Dictionary

thingness en · NOUN

Etymology

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *tenk-? Proto-Indo-European *tenkóm Proto-Germanic *þingą Proto-West Germanic *þing Old English þing Middle English thing English thing Proto-Germanic *-inōną Proto-Indo-European *-dyé- Proto-Germanic *-atjaną Proto-Indo-European *-tus Proto-Germanic *-þuz Proto-Germanic *-assuz Proto-Germanic *-inassuz Proto-West Germanic *-nassī Old English -nes Middle English -nesse English -ness English thingness From thing + -ness.

Meanings

1. (uncountable, usually) The quality of a material thing; objectivity; actuality; reality.
   • 1994, Shadia B Drury, Alexandre Kojève http://books.google.com/books?ie=UTF-8&hl=en&vid=ISBN0312120923&id=zQRKXLwDPc4C&pg=PA26&lpg=PA26&sig=zR0NpFT9gF4Mo_VTIPTm1274piI To live as a thing, to live for another and as the other expects, is to live unauthentically or in bad faith. To be true to oneself, one must reduce others to thingness and resist being so reduced.
   • The thingness of a thing precedes the conscious perception of its sensual properties. 2002, Kai Hammermeister, The German Aesthetic Tradition:
   • Whether we dwell in the thingness of fixity or the thingness of wujūd, we are “at” the wujūd of the Real. 1998, William C Chittick, The Self-Disclosure of God:

Forms

Relateds

thinghood