Concepts and schemas
In my last note I suggested that personal identity was the outcome of a particular mode of individuation. While everything is individuated in some way, only human beings are self-consciously individuated. Self-consciousness or introspective awareness is a form of individuation that is particular to human beings. However, this generates something of an ironic paradox. Conceptual thinking is the most distinctive component of introspective awareness and the basis of rationality. But conceptual thinking is driven away from the individual by abstraction and generalisation. In conceptual thinking, individuated entities become the instantiations of an abstract type and the idiosyncrasies of individuality are…