AIM Framework glossary
Individualism
Canonical definition
The foundational ontology of Western social theory that treats the Individual as an autonomous agent: self-originating, self-knowing, preference-revealing, causally transparent, and analytically separable from social influence. Individualism rests on five interlocking empirical assumptions, each a claim about motivational architecture rather than a philosophical axiom: Preference Autonomy, that desires originate within the Individual and belong to that Individual as their own; Introspective Access, that Individuals can identify the sources and reasons for their desires through self-examination; Revealed Preference, that choices reliably reveal stable, pre-existing preferences that belong to the Individual; Rational Agency, that the Individual is the appropriate unit of causal explanation for their actions; and Separability, that Individual preferences can be cleanly partitioned from social influence for analytical purposes. The AIM Framework dissolves (rather than refutes) Individualism by demonstrating that the architecture it presupposes does not exist. Preconscious Transmission (Axiom 7) dissolves Preference Autonomy, because desire arrives within the Transmission Window before the Individual can gate it. Source Opacity (Axiom 3) and Confabulation (Axiom 4) dissolve Introspective Access, because the source decomposition is destroyed at integration and the report of it is generated after the fact. Source Opacity dissolves Revealed Preference, because a choice reveals the integrated Scalar and not its composition, and Entanglement dissolves it a second time, because the preference revealed was already partly constituted by the preferences of others. Preconscious Transmission and the Agent-Based Causal Default (Axiom 9) dissolve Rational Agency, because intention is partly constituted by inputs the Individual did not choose and the outcomes that matter are emergent rather than intended. Entanglement and Confabulation dissolve Separability, because the partition between endogenous preference and social influence corresponds to no distinction in the architecture.
Explanation
The assumption, built into economics, psychology, law, and philosophy, that people are self-contained units whose desires come from within, whose self-reflection is reliable, whose choices show what they want, who are the right unit for explaining what they do, and who can be studied apart from social influence. AIM shows the brain architecture this picture requires does not exist. The lowercase phrase revealed preference, in Chapters 12 and 13, names the economic method rather than this assumption.
Epistemic status
Framework-Specific Construct. Dissolved by AIM architectural findings.
Derivation
Chapter 19, Sections 19.2 to 19.7.