suchness

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English

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Etymology

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From English dialect, from Middle English swichnesse (the quality or nature of a thing), from Old English swilċnes (quality), equivalent to such +‎ -ness. Reinforced also as a calque of Sanskrit तथाता (tathātā).

Noun

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suchness (usually uncountable, plural suchnesses)

  1. The natural state of a person or thing; quality; character or worth.
    • 1654, Walter Charleton, Physiologia Epicuro-Gassendo-Charltoniana:
      The importance of which may be fully and plainly rendered thus; that since nothing in the Universe stands possessed of a Real or True Nature, i.e. doth constantly and invariately hold the precise Quale, or Suchness of their particular Entity, to Eternity; []
  2. (philosophy, chiefly Buddhism) Existence per se.
    Synonyms: tathata, thusness
    • ca. 1928, Hans Driesch, "Philosophy of Nature", in, 1928, Edward Leroy Schaub, ed., Philosophy Today: Essays on Recent Developments in the Field of Philosophy, page 431,
      The same relation may prevail between the suchness of willing in men and the realization of that willing.
    • 1955, J. D. Salinger, "Franny", in, 1961, Franny and Zooey, 1991 LB Books edition, page 22,
      Without any apparent regard for the suchness of her environment, she sat down.
    • 1988, Thich Nhat Hanh, The Sun My Heart: From Mindfulness to Insight Contemplation, Parallax Press, →ISBN, page 94:
      Rather than give an answer, you have to section the tangerine and invite the questioner to have a taste. Doing this, you allow him or her to enter the suchness of the tangerine without any verbal or conceptual description.

Translations

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Further reading

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