Notions on Individualism

Abstract

This article provides a philosophical examination of individualism, focusing on its conceptual origins, modern formulations, and contemporary paradoxes, drawing primarily on the work of Tzvetan Todorov, Alain Renaut, and Victoria Camps. The first section analyzes Todorov’s account of individualism in The Imperfect Garden, particularly through the figure of the individualist within the framework of the “four moral families,” emphasizing traits such as self-sufficiency, solitude, egoism, and skepticism toward universal moral values. The article then explores the philosophical origins of the modern individual through Leibniz’s monadology, as interpreted by Renaut, where the individual is conceived as an irreducible, indivisible, and autonomous entity, forming the basis of ontological individualism. In its final section, the study examines the paradoxes of contemporary individualism through Victoria Camps’s ethical reflections, distinguishing between an autonomous individualism compatible with moral responsibility and an egoistic form marked by indifference toward public life. The article concludes that individualism is an inherent condition of modernity, but that its ethical significance depends on the responsible exercise of autonomy, engagement with others, and the preservation of the public dimension of moral life.