[xmca] "person/ality" "individual" "identity"

In our discussions here, "personality" has sometimes been differentiated
from "identity"; but there's been less differentiation between the notions
of "identity" and "individual."

I think the notion of persons as individuals emerged in the West before
the development of "identity" as a matter of concern: as a problem, or a
project.

Consider C. B. Macpherson's The Political Theory of Possessive
Individualism: From Hobbes to Locke (1962)

I think that work traces robust ideas of "individual" without the distinct
problematization of identity as such. In fact, for classical liberal
economic and political theory, the "individual" with a given set of
individual preferences almost has to be treated as something
unproblematic.

Tony Whitson
UD School of Education
NEWARK DE 19716

twhitson@udel.edu
_______________________________

"those who fail to reread
  are obliged to read the same story everywhere"
                   -- Roland Barthes, S/Z (1970)
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Received on Tue Nov 27 16:10 PST 2007