Conceptualizing Pre-Modern and Modern Individuality. Some Theoretical Considerations

The paper distinguishes two types of individuality: in the pre-modern era,people conceptualised their individuality by constructing themselves aplace in society. The suggestion made here differs from older researchthat sees pre-modern individuality bound to groups. In the modern era, in contrast,people place their selves outside or next to society. In this respect, premodern ‘inclusion individuality’ and modern ‘exclusion individuality’ differstrongly from each other.These different forms of individuality are closely linked to the differentstructures of modern and pre-modern society. In this respect, asking why conceptsof individuality have changed amounts to asking why society haschanged – and this question is still unanswered, of course. However, bringingindividuality and society so closely together questions concepts that see individualityas being a (timelessly) given or want to connect it to changes in mentalitybased on, for instance, certain features prominent in Christianity.The advantages in conceptualising individuality in this way may be seen inthe possibility to historicise the phenomenon and mark differences withoutdescribing pre-modern individuality as being deficient. Placing the self withinthe frame of pre-modern society does not, of course, prevent the single personreflecting about him / herself and developing a strong self-consciousness. Inthis respect, the paper does not see a difference in ‘self-reflection’ and ‘selfconsciousness’ in modern and pre-modern times in general, but in the waypeople do so (which can be attributed to the different societal frame these reflectionsare linked to). To make the proposed shift from ‘bound to groups’ to ‘inclusion individuality’ more clear, I would like to mention two points: 1) pre-modern autobiographical texts show that their authors place themselves in society throughputting themselves in parallel with other deliberately and consciously chosenpersons; and 2) pre-modern authors built their self-consciousness strongly on‘being better than others’ or on an over-fulfilment of norms, while modernauthors emphasise ‘being different from others’. The comparative ‘better’ (incontrast to ‘different’) marks a self-conscious individuality that is built on(self-defined) links to society.The two types of individuality just described have a long tradition in sociologicalresearch, dating back at least to Georg Simmel and having been enrichedwith a new theoretical frame by Niklas Luhmann. They are, however,still somewhat alien to historical research. In this respect, the article and thevolume as a whole are also an attempt to work in an interdisciplinary way andmake sociological theory fruitful for pre-modern historical research.