Ontological Reflections on the New: On Individuality Once Again
Ontological Reflections on the New: On Individuality Once Again

Summary/Abstract: The present paper is divided into two parts. The first one inquires into the ontological notion of what it is for something to be new in a strict sense, which opens a discussion on the difference between applying and creating ontologization. I am trying to show that the second case has a greater explanatory value. Such a differentiation between two ways of elaborating ontology allows for a demarcation between definitions created by categorization and an inquiry that seeks to understand the individual nature of what is investigated. The second part concerns the problem of how individuality is to be defined. I start with a few classical topoi on the subject, and then continue with some comments on Alberto Toscano’s idea of the individual as an anomaly. My main thesis, as opposed to his position, is that although individuation processes cannot be thought in one overall pattern, there is nevertheless nothing monstrous about individuals in general.

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