On Quiddity and the Dipole of Truth

In scholastic philosophy, quiddity ( /ˈkwɪdɪti/;Latin quidditas) was another term for the essence of an object, literally its "whatness," or "what it is." The term derives from the Latin word "quidditas," which was used by the medieval Scholastics as a literal translation of the equivalent term in Aristotle's Greek.

It describes properties that a particular substance (e.g. a person) shares with others of its kind. The question "what (quid) is it?" asks for a general description by way of commonality. This is quiddity or "whatness" (i.e., its "what it is"). Quiddity was often contrasted by the scholastic philosophers with the haecceity or "thisness" of an item, which was supposed to be a positive characteristic of an individual that caused them to be this individual, and no other.

In law, the term is used to refer to a quibble or academic point. An example can be seen in Hamlet's graveside speech found in Hamlet by William Shakespeare. "Where be his quiddities now, his quillets, his cases, his tenures" says Hamlet referring to a lawyer's quiddities.

One of the reasons this notion of quiddity comes up persistently is because it is inescapable; the popularity of the expression "it is what it is" is an indicator. No matter how many abstract maps and categorical sortings you impose on the universe, there remains the notion that behind them all is the territory in its very whatness, unimpressed by labels or measurings, one pole of the dipole "truth". The quiddity of x is certainly closer to the truth about x than any proposition concerning it can be, including this one. The other pole of the "truth" dipole is sheer vacuum, the zeroeth power of apparent reality where the consciousness abandons all postulating of form and resides as awareness of awareness of awareness without any dimensional artifacts.

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(Dipoles in material science are funny things, and the word is probably not wholly appropriate for a discussion of kinds of truth. But it seemed like a good idea at the time).

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I think the dynamic tension between these two forms of truth -- pure consciousness and pure quiddity--may be the key to understanding the universe as a whole, both the conscious and the mechanical aspects of it. There is not a lot of science around that integrates these extremes (if they are extremes). Most science slices, dices, chops and fries without taking the conscious end of things much into account, and often chases maps and categories in endless loops of signification far removed from any sense of quiddity.

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Of course, such a "subject" would have to come up with a way to talk about things that avoided the trap of maps and categories. Without such a vocabulary we're kind of limited to making crude signals toeach other about it, like pre-language ape-men trying to organize a group hunt.