individuationn.
/ˌɪndᵻˌvɪdʒʊˈeɪʃn/, /ˌɪndᵻˌvɪdjʊˈeɪʃn/, U.S. /ˌɪndəˌvɪdʒəˈweɪʃən/ 1. The state or condition of being an individual; separate and continuous existence as a single indivisible entity; individuality, personal identity.
ΘΚΠ
the world > relative properties > kind or sort > individual character or quality > [noun] > condition of being an individual
suppositality1545
individuation1616
individuality1635
suppositionality1649
individualness1681
individualism1847
1616 G. Goodman Fall of Man (new ed.) 421 Euery thing is compounded of matter and forme, and the forme it is which giues the existencie, and indiuiduation.
1660 H. More Explan. Grand Myst. Godliness vi. iv. 223 It being most certain there is no stable Personality of a man but what is in his Soul, (for if the Body be Essential to this numerical Identity, a grown man has not the same individuation he had when he was Christned).
1722 W. Wollaston Relig. of Nature v. 54 We are severally conscious to our selves of the individuation and distinction of our own minds from all other.
1725 I. Watts Logick i. vi. §6. 174 What is the Principle of Individuation? or, What is it that makes any one Thing the same as it was sometime before?
1881 T. Harper Metaphysics of School II. v. iii. 686 All men have individuation; but the individuation of each is proper to himself and cannot be communicated to another.
1915 J. F. Hecker Russ. Sociol. ii. 54 Before the final decay the individuation of parts as of the whole weakens. The disintegrating organism becomes internally more homogeneous.
1916 I. Husik Hist. Mediaeval Jewish Philos. p. xlvii Gersonides..defends individuation of the acquired intellect as such and thus saves personal immortality.
1995 T. Sadler Nietzsche iii. 125 The ego..remains, precisely as ego, cut off from the primal ground of its being. The ego understands its individuation as absolute.
2.
a. The action or process of forming something into an individual entity, or of distinguishing an individual entity from others of the same kind. Also: the process of becoming an individual person or entity, individualization.
ΘΚΠ
the world > relative properties > kind or sort > individual character or quality > [noun] > making individual
individuation1628
numerication1694
individualization1746
individualizing1801
1628 T. Spencer Art of Logick 43 The matter is the principium of individuation, saith Thomas... And againe, the essence is restrained vnto one individuall thing by the matter.
1638 W. Twisse Let. 2 July in J. Mede Wks. (1672) iv. lxxiv. 855 Natural actions require Time and Place for the performance of them, the unity whereof together with the unity of the subject necessarily concur to the individuation of them, if I remember aright my old Philosophy.
1664 H. More Apol. in Modest Enq. Myst. Iniquity 506 Agreeable to the sense of several considerable Philosophers and School-men..who contend that Individuation is from the Form onely, and that the Matter and Suppositum is individuated from it.
1704 J. Swift Tale of Tub ix. 169 Effects of so vast a Difference..as to be the sole Point of Individuation between Alexander the Great, Jack of Leyden, and Monsieur Des Cartes.
1742 G. Cheyne Nat. Method cureing Dis. 223 Let two People be taken as nearly alike as the Diversity and Individuation of Nature will admit.
1855 H. Spencer Induct. Biol. iii. iii. 353 Schelling defines life as the tendency to individuation.
1870 F. W. Farrar Families of Speech iii. 125 He never got to the idealisation, or even the individuation, of words.
1922 C. A. Beckwith Idea of God vi. 156 We have here to do with a unitary force whose activity is twofold—toward individuation by which the organism comes into and is maintained in existence, and toward totality in which the individual becomes an integral part of a harmonious whole.
1977 Jrnl. Philos. Logic 6 307 This method of individuation, which..is based on criteria of continuity plus similarity.
1991 N. M. Ford When Did I Begin? 156 It would appear that distinct individuation, or the formation of the cells into a distinct ontological human individual, could not take place prior to the early blastocyst stage.
2012 R. M. Sainsbury & M. Tye Seven Puzzles of Thought iv. 58 Individuation by origin helps to explain what makes it the case that there are two words ‘bank’.
b. Biology. = differentiation n. 2.
ΚΠ
1851 H. Spencer Social Statics iv. xxx. 439 This individuation of organs is traceable throughout the whole range of animal life.
1940 G. S. Carter Gen. Zool. Invertebr. ix. 198 The amphibian organiser... This individuating power is exerted in a field around the organising tissue... We may call such organising fields ‘individuation fields’.
1967 J. Milaire in C. H. Frantz Normal & Abnormal Embryol. Devel. 60 The stages studied hitherto from the histochemical point of view concern..the early individuation of the premuscular mesoderm and its further organization into identifiable morphological units.
2009 N. Giffney & M. O'Rourke Ashgate Res. Compan. Queer Theory xx. 358 Becomings are 'built-in' since individuation (of cells, tissues and so on) is itself defined as the very process of development from a range of possibilities.
c. Biology. In the terminology of Herbert Spencer: the sum of the processes involved in maintaining life and supporting the development of the individual. disused.
ΘΚΠ
the world > life > biology > biological processes > development, growth, or degeneration > [noun] > growth > individuation
individuation1867
1867 H. Spencer Princ. Biol. II. §327. 409 Grouping under the word Individuation all processes by which individual life is completed and maintained.
1904 H. Spencer Autobiogr. I. iii. 62 He was not aware that intellectual activity in women is likely to be diminished after marriage by that antagonism between individuation and reproduction everywhere operative throughout the organic world.
d. Psychology. In the analytical system of C. G. Jung: the process of establishing the wholeness and autonomy of the individual self by integrating consciousness and the collective unconscious. Also more fully individuation process.
ΘΚΠ
the mind > mental capacity > psychology > theory of psychoanalysis > theories of Jung > [noun] > forming whole self
individuation1916
1916 B. M. Hinkle tr. C. G. Jung Psychol. of Unconscious 554 The separation and differentiation from the mother, the ‘individuation’ [Ger die ‘Individuation’] creates that transition of the subjective into the objective, that foundation of consciousness.
1923 H. G. Baynes tr. C. G. Jung Psychol. Types xi. 561 Individuation, therefore, is a process of differentiation, having for its goal the development of the individual personality.
1955 I. Fletcher in J. Wain Interpretations 156 In its detail, the poem resembles what might be described in Jungian terms as an attempt at ‘individuation’, a harmonious relation between the components of the self.
1973 J. Singer Boundaries of Soul i. 8 I sat before the examiner and the two experts for my oral examination on The Individuation Process, which is the essence of analysis.
2009 Jrnl. Irish Stud. 24 103 Individuation is, according to Jung, a symbolic lifelong journey through which one seeks to integrate oneself with potentially conflicting social forces.
e. In the terminology of John Haldane and Julian Huxley: the evolutionary trend of multicellular organisms towards gradual increase in independence and control over their environments as they become more complex. disused.
ΚΠ
1927 J. B. S. Haldane & J. S. Huxley Animal Biol. xi. 235 Individuation is the improvement of the separate unit, as seen, for example, in the series Hydra—Earth-worm—Frog—Man.
3. As a count noun: an individual instance or manifestation; an individualized condition. Also with of.
ΘΚΠ
the world > relative properties > kind or sort > individual character or quality > [noun] > condition of being an individual > an individualized condition
individuation1637
1637 Earl of Monmouth tr. V. Malvezzi Romulus & Tarquin 126 A might and power of the last individuation of a temper.
1650 W. Sclater, Jr. in W. Sclater Brief Comm. Malachy Ep. Ded. sig. A2 It gives them al their several natures, or distinct individuations.
?1720 Gospel-catechism 38 Christ finish'd the work in himself..before they were actually brought forth, in their own personal subsistencies and individuations.
1852 A. Ballou Spirit Manifest. i. 16 Each spirit is an individuation of Spirit-substance, combined with and interiorating a corresponding individuation of Matter.
1986 R. L. Heath Realism & Relativism ii. 46 Each work of art is an individuation of universal forms acquired through human experience.
2003 Sunday Age (Melbourne) (Nexis) 30 Mar. 10 The way Shakespeare's princes and clowns sound like the characters they are while also sounding like individuations of one the greatest poets who ever lived.
ΘΚΠ
the world > relative properties > number > specific numbers > one > unity or undividedness > [noun]
unitya1393
individuity1611
individuality1631
individuation1655
undividedness1889
1655 H. L'Estrange Reign King Charles 8 It cannot be denied, but unity and individuation of perswasion in all points of sacred truths, were to be wished between married couples.
ΘΚΠ
the world > life > biology > balance of nature > relationships of organisms > [noun] > symbiosis or mutualism
commensalism1870
mutualism1874
mutuality1876
symbiosis1882
messmatism1886
individualism1897
individuation1897
parasymbiosis1897
metabiosis1899
helotism1900
symbiotism1902
specificity1924
1897 W. G. Smith tr. K. F. von Tubeuf Dis. Plants viii. 87 This unification of two living beings into an individual whole, I have designated ‘Individuation’ [Ger. Individualismus].
Phrases
principle of individuation [after post-classical Latin principium individuationis (from 13th cent. in British sources)] . Cf. principium individuationis n., essence n. 7, haecceity n.
a. Metaphysics. That which makes a particular entity distinguishable as an individual from others of the same kind; that which makes an entity the unique individual that it is.
ΘΚΠ
the world > relative properties > wholeness > mutual relation of parts to whole > condition or fact of uniting or being united > [noun] > so as to form an individual or organic unity
principle of individuation1665
[1628Principium of individuation [see sense 2a]. ]
1665 J. Beaumont Some Observ. upon Apol. H. More iv. 33 The old body is revived, because a new body exactly like it is substituted in its room, and united to the soul of that old body which is the Principle of Individuation.
1732 G. Berkeley Alciphron II. vii. xi. 154 None but those who had nicely examined, and cou'd themselves explain, the Principle of Individuation in Man, or untie the Knots and answer the Objections, which may be raised even about Humane Personal Identity.
1817 S. T. Coleridge Biogr. Lit. 175 Essence, in its primary signification, means the principle of individuation, the inmost principle of the possibility of any thing, as that particular thing.
1870 A. Bain Mental & Moral Sci. (new ed.) App. 25 Thomas had declared that..what marked off one individual from another—the so-called principle of individuation—was the matter.
1943 Jrnl. Hist. Ideas 4 189 The Thomistic interpretation of the individual, viz., that matter is the principle of individuation and that all men have the same form, would logically have made immortality impossible.
2004 R. Scruton Death-devoted Heart v. 127 I am distinguished from other individuals by a principium individuationis—a principle of individuation—which is that of spatio-temporal continuity. It is only in space and time that individuals are distinguishable.
b. Chiefly Metaphysics. The principle by which the constituent parts of something are integrated into a single whole.
ΚΠ
1726 Bp. J. Butler 15 Serm. iii. 46 The inward Frame of Man considered as a System or Constitution: Whose several Parts are united, not by a physical Principle of Individuation, but by the Respects they have to each other.
1837 W. Whewell Hist. Inductive Sci. I. iv. iv. 321 Duns Scotus..placed the principle of individuation in ‘a certain positive determining entity’, which his school called Haeccity, or thisness. ‘Thus Peter is an individual, because his humanity is combined with Petreity.’
1889 St. G. Mivart Truth 390 Without the presence of some immaterial principle of individuation, our different mental acts..could not be united so as to constitute an act of judgment.
1999 M. M. McCabe Plato's Individuals (new ed.) i. ii. 49 The walrus..has a strong principle of individuation—its organic complexity—which makes division lethal for it.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, June 2014; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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