regards every human as an independent, sovereign entity who possesses an inalienable right to his or her own life, a right derived from his or her nature as a rational being. Individualism and Objectivism hold that a civilized society, or any form of association, cooperation or peaceful coexistence among humans, can be achieved only on the basis of the recognition of individual rights — and that a group, as such, has no rights other than the individual rights of its members. The principle of individual rights is the only moral base of all groups or associations. Since only an individual woman or man can possess rights, the expression "individual rights" is a redundancy (which one has to use for purposes of clarification in today’s intellectual chaos), but the expression "collective rights" is a contradiction in terms. Individual rights are not subject to a public vote; a majority has no right to vote away the rights of a minority; the political function of rights is precisely to protect minorities from oppression by majorities (and the smallest minority on earth is the individual).[3][4]
See also
Main articles: Outline of self and Individualism
- Action theory
- Atom (disambiguation)
- Consciousness
- Cultural identity
- Existentialism
- Identity
- Independent
- Person
- Self (philosophy)
- Self (psychology)
- Self (sociology)
- Self (spirituality)
- Structure and agency
References
- ^ Abbs 1986, cited in Klein 2005, pp.26-27
- ^ G. A. Russell (1994), The 'Arabick' Interest of the Natural Philosophers in Seventeenth-Century England, pp. 224-262, Brill Publishers, ISBN 90-04-09459-8.
- ^ Ayn Rand, "Individualism" Ayn Rand Lexicon.
- ^ Ayn Rand (1961), "Collectivized 'Rights,'" The Virtue of Selfishness.
- Gracia, Jorge J. E. (1988) Individuality: An Essay on the Foundations of Metaphysics. State University of New York Press.
- Klein, Anne Carolyn (1995) Meeting the Great Bliss Queen: Buddhists, Feminists, and the Art of the Self. ISBN 0-8070-7306-7.
This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)
Translations:
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Individual
Dansk (Danish)
adj. - individuel, personlig, enkelt, særskilt, unik
n. - individ, enkeltperson, menneske
Nederlands (Dutch)
individu, individueel, afzonderlijk, karakteristiek, persoonlijk
Français (French)
adj. - individuel, particulier, qui se distingue des autres
n. - individu, personnage
Deutsch (German)
n. - Individuum
adj. - individuell, einzeln, Einzel-, eigen
Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - άνθρωπος, άτομο, υποκείμενο (άτομο που δεν χαίρει υπολήψεως)
adj. - ατομικός, ιδιαίτερος, μεμονωμένος
Italiano (Italian)
individuo, individuale
Português (Portuguese)
n. - indivíduo (m)
adj. - individual
Русский (Russian)
личность, индивидуум
Español (Spanish)
adj. - individual, personal, particular, propio
n. - individuo, persona, sujeto, entidad indivisible
Svenska (Swedish)
n. - individ, enskild människa, typ
adj. - individuell, särskild, personlig, individual-, portions-, udda
中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
个别的, 独特的, 人, 个体, 个人
中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
adj. - 個別的, 獨特的
n. - 人, 個體, 個人
한국어 (Korean)
adj. - 개개의, 개인의, 독특한
n. - 개인, 개체, 사람
日本語 (Japanese)
adj. - 個々の, それぞれの, 単一の, 個人の, 一人だけの, 独特の, 独自の, 個人用の
n. - 個人, 個体, 構成員, 人
العربيه (Arabic)
(الاسم) فرد (صفه) فردي
עברית (Hebrew)
adj. - יחידני, אינדיבידואלי, מיוחד
n. - פרט, יחיד, ברנש
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American Heritage Dictionary
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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Roget's Thesaurus
Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary Copyright © 1995 byHoughton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy
The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy. Copyright © 1994, 1996, 2005 by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.
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Gale Dictionary of Psychoanalysis
International Dictionary of Psychoanalysis. Copyright © 2005 by The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
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This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article Individual.
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