Individual

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For other uses, see Individual (disambiguation).

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In common speech, the word individual most often refers to a person, or, by analogy, to any specific object in a group of things. Originally, in the 15th century or earlier, what the term meant "indivisible" as still used in statistics (see below), but from the seventeenth century on the term indicated separateness, as in individualism. (Abbs 1986, cited in Klein 2005, p.26-27)

In metaphysics and statistics, the word individual, while sometimes meaning "a person", more typically describes any numerically singular thing.

[edit] References

Gracia, Jorge J. E. (1988). Individuality: An Essay on the Foundations of Metaphysics. : State Univ of New York Pr.
Klein, Anne Carolyn (1995). Meeting the Great Bliss Queen: Buddhists, Feminists, and the Art of the Self. ISBN 0-8070-7306-7.

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