Ipsedixitism, Illeism, Nullibicity and Other Odd Words

After taking lots of time to slog through all the words from the 2005 Bee, I thought it would be good, before plowing into other Bees, to write an essay on some of the more interesting-sounding words I have come across in the past few months. In short, these words are a lot of fun, whether or not you might easily be able to use them. They include words for "nowhere," such as nullibicity and erewhon (nowhere spelled backwards); words for difficult situations, illth and dystopia; words for "thisness" or "thatness," haecceity and quiddity; and then, finally, various isms, such as itacism, etacism, iotacism and betacism. To this we should add illeism, ipsedixitism and spheterize. I would propose a new word spheterism, to fit into the "ism" category. When all is said and done in this weird essay I am sure you agree with me that we also ought to define oddment.

Nowheresville

Let's begin with nullibicity. It can be defined as "the state or condition of existing nowhere." Though this term was first used in 1822, it was preceded by 150 years by nullibist, a term coined by the Cambridge Platonist Henry More (1614-1687) in one of his works. What was of concern to 17th century philosophers was the question of whether extension was a necessity for a body, and whether the mind itself had extension. Hobbes, Descartes, More and other significant names weighed in on this momentous question. More argued three points: (1) lacking extension entailed lacking location; (2) lacking location entailed lacking existence; (3) nothing exists that is nonextended [See the helpful online essay by Robert Pasnau on "Mind and Extension (Descartes, Hobbes, More)]. Then, in his work Enchiridion Metaphysicum, More coined the term nullibist to describe his opponents who seemingly believed that whatever is extended must be material and that, therefore, since God is immaterial, extension is not necessary for existence. God is, in fact, "no-where." Well, I am really truncating the argument, but by the time that nullibicity was coined in the 1820s, the rich and impenetrable 17th century philosophical context had been lost. One author could write (1822): They have succeeded so far as to render her [sc. Liberty] in a state of nullibicity." The word has subseqently been only sparingly used, but I think that nullibicity ought to have a revival in our day--to mean the confusion that we all feel at times when we are completely lost. We would be in a state of nullibicity.

Erewhon is the title of an 1872 novel by Samuel Butler that lightly mocks Victorian society. Reversing the letters almost gives you "nowhere," and most scholars think that he intended the title to be read as "nowhere" backwards, though perhaps not making it explicit for patriotic reasons. In any case, Butler doesn't exactly describe the fictional land of Erewhon as a utopia, though it also isn't a dystopia (an imaginary place where everything is bad as possible). The Erewhonians broke up machines, counted disease as a crime, and believed that children could choose whether to be born. That he doesn't intend any of his satire to be taken seriously can be inferred from the names of two of the professors in Erewhon: Hanky and Panky. In any case, Erewhonian is adjective to describe the principles of life in Erewhon; but it is as nowheresville as the world inhabited by the nullibilists. A little history, then, helpfully takes us to philosophical and literary works to come up with the same notion--nowhere.

A Word on Illth and a Few Isms

If dystopia is the opposite of utopia, illth is the obverse of wealth. Coined by the architectural critic John Ruskin in 1860, the word means "ill-being." I don't think, however, that the term has really caught on. For one thing, it doesn't pronounce easily. We may have filth or even tilth, but these words live because they begin with a consonant. The only scenario I can imagine where a word like this might return to common usage is if we have a global economic meltdown. Some people seem gleefully to be predicting such a situation, but I certainly don't see it coming. Nevertheless, we have an insight into the inventive power of a great mind in coining a word.

Speaking of coining words, I think that we ought to pause for a moment on illeism and ipsedixitism. Both of these terms were beloved of Coleridge, while Bentham was the one who coined the latter. Ille is the word for the Latin demonstrative pronoun "that man" or "he" and illeism is meant to be a derogatory term for those who use the pronound "he" excessively either in reference to another person or, more usually, to oneself in the third person. As Coleridge says in 1809: "For one piece of egotism...there are fifty that steal out in the mask of tuisms and ille-isms." In other words, the supposedly humble "the author" or "he" is really nothing more than a species of flattery for the real author. Blackwell's Magazine picked up the term in 1832: "Your intense egoist cunningly avoids the use of the first person pronouns. He is, in fact, an Ille-ist." When I was taught to write in the late 1950s, I was sternly warned not to use the first person singular in reference to myself. I see that I really didn't learn that lesson very well..

Concluding wth Ipsedixitism

Though I mention above several more "isms" that are worthy of study, space only permits a reference to ipsedixitism. Though Bentham seems to be the first to have used this precise form of the word, the Latin phrase ipse dixit, itself a translation of the Greek autos epha ('he himself--or the master--says it'), appears much earlier in English works and means an unproved assertion resting on the bare authority of some speaker. An ipse dixit, then, is a dogmatic statement, a sort of "Thus says the Lord," even though the speaker is definitely not the Lord. From 1572: "Here is neither scripture, doctor, story, council, or anything else, but ipse dixit." Thus, ipsedixitism would be a manner of activity where the speaker would expect obedience and compliance simply because he had said something. Bentham argued that any kind of appeal to a "moral faculty" in humans was an example of ipse-dixitism.

Ipsedixitism is a useful phrase in our day. We can characterize the speech or actions of various people today with that word. Ipsedixitism has little appeal to me. And I speak that with great authority.

Possibly, but probably not, I will return to the other words italicized in the first paragraph. They also open interesting doors in the history of philosophy and the pronunciation of the Greek language. But this is enough for one night.

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