Humboldt’s Individualism: Theorizing Social Individuality

Abstract

This article retraces in the thought of Wilhelm von Humboldt an account of the ideal of individuality which I propose to call ‘social individuality’. Against readings of Humboldt’s individualism as atomist, asocial and apolitical, I show how his conceptualization attends expressly to the social origins and the inherent interindividual and even collective dimension of individuality, while nevertheless insisting on the irreducible uniqueness of each human being. I show how this inherent sociability is anchored in his ideal of self-cultivation and, importantly, in his linguistic thought, which is often neglected in interpretations of Humboldt’s political theory. In concentrating on the social dimension of individual self-formation, I argue, we can discern a different ideal of individuality that emphasizes interindividual communicative processes over the stress on nonconformity as found for instance in Mill’s defence of eccentricity or the ideal of ‘democratic individuality’ in the American tradition.