Home – Home – Jornals – "Philosophy of Education" 2009 number 4

The purpose of the article is to reveal the reasons of a paradoxical character of the modern individualization which produces an abstract person instead of individuality. The author supposes that the reasons of the abstractness of the person are realization of individualization apart from social traditions, interests and the emergence of a «society without the 'social'» (i.e., without developed social connections). It is revealed that the modern form of identification which provides identifications with any person becomes a mechanism of abstracting the person, which is different from the former mechanism of introducing norms. It is demonstrated that the ultimate limit of the abstractness is the mass society which is, at the same time, beyond all abstractions.