QUIDDITYEnglish transliteration of the Latin quidditas, meaning "whatness"; in scholastic usage it designates a thing's essence taken precisely in its capacity to inform the intellect of the answer to the question "what is it?"Related Terms. At most a virtual minor distinction obtains between essence and quiddity: essence is the thing as capacity for existence, whereas quiddity is the thing as capacity to instruct the intellect. The quiddity of a thing, if definable, is analytically expressed in its real definition by its genus and specific difference. As such it is similar to, but more exact than, nature in boethius's first sense: "anything that can be grasped (by the intellect) in any way whatever" (De persona et duabus naturis 1; Patrologia Latina, 64:1341BC). Nature, in the more etymological and Aristotelian sense, is closer to essence than to quiddity inasmuch as nature signifies a thing's principle of operation—effective only through existence.Such are the comparisons between these terms suggested by St. thomas aquinas (De ente 1, 3). To these he adds form and Aristotle's phrase "the what was to be" (τò τί [symbol omitted]ν ε[symbol omitted]ναι, quod quid erat esse ). He defines the form that is convertible with essence and quiddity as "the complete essential determination" of a thing. This is the "form of the whole" (forma totius, ε[symbol omitted]δος) according to the Avicennian interpretation of book seven of the Metaphysics —an interpretation rejected by Averroës but accepted by St. Thomas (In 7 meta. 9. 1467–69). Form in this sense includes the matter as universalizable as well as the "form of the part" (forma partis, μορφή), the substantial form as distinct from matter (see matter and form). Form thus expresses the completeness of an essence's specification in itself with respect both to existence and to intellect, and in the latter respect is synonymous with quiddity. Some modern scholars concur independently in the Averroist interpretation that Aristotle excludes matter altogether from the notion of form or species and its equivalent, "the what was to be." But St. Thomas insists that Aristotle holds its inclusion necessary in the case of natural substances, since it must be included universally in their definition (In 7 meta. 9.1468; In I anim. 1.24–29).Aristotelian Meaning. The term quidditas, coined in the 12th century in translations of Avicenna into Latin and possibly also in paraphrasing the Topics, stems ultimately from Aristotle's own phrase "the what was to be." From its grammar and from the probable places of its earliest appearance (Topica101b 22, 132a 1), it originated in a context of dialectics and predication and was designed as a verbal sort of variable representing the full answer to any Socratic question as to what a thing is, for example, man, virtue, the Sophist, etc. The particular reference of the phrase can be specified in any context by adding a dative, for example, "the what was it for a man to be," or "the being characteristic of man." This full answer, Aristotle says, is expressed in the definition of the thing in question.As such the phrase must be distinguished from another Aristotelian one, "the what is it" (τò τί ἐστι, quod quid est ), of wider range, since it not only may refer to the complete formula or definition but may also be satisfied by any one of its parts taken separately—genus, matter, difference, or form. Grammatically, the past tense, "was" ([symbol omitted]ν, erat ), has a habitual or transtemporal sense, indicating the specifying, or formal, identity of the essence with respect to any individual of that essence at any time (Meta. 1031a 15–32a 11, esp. 32a 5; Aquinas, In 7 meta. 5) or, in the case of the separate substances, beyond time.Glorification | The Final Frontier Going Boldly Where The Last Man has Gone Before! Decrease time over target: PayPal or Venmo @clastronaut Cash App $clastronaut