Identity and Quiddity

From The Thing: Unless Sir Arthur Keith is very badly misreported, he specifically stated that spiritual existence ceases with the physical functions; and that no medical man could conscientiously say anything else. However grave be the injury called death (which indeed is often fatal), this strikes me as a case in which it is quite unnecessary to call in a medical man at all.


Reading today The Thing, Aeneid 6, Il 3, Rev 18 and Is 44.

One of the more interesting words I hear tossed around nowadays is "identity." The word comes to us from the Latin idem, which comes from the neuter masc. of is, and is roughly translated as the same or sameness. The difference between identity, which is a subject of much interest to the modern person, and quiddity, which comes from the pronouns quis/quid, and is unlikely to be heard from except on Jeopardy, is enormously important. The difference between id and quid, as a matter of fact, is like unto homoousios and homoiousios.
Identity is sameness or equivalency. This can be predicated of that. I, for example, am a musician. I am, in many obvious respects, the same as other musicians. About my brother Pax you might predicate "musical." You may also predicate "man," and "two-legged." Over the course of his life some aspects of his identity were predetermined. For example, he shares a last name with his father and brothers. This gives them all the identifying marker of "Smith." But Pax has chosen to grow a beard. Pax is bearded. He is the same as bearded men, and this is most likely how a stranger would describe him if he was attempting to distinguish him to a police officer. ("He is a tall bearded man with glasses in a gray pea-coat.") A closer friend of Pax's might be able to give them a closer look at his identity. ("He is music teacher, and he loves children. He is a lifelong Buffalo Bills fan, and has a great sense of humor.") Clearly the second description says more about what sort of person Pax is, but it does so by using sameness; he is the same as a person who teaches music, or who cheers for the Buffalo Bills. It is understood what this characteristic is, so the description makes sense. Pax would be much better known by this description, and not merely recognized. (Incidentally, I have know idea what it was that got him into trouble with the police officer.)
The Medieval theologians talked at great length about the quiddity and the accidents of a think. Two legs are accidental to Pax. He has two legs, but if he lost one of them, he would be no less essentially (from esse, to be) Pax than he was before. The word essence usually conjures fragrances to the modern mind; but the old technical usage of the word was to describe the absolute characteristic of a thing which made it what it was. Its quiddity, if you will. Consider Aquinas on whether there are accidents in God:
From all we have said, it is clear there can be no accident in God. First, because a subject is compared to its accidents as potentiality to actuality; for a subject is in some sense made actual by its accidents. But there can be no potentiality in God, as was shown. Secondly, because God is His own existence; and as Boethius says (Hebdom.), although every essence may have something superadded to it, this cannot apply to absolute being: thus a heated substance can have something extraneous to heat added to it, as whiteness, nevertheless absolute heat can have nothing else than heat. Thirdly, because what is essential is prior to what is accidental. Whence as God is absolute primal being, there can be in Him nothing accidental. Neither can He have any essential accidents (as the capability of laughing is an essential accident of man), because such accidents are caused by the constituent principles of the subject. Now there can be nothing caused in God, since He is the first cause. Hence it follows that there is no accident in God.
Or in Latin
Respondeo dicendum quod, secundum praemissa, manifeste apparet quod in Deo accidens esse non potest. Primo quidem, quia subiectum comparatur ad accidens, sicut potentia ad actum, subiectum enim secundum accidens est aliquo modo in actu. Esse autem in potentia, omnino removetur a Deo, ut ex praedictis patet. Secundo, quia Deus est suum esse, et, ut Boetius dicit in Lib. de Hebdomad., licet id quod est, aliquid aliud possit habere adiunctum, tamen ipsum esse nihil aliud adiunctum habere potest, sicut quod est calidum, potest habere aliquid extraneum quam calidum, ut albedinem; sed ipse calor nihil habet praeter calorem. Tertio, quia omne quod est per se, prius est eo quod est per accidens. Unde, cum Deus sit simpliciter primum ens, in eo non potest esse aliquid per accidens. Sed nec accidentia per se in eo esse possunt, sicut risibile est per se accidens hominis. Quia huiusmodi accidentia causantur ex principiis subiecti, in Deo autem nihil potest esse causatum, cum sit causa prima. Unde relinquitur quod in Deo nullum sit accidens.

Consider for one wild moment what a different world it would be if angry teenagers shut themselves up in their rooms looking for quiddity instead of identity; if political interest was put forward based on the arguments of a person's essential nature rather than an invisible and subjective identity. I think it would at least revolutionize the high school guidance office.