The concept of the Individual has evolved over the past two millennia and the discussion by Siedentop is a superb overview of that process. It has been a complex process, moving from family and tribal identity to the ability to have an identity as a self, an individual. Along with that ability to identify with self, a single person and an individual comes many attributes as well as the basis for many of our current theories of political science.
Siedentop has presented a brilliant addition to the body of materials on the development of the individual as a vital political and social entity. This book is an excellent presentation of his ideas. It is well written, encompasses all the key issues, and his arguments are concise, compelling, and highly informative.
Siedentop starts with the Ancient world as a world of families and towns. Athens was a typical example of the Ancient World and the Platonic tales of Socrates were key to their understanding. Loyalty and identity were to the city of Athens, or later, to the Empire of Rome, via ones family. In Plato’s Gorgias, Protagoras and Meno we see the loyalty to Athens and in turn to the gods as being the means to relate, the family being the linkage binding all to the city state. In Chapters 1 through 3 the authors lays out how he sees such relationships.
Then in Chapter 4 we see the author introduce Paul of Tarsus. On p 60 the authors presents the opening salvo of the individualism of Paul. The “one” in Christ is a double edged sword. One is “one” as a group in Christ but one is also “one” morally, having an individual path to salvation? The concept of individual salvation or perdition is developed to its fullest in Paul. On p 61 the author asserts that it is with Paul that the “fusion marks the birth of a “truly” individual will”.
On pp 74-75 the author discusses Marcion and his heresy of extreme Paul individualism. The soul is individual in each person and salvation is an individual act and the communal nature of the Old Testament must be rejected with the individual responsibility of the New Testament. In fact Marcinon said all one needs is Paul’s Epistles and Luke, and reject the rest. For that he was rejected as a heretic.
The author then examines monasticism and the martyrs in the process to building up to Augustine. Chapter 8 is an analysis of Augustine in the context of the individual. Augustine was on the one hand a strong adherent to Paul while also being imbued in the classic culture of the Roman Empire. In a sense the author sees a strong flow of individual identity in the writing of the Confessions. The author also included the Pelagian conflict, which in a sense if a conflict of the individual qua person and the individual qua grace. Without grace man is doomed. Yet man’s actions alone cannot provide redemption, each individual must, according to Augustine; have grace given if he is ever to gain eternal redemption. One can see a stand for individuality in Augustine but the demand of grace as given and not earned has always sent a penumbra of concern.
On pp 132-133 the author discusses Gregory I and Columbanus. This could have represented an interesting point for contrast. Gregory was from a classic old Roman family and had even been the martyr of Rome before becoming its Bishop. Columbanus was an Irish monk who established dozens of monastic institutions of study, and was in conflict with Gregory, albeit with respect. Columbanus as an Irish monk had never had his country subject to Rome, and thus in this interaction we could see the move from old Rome to the new non-Roman church.
The author progresses by moving on to the development of natural law and natural rights in Chapter 16. This is a wonderful exposition of these topics. Natural Law was a vehicle to explain the basis for law extra the Church and Natural Rights became the cornerstone for what became individual rights.
Chapter 21 is a discussion of the Friars. In a sense this is a battle between Aquinas and Ockham, between Dominican and Franciscan, between group and individual, between Aristotle and the opening of new philosophical insights. In Chapter 21 the author nicely uses the Franciscan issue of property and the New Testament to discuss property and individual ownership. To follow Christ one must abjure one’s property. To do such, one must have some nexus with the property as an individual in the first place. This may very well be the basis for Locke’s subsequent arguments. Chapter 22 then is a focus on Ockham. And it follows in detail in Chapter 23. I felt that these were the best chapters in the book, but perhaps it is my bias towards Ockham.
William of Ockham is extolled throughout the book. It is a worthy discussion. Ockham was a nominalist; namely he believed that universals were a fiction and that subjects were in essence individuals, not humans, but individual things. Thus, when we say; “The daylily is blue.” we mean a specific daylily, the subject. Yet Ockham would allow for the predicate “blue” to have some nexus to a universal called blue. Daylilies as a universal do not exist. A specific daylily like the one I may hold does exist, as an individual. But to extend this and say that the specific daylily is blue, do we mean as a predicate some universal concept of blue or blue like a coneflower? As we progress to a more scientific venue we may use a predicate like the spectrum of the blue we want, and then say blue like “this”. Thus ultimately we do not use the construct of a universal but an individual for the subject and likewise for the predicate.
Locke clearly must have had a clear understanding and acceptance of the individual when he developed his concept of property. For Locke property was the result of an individual providing some form of work and the conversion of that labor into a one to one relationship with the property; namely the individual owned the property and from that he had certain rights.
To expand on Siedentop we must then look towards the political philosophers who integrate Individuals into society. As de Tocqueville noticed about mid-19th century America, there was a preponderance of Individualism, an Individualism not of the type that abhors collective associations, quite the contrary, but an Individualism of the type that demands individual equality of rights and opportunity. I would argue that to understand this strain in de Tocqueville that one must read his American analysis in conjunction with his analysis of the French Revolution and of Ireland under English suppression and subjugation.
On the end the author tries to connect the individualism of Christianity with the secular goals of modern society. Also the author does see the threat to modern political theory from the ascendancy of more rigid past religions which eschew the individual and build on the tribe.
Overall the book is a powerful and superbly presented argument for the individual, and their rights. The argument that the concept of the individual did not suddenly arise from the Enlightenment is powerful and compelling. This book is a valuable contribution to understanding the individual, individualism, and the conflict with alternative societal political constructs which demean the individual and their rights.
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