, or may blend in with it.
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, the individual in Buddhism is understood as an interrelated part of an ever-changing, impermanent universe (see
Interdependence,
Nondualism,
Reciprocity).
Empiricism Empiricists such as
Ibn Tufail in early 12th century Islamic Spain and
John Locke in late 17th century England viewed 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 Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel regarded history as the gradual evolution of the 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 their own particular viewpoint, and grasps that they are a part of a greater whole insofar as they are bound to family, a social context, and/or a political order.
Existentialism With the rise of
existentialism,
Søren 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 their own fate. Later Existentialists built upon this notion.
Friedrich 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 their own values, rather than rely on external, socially imposed codes of morality.
Objectivism Ayn Rand's
Objectivism regards every human as an independent, sovereign entity that possesses an inalienable right to their own life, a right derived from their 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 man or woman 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). ==See also==