Taking suggestions from microbiology and the anthropology of the person, the author proposes replacing «individual» with «codividual». Together with the concepts of being, substance and identity, individual is the expression of a typically ontological thought. On the contrary, the codividual stems from the conviction that individuals are lumps of similarities and differences that constantly change over time: codividual is not part of being, but of becoming. Codividuals, moreover, are areas of complexity that require to be de-complexified to some extent in order to gain a sufficient degree of orientation. The paper concludes with a reference to the monasticism of the first centuries of the Christian era: an anthropo-poietic experiment in which codividuals are forced into a strong de-complexification. By stripping them of their social ties, the attempt is to transform them into individuals, as similar as possible to the divinity.

KEY WORDS: Anthropo-poiesis, codividual, complexity, decomplexification, individual, monasticism.