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core from Aristotle to Kant and Hegel). Philosophers who, in various ways, have focused instead on the singular or individual include Spinoza and Deleuze, and in some respects Kierkegaard and Stirner as well. 2 The term has appeared sporadically in scholarly literature, but never with a consistent meaning. The way that I employ it here is inspired by Kopytoff and Karpic, though they apply it more narrowly and primarily to objects. See Kopytoff, “The Cultural Biography of Things”; and Karpik, Valuing the Unique. In The Society of Equals (pp. 360–6), Rosanvallon applies the term to subjects. On the earlier history of the concept, above all as it was used in late-medieval and early-modern philosophy (uses which are of no concern to me here), see Klaus Mainzer, “Singulär/Singularität,” in Historisches Wörterbuch der Philosophie, vol. IX, ed. Joachim Ritter et al. (Basel: Schwabe, 1995), pp. 798–808. In a different, normatively laden, form, which I also do not draw upon, the concept has also been used by post-structuralist authors such as Jacques Derrida, Gilles Deleuze, Jean-Luc Nancy, and Antonio Negri. 3 Kant, Critique of the Power of Judgement, pp. 271–84. 4 This is the position to which Deleuze and Guattari are inclined. See Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, trans. Brian Massumi (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1987). Here I have no interest in entering an ontological discussion about the stakes of idiosyncrasies, which would be of no use to the sociology of singularities. 5 As you have come to see, my analytical framework is fundamentally praxeological. On this approach, see Andreas Reckwitz, “Toward a Theory of Social Practices: A Development in Culturalist Theorizing,” European Journal of Social Theory 5 (2002), pp. 243–63; the articles collected in Hilmar Schäfer, ed., Praxistheorie: Ein soziologisches Forschungsprogramm (Bielefeld: Transcript, 2016); and Theodore Schatzki, Social Practices: A Wittgensteinian Approach to Human Activity and the Social (Cambridge University Press, 2009). 6 On the concept of complexity, see, for instance, John Holland, Hidden Order: How Adaption Builds Complexity (Reading, MA: Basic Books, 1995); and, from a different angle, Niklas Luhmann, “Komplexität,” in Luhmann, Soziologische Aufklärung 2: Aufsätze zur Theorie der Gesellschaft (Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1975), pp. 204–20. The concept features strongly in the tradition of systems theory, which I do not follow. The notion of density was developed by Nelson Goodman in his Languages of Art: An Approach to a Theory of Symbols (Indianapolis, IN: Bobbs-Merrill, 1968). Goodman, however, understood the concept in purely art-historical terms, whereas I use it more generally. 7 See Ferdinand de Saussure, Course in General Linguistics, trans. Roy Harris (London: Duckworth, 1990). This idea was the basis of all of semiotics and structuralism (up to Pierre Bourdieu’s logic of distinction). 8 Within the context of the theory of science, the concept of incommensurability was established by Thomas Kuhn and Paul Feyerabend. See Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolution, 4th edn. (University of Chicago Press, 2015); and Paul Feyerabend, Against Method: Outline of an Anarchist Theory of Knowledge, 4th edn. (London: Verso, 2010). 9 This topic will be addressed in Part II, chapter 2. 10 When this no longer happens to be the case, then the singularity in question simply joins the register of the general-particular. This is, of course, a possibility and, as I will describe later in greater detail, it implies devaluation. Over the course of this book, whenever I use the term “the particular” without comment, it is meant to denote singularities / unique entities. Whenever I am discussing idiosyncrasies or the general-particular, I use these terms explicitly. 11 Translational processes of this sort are discussed with different terminology in Michael Thompson’s Rubbish Theory. 12 On this heterogeneous semantic field, see Flavia Kippele, Was heißt Individualisierung? Die Antworten soziologischer Klassiker (Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1998); Thomas Kron and Martin Horáček, Individualisierung (Bielefeld: Transcript, 2009); and, for its narrower and yet interdisciplinary approach, Manfred Frank and Anselm Haverkamp, eds., Individualität (Munich: Fink, 1988). 13 See Simmel, Sociology, pp. 621–66. 14 It should be noted that Simmel already relates the concept of the individual not only to subjects but also to their social circles (see ibid., p. 621). 15 Objects always have a material basis. The distinction between objects and things is contested; in general, the concept of the thing underscores the delineable materiality of an object. Yet for certain objects – such as novels, myths, or songs – it is characteristic that they are not associated with a single material bearer but can rather materialize in various forms. On this topic, see Gustav Roßler, Der Anteil der Dinge an der Gesellschaft: Sozialität – Kognition – Netzwerke (Bielefeld: Transcript, 2015). 16 See Walter Benjamin, “The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility: Third Version,” in Selected Writings: Volume 4, 1938–1940, ed. Howard Eiland and Michael W. Jennings (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003), pp. 251–83. 17 The objects of aesthetics, literary theory, music theory, or theology are thus to a large extent singularities in this sense. For a somewhat rhapsodizing historical look at the singularity of things, see Neil MacGregor, A History of the World in 100 Objects (New York: Penguin, 2013). For a more theoretically informed approach, see Sherry Turkle, Evocative Objects: Things We Think With (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2011). 18 On the concept of style, see Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht and K. Ludwig Pfeiffer, eds., Stil: Geschichten und Funktionen eines kulturwissenschaftlichen Diskurselements (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1986); and Dick Hebidge, Subculture: The Meaning of Style (London: Routledge, 1979). 19 See Bruno Baur, Biodiversität (Bern: Haupt, 2010). 20 Regarding objects, this book will look extensively at cultural goods from the economic sphere and their appropriation for the sake of lifestyles (food or living situations, for instance). 21 In this regard, see the articles collected in Richard van Dülmen, ed., Entdeckung des Ich: Die Geschichte der Individualisierung vom Mittelalter bis zur Gegenwart (Cologne: Böhlau, 2001). 22 In Foucault’s sense of the term, which I have borrowed here, subjectification should not be confused with singularization. In the social logic of the general, subjectification operates in a different direction. 23 See Weber, Economy and Society, pp. 241–5. 24 See Verena Krieger, Was ist ein Künstler? Genie – Heilsbringer – Antikünstler: Eine Ideen- und Kunstgeschichte des Schöpferischen (Cologne: Deubner, 2007); and Nathalie Heinich, L’élite artiste: Excellence et singularité en régime démocratique (Paris: Gallimard, 2005). 25 In this book, the singularization of subjects will be analyzed extensively as it relates to the lifestyle of the new middle class (Part V, Chapter 1), to the way that working subjects are profiled (Part III, Chapter 2), and to digitalization (Part IV). 26 Despite all my skepticism about the usefulness of the semantics of individualism, the question is whether it still has any analytic value. The answer is yes, but only when the concept of individualization is clearly related to the social logic of the general and is thus understood as a complementary concept to singularization. In late modernity, individualization and singularization are undoubtedly closely associated with one another, but this connection can only be investigated if both processes are treated as clearly distinct concepts. 27 On the distinction between space and place, see Yi-Fu Tuan, Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1977). 28 On the intrinsic logic of cities, see Martina Löw, Soziologie der Städte (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2008). 29 See Pierre Nora, Realms of Memory, 3 vols., trans. Arthur Goldhammer (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996–8); and Gernot Böhme, The Aesthetics of Atmospheres, ed. Jean-Paul Thibaud (London: Routledge, 2017). In this book, I will go into greater detail about the singularization of places as it relates to the late-modern city, but also as it relates to lifestyles, travel, and living situations. 30 On the concept of presence, see Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht, Production of Presence: What Meaning Cannot Say (Stanford University Press, 2004). 31 On rituals, see Victor W. Turner, The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure (London: Routledge, 1969); on events, see Winfried Gebhardt, Fest, Feier und Alltag: Über die gesellschaftliche Wirklichkeit des Menschen und ihre Deutung (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1987); on being oriented toward the present moment, see Karl Heinz Bohrer, Der romantische Brief: Die Entstehung ästhetischer Subjektivität (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1989); and, more generally, see John Urry, Sociology Beyond Societies: Mobilities for the Twenty-First Century (London: Routledge, 2000). Later, I will discuss the singularization of time as it relates to cultural goods, the economy, professional projects, and lifestyles. 32 On aesthetic communities, see Michel Maffesoli, The Time of the Tribes: The Decline of Individualism in Mass Society, trans. Don Smith (London: Sage, 1996); on the nation, see Bernhard Giesen, Nationale und kulturelle Identität: Studien zur Entwicklung des kollektiven Bewußtseins in der Neuzeit (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1991); and on recent identity movements, see Manuel Castells, The Power of Identity, 2nd edn. (Oxford: Blackwell, 1997). In
