Topic / Program

Human beings encounter the world in a way that is characterized by confronting individual objects. Every object, as the specific object that it is, constitutes a unity that is not identical to any other object. Individuality is the principle of such unity – an immanent form that makes the object an individual, identical only to itself, and thus more than simply the sum of its parts. Accordingly, objects are individua, logically speaking: the elements of which the world is composed.

In critical confrontation with the realist positions of ancient philosophy (Plato, Aristotle), nominalist ontologies have conceived of individuals as primary entities and have accorded them ontological pride of place with respect to universals. This position might be termed ontological individualism. Against this, it has been argued that the individuation of individuals already presupposes the validity of universal categories. Thus modern epistemology (Locke, Leibniz, Kant) was a locus of conflict regarding how the individual can be discerned as individual when thought as such is bound to general concepts. This question was also picked up in 20th-century debates in analytic philosophy concerning “singular thought” (Russell, Strawson, Kripke, Evans).

In social ontology we are confronted with a more challenging concept of the individual, namely as the hallmark of our self-understanding as human beings. Human beings are individuals as persons. The principle of their individuality is not merely that of a continued existence in space and time, but instead the unity of their self-consciousness (Kant, Fichte, Hegel). Thus for persons it is not the case that individuality is exhausted by numerical oneness. Rather first and foremost the individuality of a person unfolds or is projected only insofar as the individual determines herself in and through her actions. The individual is what she makes herself (Kierkegaard, Sartre, Heidegger, Korsgaard). Once again, generality – above all in the guise of society – appears as the counterpart of the individual. Here we might speak of a socio-ontological individualism that grants the individual a priority, as in the epochal thought-experiments of Hobbes’ and Rousseau’s contract theory. Even though human beings are social creatures, they are nonetheless primarily to be conceived as individuals that are unique and can be said to own themselves (Locke, Mill, Nozick, Cohen).

Against this background, we can view the concept of individuality as a critical concept, in two opposing ways: On the one hand one might argue that the nonidentical moment of individuality – where individualization is seen as one of the main dynamics of modern society (Luhmann) – is coming under pressure in modern society (Nietzsche, Lukács, Adorno). Critique in this context must defend individuality against the pressure to conform to conceptual and social systems. On the other hand critics of liberalism would argue that the very idea of individuality as the basis of modern society is itself problematic. The focus on the individual – so this critique goes – results in an atomism that loses sight of the larger social context, along with the social conditions of individuality (Hegel, Taylor, MacIntyre). In a different perspective, individuality is regarded as an effect of domination or of techniques of subjectification (Althusser, Foucault, Butler). Accordingly, the job of critique is to disrupt the appearance of individuality in order to render the larger context intelligible.

How are these heterogeneous tendencies in the concept of the individual connected to one another? Are there criteria that would hold for this concept throughout its diverse areas of application? The 17th International Philosophy Colloquium in Evian invites philosophers to Lake Geneva to discuss the concept of individuality across the range of its manifold meanings. We especially welcome contributions that consider how these various characterizations of individuality can be thought together in both theoretical and practical senses. Our goal is to combine a range of historical, systematic and scholastic perspectives in order to achieve a perspective on the concept of individuality.

Program

Program as PDF-Download


Lundi, 18 juillet 2011

Christophe Laudou (Madrid): L'individu : entre substance et sujet
Günter Zöller (München): Homo homini civis. The Social Principle of Individuation in Rousseau, Kant and Fichte
Hannes Kuch (Berlin): Individualität und Sittlichkeit

Claire Pagès (Paris): Individuation, perception et qualités – Hegel et Russell
Martin Hofmann (Hamburg): Die normative Bedeutung des Begriffs menschlicher Individualität


Mardi, 19 juillet 2011

Ariane Kiatibian (Paris): Individualité et Dasein – Indications à partir de la Jemeinigkeit
Christopher P. Noble (Villanova/PA): Deleuze, Leibniz and the Philosophy of the Individual
Amber Carpenter (York): Substantial Freedom or Freedom from Substance?

Georg Bertram (Berlin): Individualität – Einzigartigkeit und Eigenheit
Christian Skirke (Amsterdam): Are Persons Analyzable?


Mercredi, 20 juillet 2011

Jula Wildberger (Paris): Corporealist Ontology and Its Consequences for Defining a Good Life in Stoicism
Anthony K. Jensen (New York/Berlin): The Morality of Individualism: a Metaphysical Problem
Anna Wehofsits (Berlin): Klimawandel und individuelle Verantwortung

Après-midi libre


Jeudi, 21 juillet 2011

David Lauer (Berlin): Bezugnahme auf Individuen: Gedanken de te
Jakob Dahl Rentdorff (Roskilde): L’individu, l’existence et autrui chez Søren Kierkegaard
Hans Bernhard Schmid (Wien): Sozialontologischer Individualismus

Margareta Hanes (Bruxelles): Rawls on the Separateness of Persons
Robin Celikates (Amsterdam): The Need for Recognition and the Conditions of Individuality


Vendredi, 22 juillet 2011

Jörg Bernardy (Hildesheim): Zwischen Einheit und Diskontinuität: Subjektivierung, Verdinglichung, Desubjektivierungsprozesse
James A. Ong (Durham/NC): Spinoza and Nietzsche on Individualism as a Problem
Philippe Crignon (Paris): Diviser pour mieux régner ? L’individualisme de J. S. Mill en question

Alessandro Bertinetto (Udine/Berlin): Individualität und Improvisation: Theoretische, praktische und ästhetische Zusammenhänge
Discussion terminale