Haecceitism

//hɛkˈsiːəˌtɪzəm// noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The view that entities possess haecceity (individual essences or "thisness"). uncountable

    "As I've argued, the conjunction of actualism, an attractive view about the nature of possibility, and the plausible thesis that some possible objects are disjoint entails haecceitism. Moreover, if, as the foregoing considerations suggest, there are no serious objections to haecceitism, then the charge that either actualism or the thesis in question is false because their conjunction entails haecceitism is unjustified. Thus, we have a plausible argument for haecceitism."

Example

More examples

"As I've argued, the conjunction of actualism, an attractive view about the nature of possibility, and the plausible thesis that some possible objects are disjoint entails haecceitism. Moreover, if, as the foregoing considerations suggest, there are no serious objections to haecceitism, then the charge that either actualism or the thesis in question is false because their conjunction entails haecceitism is unjustified. Thus, we have a plausible argument for haecceitism."

Etymology

From haecceity + -ism.

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.