Charles Sanders Peirce used the term as a non-descriptive reference to an individual. Alvin Plantinga and other analytical philosophers used "haecceity" in the sense of "individual essence". The "haecceity" of analytical philosophers thus comprises not only the individuating differentia (the scholastic hacceity) but the entire essential determination of an individual (i.e., including that which the scholastics would call its quiddity). Haecceity in sociology and continental philosophy Harold Garfinkel, the founder of ethnomethodology, used the term "haecceity", to emphasize the unavoidable and irremediable indexical character of any expression, behavior or situation. For Garfinkel indexicality was not a problem. He treated the haecceities and contingencies of social practices as a resource for making sense together. In contrast to theoretical generalizations, Garfinkel introduced "haecceities" in "Parson's Plenum" (1988), to indicate the importance of the infinite contingencies in both situations and practices for the local accomplishment of social order. According to Garfinkel, members display and produce the social order they refer to within the setting that they contribute to. The study of practical action and situations in their "haecceities" — aimed at disclosing the ordinary, ongoing social order that is constructed by the members' practices — is the work of ethnomethodology. Garfinkel described ethnomethodological studies as investigations of "haecceities", i.e., Gilles Deleuze uses the term in a different way to denote entities that exist on the plane of immanence. The usage was likely chosen in line with his esoteric concept of difference and individuation, and critique of object-centered metaphysics. Michael Lynch (1991) described the ontological production of objects in the natural sciences as "assemblages of haecceities", thereby offering an alternate reading of Deleuze and Guattari's (1980) discussion of "memories of haecceity" in the light of Garfinkel's treatment of "haecceity". Other uses Gerard Manley Hopkins drew on Scotus — whom he described as “of reality the rarest-veined unraveller” — to construct his poetic theory of inscape. James Joyce made similar use of the concept of haecceitas to develop his idea of the secular epiphany. James Wood refers extensively to haecceitas (as "thisness") in developing an argument about conspicuous detail in aesthetic literary criticism. See also Entitativity Formal distinction Haecceitism Hypostasis Identity of indiscernibles Irreducibility Objective precision Open individualism Ostensive definition Personal identity Principle of individuation Quiddity Rigid designation Scotism Scotistic realism Ship of Theseus Sine qua non Cf. Sanskrit tathata, "thus-ness" Type-token distinction Vertiginous question References Further reading E. Gilson, The Philosophy of the Middle