<HTML><HTML> The way I have always expressed this (and I think I've used nearly these exact words a number of times on this list) is that wherever and whenever we find "ourselves," we are always already involved in action, i.e., in an ensemble of social relations apart from which we have no existence at all. An amoeba can be an individual. A glass tumbler can be an individual. I presume snails, roundworms, blacksnakes, frogs, box turtles, crows (but there it becomes a bit doubtful) can be individuals. I very much doubt that any of the primates can be individuals, and the concept of a human being an individual is obscene. To be an individual is to be a god, a lower animal, or an inanimate clod. Carrol ^^^^^ CB: I agree with Carrol. Although, like everything, this proposition turns into its opposite; when it comes time to die,  we do it as individuals.  Humans _are_ lower animals, a species with individual members. Our sociality does not obliterate our biological natures.  </HTML>