The Idea of Individuality: Origins, Meaning, and Political Significance

Abstract

The contemporary liberal/communitarian debate depicts the self as essentially static and unspontaneous: in the first instance, as a detached agent of choice equipped with de facto unexamined desires; in the second, as (optimally) the embodiment of virtues and narratives imbedded in socially established practices. The notion of individuality, as it developed from Goethe and Mill to the present, suggests a way to rethink this dichotomy. Individuality--as distinguished from individualism--evokes the notion of personal identity constituted both through reflective reexamination of the givens of life and through the continuous integration of diverse traditions and influences into a coherent whole.