a) The Concept of the Individual and the General

p Each phenomenon is connected in one way or another with an infinite number of other phenomena, which interact with it and thus introduce corresponding changes into it. These changes are different in each phenomenon, inasmuch as every phenomenon has its own, special environment which differs in some way from others and inasmuch as it has its own, special sequence of preceding phenomena (its own history), which differs in some way from other sequences. The uniqueness of the changes occurring in any separate phenomenon at any given moment derives from the uniqueness of its characteristic features. Everything that is unique in a phenomenon, that is inherent only in this phenomenon and is absent in others, constitutes the individual.

p The papillary patterns of the surface of the fingertips, for instance, are individual because they 192 are unique to each person. It is not fortuitous that law-enforcement agencies use fingerprints to identify criminals. The unique features of culture, psychology, language, traditions and customs are specific for each nation.

p Each separate phenomenon, while possessing unique features (properties, aspects), is part of integral matter, a link in the endless chain of its development. Each phenomenon must therefore possess, besides its unique features, something that is repeated and inherent in other phenomena, too. That which is repeated in phenomena, which is inherent not in one, but in many phenomena, is called the general.

The fact that production relations condition the essence of every individual, the fact that he is a reasonable creature, that his consciousness reflects his social being, etc. constitute the general for this individual, for all this is inherent not only in him, but also in other people. A common territory and a common language make up, among other things, the general for a nation, for these features are characteristic of all nations.

b) A Critique of Metaphysical and Idealist Views
of the Individual and the General

p Two trends-realist and nominalist-are clearly distinguishable in the history of philosophy with respect to the question of the interconnection between the individual and the general.

p Realists maintained that the general existed independently of the individual, while the 193 individual depended on the general, was engendered by it and was secondary, temporary and transient. Alfred Whitehead, a modern bourgeois philosopher, provides a similar solution to the problem of the interconnection between the individual and the general. He declares general ideal essences to be eternal objects existing somewhere beyond space and time. Individual objects, he says, appear due to the transition of the corresponding ideal essences into the world of space and time and disappear as soon as these essences abandon the sensuous world and return to the other, ideal world.

p Nominalists did not believe that the general existed in objective reality. Only the individual, they asserted, exists in reality, whereas the general exists exclusively in people’s minds, in their consciousness. The general is no more than a name for a number of individual objects.

p The nominalist viewpoint is developed by some modern bourgeois philosophers, such as Stuart Chase and Cassius Keyser. Chase, for instance, declares the concept of the general to be a symbol that has nothing to do with reality. “We are continually confusing,” he writes, “the label with the nonverbal object, and so giving a spurious validity to the word, as something alive. .. .”  [193•1  This, he reasons, makes people believe that abstract general concepts, such as freedom, justice, democracy, capitalism, really exist, while there is not, nor can be, anything of the kind in the surrounding world, 194 for only individual objects and phenomena exist in reality.  [194•1 

The history of philosophy has recorded attempts to overcome the onesidedness of the realist and nominalist solutions to the problem of the interconnection between the individual and the general. Such attempts were made by Duns Scotus in the Middle Ages and by Bacon, Locke, and Feuerbach in the New Age. But these philosophers, too, could not supply a consistently scientific solution. They believed that only the individual really existed, whereas the general existed only as an aspect or moment of the individual.

c) Interconnection
Between the Individual and the General

p Dialectical materialism succeeded in overcoming the weak points inherent in the realist and nominalist theories on this problem. According to dialectical materialism, neither the general nor the individual exists independently, “as such”. Only separate objects, phenomena and processes that are a unity of the individual and the general, the recurrent and the unique, exist independently. The general and the individual exist only in separate objects or phenomena as aspects or moments of them. Interconnection between the separate (object, process) and the general manifests itself as the interconnection between the whole and a part, where the separate is the whole and the 195 general is the part. Hence, “every general only approximately embraces all the individual objects" and “every individual enters incompletely into the general”,  [195•1  inasmuch as, besides the general, separate objects possess the individual, and alongside their recurrent properties they possess unique qualities.

p Moreover, every separate object is not external -it emerges, exists for a certain time and then turns into another separate object, which turns into a third one, and so on ad infinitum. Every chemical element, for instance, can turn into another chemical element under certain conditions ; every “elementary” particle can turn into another “elementary” particle; a substance-into a field; a field-into a substance, and so on. It follows that “every individual is connected by thousands of transitions with other kinds of individuals (things, phenomena, processes)" and that “the individual exists only in the connection that leads to the general".  [195•2  Possessing the ability to turn, under relevant conditions, into another separate thing, it contains in itself (in its nature) the possible properties of all these other separate things ( material entities, phenomena, processes) and for this reason can be regarded as identical to them, i.e. the general.

Existing in separate objects (processes, phenomena), the individual and the general are intrinsically interconnected and pass into one another 196 under certain conditions-the individual becomes the general, and vice versa. This can be easily observed from analysis of the appearance and disappearance of certain properties in the material entities of the animate world. When they settle in different places, for instance, individual organisms find themselves under different environmental conditions and acquire certain adapted features which, under the impact of specific conditions, turn unto general features characterising first a variety, and then the species as a whole. If we take individual animals of the same species from different localities with either distinct environmental features or a different degree of manifestation, we may observe all the stages in the development of a particular feature from an individual deviation to a general feature of the species, and vice versa-from the general to the individual.

d) The General and the Particular

p To reveal the individual, the object under study should be compared with all the other objects, but in practice this is impossible. For this reason, an object is normally compared only with some definite objects. This makes it necessary to compare the general with the particular, rather than with the individual.

p Indeed, by comparing one object with another we establish their similarity and difference. But that which distinguishes the objects from one another constitutes their particular, while that 197 which indicates their similarity constitutes the general.

p By comparing the individual with the particular, it is easy to see that the individual always plays the role of the particular. Being a totality of the properties inherent only in the given object, it will always distinguish this object from all other objects with which it is compared.

p While the individual always plays the part of the particular, the role of the general as regards the particular is somewhat different. In some cases it plays the role of the particular, while in others it plays its own role. When it indicates the compared object’s difference from other objects, it acts as the particular; when, however, it indicates the similarity of the compared objects, it acts as the general. For example, the fact that the transformation of privately owned industry ( enterprises belonging to the national bourgeoisie) in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam (SRV) was effected gradually, by setting up mixed state-capitalist enterprises, is the general, since this also happened in other countries, such as the German Democratic Republic (GDR). This fact, however, becomes the particular if we compare the SRV with the Soviet Union. Moreover, the fact that the dictatorship of the proletariat in the SRV has taken the form of a people’s democracy is also a general moment, for this form of proletarian dictatorship exists in a number of other socialist countries, such as Bulgaria and Rumania. But this aspect will constitute the particular if we compare the SRV not with Bulgaria and Rumania, but 198 with the USSR, where the dictatorship of the proletariat has assumed the form of a republic of Soviets.

p Not everything general, however, may play two roles-its own and that of the particular. There is a type of the general that excludes the role of the particular: this is the universal. Since it is inherent in all the objects and phenomena of the real world, it cannot be used to distinguish one object or phenomenon from another. It will always point out the similarity or identity of the objects compared. Such characteristic features of a thing, for instance, as the presence of necessary and accidental properties, content and form, the individual and the general, cannot play the role of the particular. They do not make it possible to differentiate the compared object from other objects, because all the objects possess these features.

p Thus, the individual always plays the role of the particular, whereas the general plays it depending on circumstances. When the general indicates a difference between compared phenomena, it takes on the role of the particular; when, however, it points out their similarity, it plays its own role, i.e. the role of the general. The universal cannot play the role of the particular-it always indicates the similarity or identity of the phenomena compared.

A correct use of laws governing the interconnections between the general and the particular is very important for implementing social transformations, especially building socialism. “In their struggle,” Leonid Brezhnev said at the 25th CPSU 199 Congress, “Communists proceed from the general laws governing the development of the revolution and the building of socialism and communism. ... A deep understanding of these general laws, and reliance on them, in combination with a creative approach and with consideration for the concrete conditions in each separate country, have been and remain the inalienable and distinctive feature of a Marxist-Leninist.”  [199•1