Quiddity

Quidditas, also quiditas ( " quiddity " Germanized, quiddity or liquidity ) is a Latin term that comes from the jargon of medieval philosophy. He is as abstracting nominalization of the interrogative quid? ("What? " ) Is derived.

The term probably originated in connection with the translation of philosophical works from Arabic into Latin, which began in the 12th century. The quiddity, " quiddity " or essence of a thing is what the question What is this thing? can be responded to ( quod quid est, " what is something "). It describes the nature (Latin essentia, essence) or the nature of a thing, so far as it belongs to a species ( species) or class, and has the characteristic of this species or genus -specific properties. Not for quiddity includes those features that distinguish a single individual or single thing from everything else and its individual particularity condition; the particular feature of particular things was called haecceitas ( " this-ness ").

The term quidditas plays an important role, particularly in the thinking of the philosopher John Duns Scotus. From quidditas the adjective quidditativus was ( " the essence concerning " ) is derived.

• Ontology