Transformation of Individuality & Publicity: Philosophic-Anthropological Analysis

The problem of the balance between society and personality, awareness of ‘individuality’, ‘personality’, as well as ‘publicity’ (publicness) are ranked among the central philosophical issues. There are many interpretations of them. And these matters remain critical in today’s ‘individualised’ society. Based on a philosophic-anthropological approach, and using comparative-historical methods, the authors trace the cultural-historical transformation of the subsistence of an individual in society from Antiquity to the present. An individual is characterised via such conceptions as ‘social type’, ‘individuality’, ‘personality’. The author’s interpretation of these concepts does not always coincide with the generally accepted one. In particular, the individual is often understood as an ‘ensemble of social relations’, i.e. as synonymous with the social. Furthermore, the authors define the term ‘social type’ as an expression of the societal, the term ‘individuality’ as a holograph or verge of the world, the absolute, mankind, whereas the term ‘personality’ is understood as an individuality rendered ‘in-being-with-others’. The main developmental trend in the relationship between the individual and society is the long cultural-historical transition from an individuality ‘outside the world’ to an individuality ‘in the world’. The authors justify the idea that an individualised society is not a society of individuals. Furthermore, the transformation of the conventional conception of publicness is revealed, the ephemerality of publicness in contemporary society in general, and particularly in virtual space, is highlighted. Publicness is substituted with cocktail parties, ‘cloakroom communities’, and shindigs. The article deals with the construction of virtual identity in the social media of the younger generation. At the end of the article, the authors conclude that in the contemporary world of multiple identities, a person has to look for life values, once again facing the problem of choice and a new understanding of freedom.