Will, Comprehension, Individuation

As previously discussed, 'individual' has two meanings--the common one, 'discrete', and the literal one, 'undivided'. The two are not equivalent--the discreteness of A and B from one another does not entail that either is internally coherent, while the internal coherence of A does not entail the existence of any other entity. In the context of personal Experience, discrete individuality can be characterized as 'public', and coherent individuality as 'private'. Heidegger exemplifies a typical confusion of public and private individuality, when he treats the totalization effected by Being-towards-Death, a private process, as public individuation. Similarly, some influential contemporary political Egoisms, e. g. Rand's and Goldwater's, believe that private selfishness suffices to establish social opacity. In Formaterialism, private individuation is a product of Comprehension, while the public variety is effected by Will, in a process in which, as has been discussed, the establishment of one's own individuality entails the recognition of that of others. This analysis that public individuation is not exclusionary, confirms the result of Kant's different procedure that demonstrates that the 'I' only has objective validity as universalized. So, Rand's hostility towards Kant is understandable, but its groundlessness is not justified.