04/05/26
The Idem Paradox in Identity
An Etymological Inquiry into the Origins of the Word Identitas and the Idem Paradox
Since the initial drafting of this article, I have had the honor of submitting this etymological hypothesis to the scrutiny of distinguished professors of Latin philology (notably Prof. J. Clackson, University of Cambridge, and Prof. B. Fortson, University of Michigan). Their feedback has invalidated the specific morphological decomposition id + entitas, citing the anachronistic nature of entitas in Late Latin and issues regarding vowel quantity.
However, these exchanges have confirmed a crucial point: identitas is indeed a deliberate neologism from the Patristic period. While the exact linguistic mechanism may differ from my initial proposal, the structural necessity of such a term—to replace the concept of idolum and resolve the paradox of “sameness”—remains, in my view, entirely valid.
Consequently, this article is presented here as a stage in an ongoing research process and a working hypothesis. While its etymological formulation requires revision, its core structural conclusion—that identity functions as an “Explicitated Being”—continues to serve as the foundational pillar of my theoretical models.
The first modern Latin dictionaries appeared in the second half of the 19th century. The French equivalent of Lewis & Short's Latin Dictionary, the Gaffiot (1934), has undergone a new digital edition, corrected and enriched: Le Gaffiot 2016, established under the direction of Gérard Gréco. The important point here is the corrected dimension of the dictionary. If it was corrected, it is because it contained a certain number of errors.
Furthermore, Latin dictionaries specify that Identitas is an Ecclesiastical term. This means that the term was forged by, or after, Saint Augustine, after the beginning of the 5th century, likely within a Christian institution or university, but certainly on the ruins of the Roman Empire and its beliefs.
And, like any new "Teaching Staff formed to transmit common importances" (cf. p. 158 of the ebook Identity-Building Mechanisms), whether one is a parent or a member of the Teaching Staff, this often involves Censorship and the act of forbidding certain words, seeking to suppress them from the vocabulary.
Let us now examine the Latin term Idolum (idol). (It is well known that the Church Fathers firmly condemned idolatry.) Idolum is composed of the prefix id, followed by the root olum.
The term ĭd is the neuter form (nominative-accusative singular) of the demonstrative pronoun ĭs, which means "he, him, she, that one." The expression Id est means "that is" or, more in accordance with Roman culture, "THIS being said." Thus, the prefix Id can be viewed as a force of explicitation.
Olum is declined from Olor, the old Latin term for Odor (smell). Now, in Ancient Rome, as among the Ancient Greeks and Ancient Egyptians, "Beings of pure spirit" were often associated with the notion of smell (because present, possibly very impactful, but invisible). And, in many languages, the terms Essence and Spirit indeed belong to these two lexical fields. On this principle, the etymology of idolum associates the notions of "Explicitation" and "Spirit" (or "Divine Essence") in the sense of the "Explicitated Spirit." However, an idol is defined as an image or a representation of a deity with its attributes (and not a "same smell").¹
(Even if this is obviously anachronistic, the semantic parallel between "the image or representation of a deity" and an "identity photo" is easily made. Moreover, does not every good portrait photographer seek to divinize their subject? But let us return to the explicitation by id.)
If, as with idolum, instead of the prefix idem, the prefix id is considered as a force of explicitation applied to "entitas" (declined from the verb sum, to be; the Being), identitas results in the meaning of "THIS entity," implying the "Explicitated Entity" or the "Explicitated Being."
Consequently, when two Explicitated Entities are comparable in every respect (and must not these points be explicitated to be comparable?), it is said of them that they are identical (hence the etymological approach to identitas via idem found in dictionaries).²
Because a word expresses a notion, an idea, and it is not enough to suppress the word to suppress the notion it expresses. If the reference linguistic community needs to express a notion via a now-forbidden word, it will create another or borrow one from another lexicon or language. To suppress a word, it is therefore extremely judicious and devastatingly effective to provide a replacement word by broadening its notion.
Now, the word idol still exists...
Note 2. In the case of identity, dictionaries obscure or have forgotten the primary meaning in favor of the meaning given "Consequently." It also happens that they invert: increasingly, skillfulness would be a meaning given "Consequently" to the word Art, and not its origin. Should we see this as a sign of dictionaries adapting to what they consider to be the reality of their time?
