Word.ws English Dictionary

haecceitism

/hɛkˈsiːəˌtɪzəm/

haecceitism noun: the view that entities possess haecceity (individual essences or "thisness").

Noun

haecceitism (uncountable)

  1. The view that entities possess haecceity (individual essences or "thisness").
    • 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...1986, Gary Rosenkrantz, “On Objects Totally Out of this World”, in Rudolf Haller, editor, Non-existence and Predication [Grazer philosophische Studien; 25/26], Amsterdam: Rodopi, →ISBN, page 207
    • [D]espite the commonplace (if sometimes implicit) presumption of haecceitism underlying the work of [Gottfried Wilhelm] Leibniz and his commentators, there is remarkably strong pressure in Leibniz's mature philosophy toward anti-haecceitism.1999, J. A. Cover with John O'Leary-Hawthorne, Substance and Individuation in Leibniz, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 145

Examples of haecceitism in a sentence

  • 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.1986, Gary Rosenkrantz, “On Objects Totally Out of this World”, in Rudolf Haller, editor, Non-existence and Predication [Grazer...
  • Haecceitism, rather, denies that the identity of a substance at a time or its continuing identity over time is constituted by, logically a function of, or dependent on such properties.2010, Peter Loptson, Reality: Fundamental Topics in Metaphysics, 2nd edition, Ottawa, Ont.: University of Ottawa Press, →ISBN, page 113:
  • Haecceitism is the view that the identity of an object across possible worlds is brute, in the sense that it does not supervene on the qualities or relations instantiated by that object.2011, Helen Beebee with Nikk Effingham and Philip Goff, Metaphysics: The Key Concepts, Abingdon, Oxon.; New York, N.Y.: Routledge, →ISBN...
  • The jargon is of course of medieval origin, but the term ‘haecceitism’ was introduced into contemporary discussions of modal metaphysics by David Kaplan.2012, Robert Stalnaker, Mere Possibilities: Metaphysical Foundations of Modal Semantics, Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press...

Origin of haecceitism

From haecceity + -ism.

Questions about haecceitism

What does haecceitism mean?
Haecceitism means the view that entities possess haecceity (individual essences or "thisness").
How do you use haecceitism in a sentence?
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.
What part of speech is haecceitism?
Haecceitism is a noun.
How do you pronounce haecceitism?
Haecceitism is pronounced /hɛkˈsiːəˌtɪzəm/.

Words near haecceitism in the dictionary

  1. hae mee
  2. Haebich
  3. haecceitas
  4. haecceitic
  5. haecceities
  6. haecceitism
  7. haecceitist
  8. haecceitistic
  9. haecceitistically
  10. haecceitists
  11. haecceity

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: haecceitism (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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