Haecceity

Haecceity (/hɛkˈsɪti, hk-/; from the Latin haecceitas, which translates as "thisness") is a term from medieval scholastic philosophy, 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 man" and the concept "Socrates" (i.e., a specific person).[1] In modern philosophy of physics, it is sometimes referred to as primitive thisness.[2]

  1. ^ Gardner, W. H., Gerard Manley Hopkins (1975), p. xxiii
  2. ^ French, Steven (2019), "Identity and Individuality in Quantum Theory", in Zalta, Edward N. (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2019 ed.), Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University, retrieved 2022-04-21