A Phenomenological Geography of the Individual. Possible Paths in the Desert of Aporias

Phenomenology has historically addressed the problem of individuality in diverse ways, and the very nature of this concept is more and more under investigation in contemporary philosophical debate. The approach to this topic is problematic since the phenomenological attitude aspires to disentangle individuality not only from the idealistic characterizations that have led to the concept of “subject” within classical metaphysics, but also from the restrictive conceptions that have resulted into the search for an “essence” of the human being. This is what occurred, for example, in the thorny dialogue between psychology and philosophical anthropology in the early twentieth century.