Haecceity (; from the Latin haecceitas, 'thisness') is a term from medieval Scholasticism, first coined by followers of Duns Scotus to denote a concept that he seems to have originated: the irreducible determination of a thing that makes it this particular thing. Haecceity is a person's or object's thisness, the individualising difference between the concept "a person" and the concept "Socrates" ( i.e., a specific person).[, Gerard Manley Hopkins (1975), p. xxiii] In modern philosophy of physics, it is sometimes referred to as primitive thisness.
Etymology
Haecceity is a Latin
neologism formed as an abstract
noun derived from the demonstrative
pronoun haec(ce), meaning 'this (very)' (feminine singular) or 'these (very)' (feminine or neuter plural). It is apparently formed on the model of another (much older) neologism qui(d)ditas ('whatness'), which is a
calque of
Aristotle's
Ancient Greek to ti esti (τὸ τί ἐστι)
[Aristotle, Metaphysics, 1030a] or 'the what (it) is'.
Haecceity vs. quiddity
Haecceity may be defined in some dictionaries as simply the "essence" of a thing, or as a simple synonym for
quiddity or
hypokeimenon. However, in proper philosophical usage these terms have not only distinct but opposite meanings. Whereas haecceity refers to aspects of a thing that make it a
particular thing, quiddity refers to the universal qualities of a thing, its "whatness", or the aspects of a thing it may share with other things and by which it may form part of a
genus of things.
[Peter Hicks, The Journey So Far (2003), p. 218]
Haecceity in scholasticism
Duns Scotus makes the following distinction:
In Scotism and the scholastic usage in general, therefore, "haecceity" properly means the irreducible individuating differentia that together with the specific essence (i.e. quiddity) constitute the individual (or the individual essence), much as specific differentia combined with the genus (or generic essence) constitute the species (or specific essence). But haecceity differs from the specific differentia by not having any conceptually specifiable content: it adds no further specification to the whatness of a thing but merely determines it to be a particular unrepeatable instance of the kind specified by the quiddity. This is connected with Aristotle's notion that an individual cannot be defined.
According to Scotism, individuals are more perfect than the specific essence and thus have not only a higher degree of unity, but also a greater degree of truth and goodness. God multiplied individuals to communicate to them His goodness and beatitude.
Haecceity in anglophone philosophy
In analytical philosophy, the meaning of "haecceity" shifted somewhat. Charles Sanders Peirce used the term as a non-descriptive reference to an individual.
[Bertman, M. A., Humanities Insights (2007), p. 39] Alvin Plantinga and other analytical philosophers used "haecceity" in the sense of "individual essence". The "haecceity" of analytical philosophers thus comprises not only the individuating differentia (the scholastic haecceity) but the entire essential determination of an individual (i.e., including what the scholastics would call its quiddity).
Haecceity in sociology and continental philosophy
Harold Garfinkel, the founder of
ethnomethodology, used the term "haecceity", to emphasize the unavoidable and irremediable indexical character of any expression, behavior, or situation. For Garfinkel,
indexicality was not a problem. He treated the haecceities and contingencies of social practices as a resource for making sense together. In contrast to theoretical generalizations, Garfinkel introduced "haecceities" in "Parson's Plenum" (1988) to indicate the importance of the infinite contingencies in both situations and practices for the local accomplishment of social order.
[ Also available as: Extract.] According to Garfinkel, members display and produce the social order they refer to within the setting they contribute to. The study of practical action and situations in their "haecceities"—aimed at disclosing the ordinary, ongoing social order constructed by the members' practices
[Button, G., ed., Ethnomethodology and the Human Sciences (1991), p. 10]—is the work of ethnomethodology. Garfinkel called ethnomethodological studies investigations of "haecceities", i.e.,
Gilles Deleuze uses the term in a different way to denote entities that exist on the plane of immanence. The usage was likely chosen in line with his esoteric concept of difference and individuation and his critique of object-centered metaphysics.
Michael Lynch (1991) described the ontological production of objects in the natural sciences as "assemblages of haecceities", thereby offering an alternate reading of Deleuze and Guattari's (1980) discussion of "memories of haecceity" in the light of Garfinkel's treatment of "haecceity".
Other uses
Gerard Manley Hopkins drew on Scotus, whom he called "of reality the rarest-veined unraveller",
[ Duns Scotus's Oxford quoted in Gardner, p. xxiv] to construct his poetic theory of
inscape.
James Joyce made similar use of the concept of haecceitas to develop his idea of the secular epiphany.[Richard Kearney, Navigations (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2006), pp. 133–134.]
James Wood refers extensively to haecceitas (as "thisness") in developing an argument about conspicuous detail in aesthetic literary criticism.[Bartosch, R., EnvironMentality: Ecocriticism and the Event of Postcolonial Fiction (Amsterdam & New York: Rodopi, 2013), p. 270.]
See also
-
Entitativity
-
Formal distinction
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Haecceitism
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Hypostasis
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Identity of indiscernibles
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Ipseity
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Irreducibility
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Objective precision
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Open individualism
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Ostensive definition
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Personal identity
-
Principle of individuation
-
Quiddity
-
Rigid designation
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Scotism
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Scotistic realism
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Ship of Theseus
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Sine qua non
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Tathātā
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Type-token distinction
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Vertiginous question
Further reading
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E. Gilson, The Philosophy of the Middle Ages (1955)
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A. Heuser, The Shaping Vision of Gerard Manley Hopkins (OUP 1955)
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E. Longpre, La Philosophie du B. Duns Scotus (Paris 1924)
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Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari. 1980. A Thousand Plateaus. Trans. Brian Massumi. London and New York: Continuum, 2004. Vol. 2 of Capitalism and Schizophrenia. 2 vols. 1972–1980. Trans. of Mille Plateaux. Paris: Les Editions de Minuit. ISBN
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Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari. 1991/1994. "What is Philosophy?". Trans. Hugh Tomlinson and Gregory Burchell. New York: Columbia University Press, 1994.
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Harold Garfinkel, 'Evidence for Locally Produced, Naturally Accountable Phenomena of Order, Logic, Meaning, Method, etc., in and as of the Essentially Unavoidable and Irremediable Haecceity of Immortal Ordinary Society', Sociological Theory Spring 1988, (6)1:103-109
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