Individuation

The principle of individuation, or principium individuationis, describes the manner in which a thing is identified as distinct from other things.

The concept appears in numerous fields and is encountered in works of Leibniz, Carl Jung, Gunther Anders, Gilbert Simondon, Bernard Stiegler, Friedrich Nietzsche, Arthur Schopenhauer, David Bohm, Henri Bergson, Gilles Deleuze, and Manuel DeLanda.