Each individual is usually called an individual. Well, a person with a strong character is called a personality, a person with a core. The concepts of "individual", "individuality", "personality" are often used as equivalent words. However, they, being, as it were, synonyms, from the point of view of philosophy, have significant differences. The fact is that all these concepts can characterize a person from different angles. So what is an individual, and what is a personality or individuality? What aspects of a person characterizes each of them? What do these concepts have in common?
What is an individual?
This concept comes from the Latin word individuum, which is translated into Russian as "indivisible". It was first introduced by the Roman emperor Cicero as a designation for the Greek term "atom". That is why it is so translated. The ancient Greek atomists Leucippus and Democritus explain the concept of an individual as a set of elements of being that are peculiar in quality and have a certain position and form. But the ancient Roman scientist Seneca with thisthe term denoted separate creatures, with further separation of which they may lose their specificity. This word is the antipode of "collection". From the point of view of philosophy, an individual is a separate individual, a human being, which is a representative of the species Homo sapiens (a reasonable person) and which is a unity of the social and biological. An individual has a set of specific qualities inherent only in a human being, and is also the bearer of such psychological and social traits as mind, will, consciousness, activity, etc. Thanks to all these qualities, he is identified with others like him - and all of them together make up social groups, society, etc.
What is individuality?
This word also comes from the Latin word individuum. Despite the fact that these two concepts have the same roots, nevertheless, the questions: “What is an individual?” and “What is individuality?” are not equivalent. If an individual is called a separate individual, which by its qualities is similar to other individuals of the same group, genus, etc., then individuality is called the qualities of a person, unique, peculiar, inherent only to him, by which he is distinguished from other people belonging, however less so, to his group. This concept includes two types of properties: inherited and acquired.
The first are those qualities of a person that were inherited by him by genetic means, and the acquired ones are those qualities that were formed undersocial influence.
What is a personality?
Surely many have heard this expression: "You are not born a person, you become a person." This is where the difference between this concept and the previous two lies! To the question of what an individual is, it is much easier to give a clarifying answer. An individual is born, but a person still needs to become. The process of becoming a personality is carried out through the assimilation by the individual of the cultural and social experience of a particular society. And this process is called socialization. A personality is a separate individual who has a formed worldview, moral principles, value attitudes. Personality is the essence of a person, which is a combination of his internal properties.
