ABSTRACT
In arguing for the centrality of sovereign individuality, John Locke can be understood as drawing upon his original Calvinist roots. As with Locke’s writings a century before, it was the sovereignty and autonomy of the independently wealthy, propertied individual that was privileged in the Revolution’s Declaration. The privileging of the interests of individuals with property over those without was replicated across the English Channel. The undoubted usefulness of the category of the individual and the ideal of individual liberty, to legitimise capitalism has not prevented it from generating extensive criticism. Critics of the idea of the individual go back a long way and come from various genres. Some of the import of the individual can be gleaned from the writings of Critical Theory, in particular the linking of the category of the individual to the exercise of critical reason, to freedom of the will and, thereby, even to the possibility of ethics.
