Quiddity vs Gestalt - What's the difference?
quiddity | gestalt |
(philosophy) The essence or inherent nature of a person or thing.
* 1822 , October, (Charles Lamb), The Old Actors'', published in ''London Magazine , section on “Mr. Munden” (
* 1962 , (Vladimir Nabokov), Pale Fire :
* 1978 , (Lawrence Durrell), Livia'', Faber & Faber 1992 (''Avignon Quintet ), p. 352:
(legal) A trifle; a nicety or quibble.
An eccentricity; an odd feature.
A collection of physical, biological, psychological or symbolic elements that creates a whole, unified concept or pattern which is other than the sum of its parts, due to the relationships between the parts (of a character, personality, entity, or being)
:* This biography is the first one to consider fully the writer's gestalt .
:* The clusters of behavioral gestalten'''... the probability factors... the subtypes of crimes... the constellations of criminal subtypes...'' — Jay Kirk, "Watching the Detectives", Harpers Magazine, Vol. 307, Iss. 1839; pg. 61, Aug, ' 2003
shape, form
:* Mary did not approve of the Eleanor gestalt'''. "I been to Woonsocket S.D., Eleanor McGovern's hometown," she said, "and nobody there? I mean nobody? dresses like that."'' — John L Hess and Karen Hess, "The Taste of America", Grossman, New York, ' 1977
:* ... depending on the kinds of speech children hear directed to them, they may first learn unanalyzed "gestalts'''" (e.g., social expressions like "What's that?" uttered as a single unit) instead of learning single words that are then freely recombined ...''— Kathy Hirsh-Pasek, "The Origins of Grammar", The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, ' 1996
:* So different were our appearances and approaches and general gestalts''' that we had something of an epic rivalry from '74 through '77.'' — David Foster Wallace, "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again", Boston: Little, Brown and Co., Edition: 1st Back Bay ed., ' 1998
As nouns the difference between quiddity and gestalt
is that quiddity is the essence or inherent nature of a person or thing while gestalt is a collection of physical, biological, psychological or symbolic elements that creates a whole, unified concept or pattern which is other than the sum of its parts, due to the relationships between the parts (of a character, personality, entity, or being.quiddity
English
(wikipedia quiddity)Noun
(quiddities)ebook):
- A tub of butter, contemplated by him, amounts to a Platonic idea. He understands a leg of mutton in its quiddity . He stands wondering, amid the commonplace materials of life, like primæval man, with the sun and stars about him.
- My vision reeked with truth. It had the tone,
- The quiddity and quaintness of its own
- Reality.
- He represented my quiddity I suppose – the part which, thanks to you, has converted a black pessimism about life into a belief in cosmic absurdity.