
For the longest time I have tried to come up with a general term or property for anything that we can be conscious of. Basically anything whatsoever that is the content of our consciousness as opposed to whatever is not that content. After some time, I think I have come up with it. Thisness. In medieval philosophy called hacciety. But what do we mean when we say "this" whatever. And is it an actual property of objects themselves?
I take thisness to mean in its broadest sense to be whatever can be directly referred to by language. THIS apt. THIS feeling. THIS life. THIS moment. THIS idea. "This" is the property of being directly and immediately referrable to by language. It is in fact the essence of consciousness, being the presence of our speaking/thinking awareness to any given noun/idea. But it isn't really anything more than the power of language to refer to or make present.
Now some have attempted to reify thisness (hacceity) as a non-qualitative property of referred to objects themselves-- some undefined essence that makes the object itself and no other object. But thisness is more than this, for I can pick up a penny from a jarful of pennies and call it "this penny" without meaning it is individual in any sense. Rather it is the act of reference or "pointing to" that confers thisness on the penny. Abstracted from language it may seem to be an objective property. But it is always in the speaking/thinking act itself that there arises thisness. So it is the power of language to make present and immediate, to transcend itself and objectify itself into an object beyond a mere representing word or thought.
Here's a nice slightly different take on it I found on the Quora blog:
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"There is nothing outside of direct experience. There is nothing outside of thisness. Understanding is not thisness. This is thisness. Before “my understanding”. Before a notion of “me”. You awaken in the morning and there is consciousness and for a split second there is no identifying me.. Its delicious isn't it, no sense of this heavy old me has come in on the goodness of consciousness."
I take thisness to mean in its broadest sense to be whatever can be directly referred to by language. THIS apt. THIS feeling. THIS life. THIS moment. THIS idea. "This" is the property of being directly and immediately referrable to by language. It is in fact the essence of consciousness, being the presence of our speaking/thinking awareness to any given noun/idea. But it isn't really anything more than the power of language to refer to or make present.
Now some have attempted to reify thisness (hacceity) as a non-qualitative property of referred to objects themselves-- some undefined essence that makes the object itself and no other object. But thisness is more than this, for I can pick up a penny from a jarful of pennies and call it "this penny" without meaning it is individual in any sense. Rather it is the act of reference or "pointing to" that confers thisness on the penny. Abstracted from language it may seem to be an objective property. But it is always in the speaking/thinking act itself that there arises thisness. So it is the power of language to make present and immediate, to transcend itself and objectify itself into an object beyond a mere representing word or thought.
Here's a nice slightly different take on it I found on the Quora blog:
·
"There is nothing outside of direct experience. There is nothing outside of thisness. Understanding is not thisness. This is thisness. Before “my understanding”. Before a notion of “me”. You awaken in the morning and there is consciousness and for a split second there is no identifying me.. Its delicious isn't it, no sense of this heavy old me has come in on the goodness of consciousness."