The Unity of Being
Part II Section 7
[117]
Section 7
Individuality
Thesis: The category of individuality or distinct identity (or thisness) is in the same foundational or constitutive relation to all entities as, we have held, is the category of being.
Argument 1. The present category is sometimes treated as though a thing (in the broadest sense) were individuated by the unique assortment or combination of qualities composing it. But as a quality is itself an individual or distinct entity, we are not in the least advanced by such a view. There is no escaping the fact that “identity” or “uniqueness” is something not analyzable into other factors — since these become quite as much in need of individuation.
Individuality thus reveals itself as an ultimate, unitary, and all-foundational principle. For without it nothing can be itself, rather than something else. To differ in quality or in relations is not sufficient since the quality and relations are so many more distinct somethings to be individuated.
If, moreover, individuality is an irreducible conception, it is also one capable of comprehending every conceivable difference in its own terms — precisely as (we urged) must be the case with Being. The Individuality of a thing is nothing merely additional to its other [118] qualities, but their common all-pervading principle. Every aspect of a thing differs from nothing only by reference to this principle. The unitary and indivisible aspect of a thing called its individuality is just that aspect of it which comprehends all the rest — which, in short, is the very fullness and completeness of the thing.
Being and Determinate or individual Being are thus one and the same element in Reality. All being is determinate — even Being-as-such — and is individual.
The argument for monism, then, practically repeats itself under our second category. The phrase introduced in the previous section — “there is such and such an entity,” exhibits Being, the universal identical reference of “there is,” as something registering equally the fact that something is and what it is. If there is no such register then to say there is this or that, is to use words without meaning. If the register is abstract, meaning by this that it is mental or pale or empty, then what is inscribed on it and measured by this difference to it, must be equally mental or pale or empty. If Being is not concrete, the latter word refers to nothing — since whatever concrete things may be they are that in terms of the nature of Being, and they cannot be richer in qualities than the latter.
Note. The scholastic difficulties over the principium individuationis and the various solutions, are all set into their true light for us by the saying of Aquinas: that [119] “the one (or oneness) is identical with being.” (Harper — Metaphysics of the School). Identity is but an aspect of the being, and the problem of the individuation of things is one with the problem of their existence. Both depend upon a concrete universal supplying differences out of its own identical nature.
Argument 2. The individuality of a thing, we have said, is that aspect of it which includes all aspects, which is therefore the entire fullness of the thing. Yet here is an aspect in which somehow everything is similar, in all its fullness, to everything else, and yet at the same time which expresses precisely the width of the differences between things. The similarity follows from the fact that we cannot allow individuality to lose all identity of meaning in reference to the many individuals. Ultimately its meaning would necessarily turn out to be one and somehow invariant, and yet just this invariant meaning must be able to express in its own terms all the concreteness and difference of things. In terms of an aspect of ultimate similarity, as variations or differentiations of this very aspect, all aspects must be conceived. Again we have the concreteness of the universal, its capacity to measure, in terms of the difference to itself, the differences of reality. For surely a change from one nature to another is a change in individuality, and likewise a change in individuality is the sole manner in which a [120] change in nature can be conceived. Only by passing from one this, or — unique quality — to another do we realize change to ourselves or conceive it. Yet the second this remains a this, and is differentiated as a this this. In other words “this” differentiates itself, divides and yet as dividing retains itself. Without this self-division of “this,” all differences are absolutely nothing for thought. Hence the very fullness of differences must lie in this identical while different (or inwardly differentiated) nature of the universal which we have called individuality or determinate being. It is concrete and full or there can be no concreteness as a different nature or “this” from abstractness!
Argument 3. Defining individuality as determinate or definite being, which appears a perfectly unobjectionable and accurate mode of definition, we see still more readily, if possible, its concrete character. For determinate being is obviously, being in a definite form. But if we try to regard this form, or definiteness, as bestowed or as existing in terms of, something other than being, we see that this something itself requires determinate being (not merely determinateness, which is not or is without being) so that we contradict ourselves in defining definiteness in any other way than purely as a self-manifestation or self-defined mode of just being. Except in Being, in its own nature, as productive of its own forms, we can conceive no [121] forms with which to determine being. Any such forms go back to Being, and find in it their sole guarantee of more-than-nothingness or of positive character.
Argument 4. Any complex of ones or individuals, itself is a one or individual. In this case many ones are also one one, multiplying individuals both increases their umber and leaves it the same. Clearly either the new one is something over and above the many ones or else we have a contradiction. Something new has come in, a whole not just its parts. If the whole is just the parts, then why distinguish or how distinguish at all. If it is not the parts, what is it? The parts as together or related, you say. Now the relation of together becomes another entity, one, or part. The whole becomes the parts, including this additional part, and including their characters of being-related, or their relational properties. But these are further items. Surely the whole is not identical with the parts even though in “parts” we include parts or aspects or properties of parts. There still is a sheer contradiction between the whole as one and the whole as many. Admit the whole is the parts and you destroy the meaning of both terms. Admit it is more than the parts, and yet of course as including them, and you have another part of the whole in this “more.” And then we ask, is it the parts, as including this final part. This again is a denial of an admitted distinction.
[122] The conclusion thus necessitated is that the one-ness of a complex, that a whole as such is not its parts as such (even if possessed off relations as included elements or parts of the whole) and that to account for wholes it is not sufficient to predicate relations or more parts of parts, and that the whole if definable at all is not definable in this manner. It must be an individual, as the parts are individuals, but yet it is precisely a many and the parts are precisely a one. Individuality thus splits into two irreconcilable or hopelessly repugnant meanings, on pluralistic premisses see of a whole as merely the parts, including relations and relational properties as parts or aspects of parts.
We may further note that if a whole as such is indefinable on the pluralist’s view, then parts as such are also. Then, since nothing is known, except as a whole or a part (of experience, e.g.) clearly no definitions can be offered of the fundamental categories out of which the atomistic pluralist builds his conceptual world. We do not know what a thing is, nor what a combination of things are.
The solution of the paradox and the avoidance of the contradictions is readily achieved on the Monistic path of speculation. A whole is not the entities and their relations which form its parts. It is not the parts as related. It is the result of the relating of the parts. But [123] a result of something is not that something. The distinction of whole and its parts and relations must be maintained or both terms vanish. The result of the relating of the parts must include parts and relations but be something more than these. And it must have one-ness in the same sense as the parts — if oneness or individuality is to retain in any root-meaning and avoid destroying itself.
The Monist then says that the whole is the parts in their effect upon or significance to a single interest or mind by which they are related. The unity or oneness comes in the unity of the one embracing experience. The parts when taken together result in or “form” a whole, but obviously that which results or is formed is not simply that which results in or forms, and furthermore the “taken together” is not simply the parts with (related to) relations and relational properties. The taking together, or collecting of the collection, is a single act which includes the entities related in its own unity and so enables them to result, in spite of their manyness, in a whole or a one which, embracing the many in itself as parts — contributions to a total effect or whole significance belonging to the one act, is able to regard parts and whole as not identical and yet as related.
The point is here, then, that the unity of the whole must be something over and above parts and relations, and yet must as a unitary something include the parts in itself, [124] within its own singleness or whole-nature. Thus we must have many in a one not just the many over again, yet as truly one as each of the many. This again is our concrete or embracing universal. The many must be parts or elements of the unitary whole-mature as such. The whole must include its parts in relation, it must be them, or they must express each in their degree its nature, but this inclusion, this identity, this expression, must be an affair of a unitary or genuinely one individual essence or nature1 capable of differentiating itself into elements of its own including life.
From another angle, inasmuch as we found it necessary to view the oneness of the whole as relative to a genuine individual not merely another word for the parts and their relations, and inasmuch as the very being of the whole thus becomes rendered in terms of a one principle above mere parts or individual entities as such, — if the being of a whole must thus be viewed as solely a result in terms of the single nature of a principle relating the parts and including them within its one life or reality as an outcome or unitary significance attaching to the act of holding them in relation, — if being can in the case of a whole (thus of the universe) be regarded as absolutely relative to such an inclusive or concrete universal, then being in the case of the parts must be so relative also — or “being” falls into discordant halves and loses all rational meaning.
Thus all being is [125] seen once more as essentially being for one embracing reality, expressing itself in the parts as the sustaining principle of all their fullness or concreteness of character. One-ness or this-ness or individuality, likewise, are seen to be relative to a principle of One in a many, — the whole is one by the very same principle of unity in differentiation by which the supposed ultimate ones are in reality themselves always both one and many, and by which the being which enables any one of them to be is yet identical with itself as likewise present in every other, in a similar constitutive relation.
Many as one, and the One in the many are thus wholly concordant halves of the same whole. The many as such are each one because they are objects of the individuating Interest of the One, and the many as a many is likewise one by being drawn into the inclusive focus of the same Interest — the ultimate this-giving principle.
5. Conclusion. Even more obviously than with Being, does the self individuating character of the universal appear from the aspect of Individuality itself. If Individuality does not make the thing individual, given it its individuality or differentiating fullness of nature, then certainly, one would say, nothing whatever can. For any other something must first secure its individuality before coming to the help of its featureless brother: all thus derives from the ultimate meaning of this and differs from this meaning itself [126] only by means of it and in its own terms. To repeat our formula of Section 3, you cannot predicate this-ness of a thing; for the thing is nothing at all over and above its thisness (remove the latter in thought and see!) hence you must predicate a this of this, you must differentiate this-ness as a concrete self-distinguishing, particularizing, and all-characterizing potency or principle.
Secondly, we saw that since oneness applies to a many as well as to a one, one-ness must be conceived able to realize itself or produce itself out of manyness, its opposite, by including the many within itself as contributing to a unitary experience possession, or value (to suggest our ultimate hypothesis). Taking the meaning of unity or of uniqueness or this-ness as dependent upon the distinguishing and at the same time the uniting or collecting (in a single survey or apprehension) of objects of interest, or of valued individuals, which form aspects of the capacity of mind, we can secure a unitary and consistent meaning for thing — whether a many or a one. In either case we have an experience of value as a unity, whatever differences may be involved.
The matter must here be left to await further discussion in Section 12.
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Endnotes
1. Which, be it observed, is not just the Whole but the one uniting and relating Principle which sustains and forms the whole as a single element in its life — an element of interest as one.