thingness

plural thingnesses

1. uncountableusuallyhuman sciencesThe quality of a material thing; objectivity; actuality; reality.

   The thingness of a thing precedes the conscious perception of its sensual properties.

   2002, Kai Hammermeister, The German Aesthetic Tradition

   2 more examples

   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.

   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