Bible
Adam simultaneously refers to an individual and humanity at large because Adam is the principle of the entire human race, multiplied by a male-female dichotomy. Adam as the head provides meaning and purpose in exchange for power and support from the body, or the human race. We have a self-similar structure.
In biblical cosmology, every single word in the language of creation has a meaning that crosses multiple levels of reality, from the universal to the particular. The symbols are neither metaphors nor similes but words that point at once to different scales of organization.
Because of these analogies, Bible stories can be read at multiple levels of interpretation. Every concept simultaneously refers to four scales of humanity: cosmic, individual, communal, and intercommunal.
Cosmic: Adam is defined as mediator between heaven and earth with the responsibility of hosting angels and naming animals.
Individual: Adam is defined as the sum of his body parts: head, heart, arms, legs, etc. This level involves joining heaven and earth at the individual scale by correctly expressing the intentions of the head with the actions of the arms and legs.
Communal: An entire society and the interactions between its members joins heaven and earth by formulating a common identity as leader and expressing its laws as member. There must be an invisible principle (spirit) above a mass of individuals for its members to act in tandem. The breath also implies the common discourse to link its population to its abstract identity.
Intercommunal: Subgroups within a whole may involve the interactions of social classes in a greater society or different nations in an empire.
(The Language of Creation: Cosmic Symbolism in Genesis - A Commentary by Matthieu Pageau, 2018. Pages 71-73)