For a Dialogical Conception of the Individual
For a Dialogical Conception of the Individual
The individual as a machinery posing and solving sociological problems
The opposition of society and the individual is a false problematic, a trap. According to classical sociological approaches these two are in fact two sides of the very same coin. The conception of the individual locked up in a thing called society has become obsolete and a new theoretical framework of a triple perception of the individual as a simultaneously social, moral and rational being has taken over its place. The main statement of the article is that these three aspects coexist and the individuals’ social position is determined by their effort to reconcile different strategies applied in concrete situations. Th e individual faces the very same problems that sociologist do, thus a sociology of the individual has to focus not only on the individual itself, but the whole problematic has to be embedded in a more general sociological framework.