Identity: the essence of the term and the history of its formation

The term «identity» has gone through a long-term evolution: from the literal meaning of an object's equivalence to itself, to complex characteristics concerning the integrity of a human inner world. Originally, the notion of identity was used in philosophical reflections about the nature of things; however, starting from the early modern age, this term has been applied to characterize a person's sense of sameness and of continuity of their existence through time and space, which is based on the continuity of consciousness and ability to remember. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, they used the concept of «Self» for unity of personality, which may be formed only in a context of social interaction. The basic formation mechanism for «Self» was considered to be a person's self-categorizing as a part of social groups, viewed as «friendlies» and self-opposing to other communities, recognized as «foreigners». As a result of these processes, a person recognizes, on one hand, his affiliation and alliance with a certain social environment and, on the other hand, detaches himself from this environment through awareness of his peculiarity, his selfness. Nowadays, the concept of «identity» is used in the following basic meanings: constancy in time, uniqueness, «selfness» as a personal authenticity, psy-chophysiological integrity, psychological determinacy, continuity of life experience, degree of conformity to social expectations, and affiliation with a certain community. Along with personal identity there is a notion of «national identity», involving national or ethnic sameness, which allows a nation or ethnicity to determine their place in the world. The article suggests to interpret the concept of identity as a certain fixed combination of individual, sociocultural, national and civil parameters that answer the questions: «Who am I?» or «Who are we?». We can speak of identity only in relation to subjects - a person or a group of persons able to recognize themselves and separate themselves from others. We should not apply this term to inanimate objects. We can speak only of their identification by people, that is, of the determination by intellectual beings of their specificity and affiliation with a certain type, class and group.

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