“Individualism” is a term ranging over a wide variety
of attitudes, doctrines, and theories, and this diversity
of meaning is only increased when one takes account
of historical shifts in the connotations of the very word
“individual” and its synonyms (Mauss, 1937; Ullmann,
1966). The relation of these various meanings to one
another is largely one of family resemblance, though
“individualism” has usually been understood as expres-
sing some cluster of such meanings, which usually are
either not distinguished from one another or else as-
sumed to be logically or conceptually related.
