Open individualism is the view in the

philosophy of self The philosophy of self is the study of wisdom as self at a conceptual level. Many different ideas on what constitutes self have been proposed, including the self being an activity, the self being independent of the senses, the bundle theory of th ...

, according to which there exists only one numerically

identical Two things are identical if they are the same, see Identity (philosophy). Identical may also refer to: * ''Identical'' (Hopkins novel), a 2008 young adult novel by Ellen Hopkins * ''Identical'' (Turow novel), a 2013 legal drama novel by Scott T ...

subject, who is everyone at all times, in the past, present and future. It is a theoretical solution to the question of

personal identity Personal identity is the unique numerical identity of a person over time. Discussions regarding personal identity typically aim to determine the necessary and sufficient conditions under which a person at one time and a person at another time can ...

, being contrasted with "Empty individualism", the view that personal identities correspond to a fixed pattern that instantaneously disappears with the passage of time, and with "Closed individualism", the common view that personal identities are particular to subjects and yet survive over time.

History

The term was coined by philosopher

Daniel Kolak Daniel Kolak (born 1955 in Zagreb, SR Croatia) is a Croatian-American philosopher who works primarily in philosophy of mind, personal identity, cognitive science, philosophy of science, philosophy of mathematics, philosophy of logic, philosophy o ...

, though this view has been described at least since the time of the

Upanishads The Upanishads (; sa, उपनिषद् ) are late Vedic Sanskrit texts that supplied the basis of later Hindu philosophy.Wendy Doniger (1990), ''Textual Sources for the Study of Hinduism'', 1st Edition, University of Chicago Press, , ...

, in the late

Bronze Age The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second pri ...

; the phrase "

Tat tvam asi Tat or TAT may refer to: Geography * Tát, a Hungarian village * Tat Ali, an Ethiopian volcano People *Tat, a son and disciple of Hermes Trismegistus * Tiffani Amber Thiessen, initials T.A.T. * Tat Wood, a British author Arts, entertainment, a ...

" meaning "You are that" is an example. Others who have expressed similar views (in various forms) include the philosophers

Averroes Ibn Rushd ( ar, ; full name in ; 14 April 112611 December 1198), often Latinized as Averroes ( ), was an Andalusian polymath and jurist who wrote about many subjects, including philosophy, theology, medicine, astronomy, physics, psycholog ...

Arthur Schopenhauer Arthur Schopenhauer ( , ; 22 February 1788 – 21 September 1860) was a German philosopher. He is best known for his 1818 work ''The World as Will and Representation'' (expanded in 1844), which characterizes the phenomenal world as the prod ...

, and

Arnold Zuboff Arnold Stuart Zuboff (born January 1946) is an American philosopher who has worked on topics such as personal identity, philosophy of mind, ethics, metaphysics, epistemology and the philosophy of probability. He is the original formulator of the ...

, mystic

Meher Baba Meher Baba (born Merwan Sheriar Irani; 25 February 1894 – 31 January 1969) was an Indian spiritual master who said he was the Avatar, or God in human form, of the age. A major spiritual figure of the 20th century, he had a following of ...

, stand-up comedian

Bill Hicks William Melvin Hicks (December 16, 1961 – February 26, 1994) was an American stand-up comedian, social critic, satirist, and musician. His material—encompassing a wide range of social issues including religion, politics, and philosophy—wa ...

, writer

Alan Watts Alan Wilson Watts (6 January 1915 – 16 November 1973) was an English writer, speaker and self-styled "philosophical entertainer", known for interpreting and popularising Japanese, Chinese and Indian traditions of Buddhist, Taoist, and Hindu ...

, as well as renowned physicists

Erwin Schrödinger Erwin Rudolf Josef Alexander Schrödinger (, ; ; 12 August 1887 – 4 January 1961), sometimes written as or , was a Nobel Prize-winning Austrian physicist with Irish citizenship who developed a number of fundamental results in quantum theory ...

Freeman Dyson Freeman John Dyson (15 December 1923 – 28 February 2020) was an English-American theoretical physicist and mathematician known for his works in quantum field theory, astrophysics, random matrices, mathematical formulation of quantum m ...

, and

Fred Hoyle Sir Fred Hoyle FRS (24 June 1915 – 20 August 2001) was an English astronomer who formulated the theory of stellar nucleosynthesis and was one of the authors of the influential B2FH paper. He also held controversial stances on other sci ...

In fiction

Leo Tolstoy Count Lev Nikolayevich TolstoyTolstoy pronounced his first name as , which corresponds to the romanization ''Lyov''. () (; russian: link=no, Лев Николаевич Толстой,In Tolstoy's day, his name was written as in pre-refor ...

in the short story " Esarhaddon, King of Assyria", tells how an old man appears before

Esarhaddon Esarhaddon, also spelled Essarhaddon, Assarhaddon and Ashurhaddon (Neo-Assyrian cuneiform: , also , meaning " Ashur has given me a brother"; Biblical Hebrew: ''ʾĒsar-Ḥaddōn'') was the king of the Neo-Assyrian Empire from the death of his ...

and takes the king through a process where he experiences, from a first-person perspective, the lives of humans and non-human animals he has tormented. This reveals to him that he is everyone and that by harming others, he is actually harming himself. In the science fiction novel ''

October the First Is Too Late ''October the First is Too Late'' is a science fiction novel by astrophysicist Fred Hoyle. It was first published in 1966. The novel describes an extraordinary temporary phase through which the world passes, eventually presenting a civilization ...

'', Fred Hoyle puts forward the "pigeon hole theory" which asserts that "each moment of time can be thought of as a pre-existing pigeon hole" and the pigeon hole currently being examined by your consciousness is the

present The present (or here'' and ''now) is the time that is associated with the events perception, perceived directly and in the first time, not as a recollection (perceived more than once) or a speculation (predicted, hypothesis, uncertain). It is ...

and that the spotlight of consciousness does not have to move in a linear fashion; it could potentially move around in any order. Hoyle considers the possibility that there might be one set of pigeon holes for each person, but only one spotlight, which would mean that the "consciousness could be the same". " The Egg", a short story by

Andy Weir Andrew Taylor Weir (born June 16, 1972) is an American novelist and former computer programmer. His 2011 novel '' The Martian'' was adapted into the 2015 film of the same name directed by Ridley Scott. He received the John W. Campbell Award fo ...

, is about a character who finds out that they are every person who has ever existed.

References

External links

* Identity (philosophy) Metaphysical theories Metaphysics of mind Conceptions of self Theory of mind {{Metaphysics-stub

History

In fiction

See also

References

Further reading

Articles

Books

External links