Unus – Unitas – Religare: Autonomy

By: Maria Odete Madeira

Unus is the Latin term for unique, indivisible, irrepeatable. It is a name to designate an individuated form, any form,that, as such, possesses an identity that is in conformity with an idea (eidos) of unity, from the Latin unitas/atis, defined as a systemically available property to be exemplified by any identity, be that identity: ente, entity, process, situation, relation, or simply thing (res).

The unity is, in itself, described by its internal cohesion, consistency and coherence. All that is unus, or unique, participates from, or has unity, because to have unity is to be unique, irrepeatable. Each ente, or individuated thing (res) is unus, and, thus, unique: ens et unum convertuntur; because each thing, or ente, possesses an identity that relinks (religare) it and determines it in itself and by itself, in what is its autonomy: reference to itself, as rotative self-position of itself.