In The Carpenter, (1994), Scott’s only artist’s book, he deployed the word haecceity. This term had been coined in the thirteenth century by the Scottish philosopher, and theologian John Duns Scotus. The word means ‘thisness’; the quality implied in the use of the word this; ‘hereness and nowness’; that mode of being in virtue of which a thing is, or becomes a definite individual.
Scott first became familiar with the term in the 1960s and it resonated strongly with him. He saw it as emblematic of the questions he had sought to resolve through his work from early in his career.

The texts that appear in the book, many taken from the artist’s sketchbooks, present a set of statements regarding Scott’s most immediate concerns and fundamental methods and beliefs.

"My own personal interests are cultural in the broadest sense, concerned mainly with European tradition... I have always maintained a keen interest in the men and women who contributed to the formation of our society, history and thinking. I am interested to create works which are simple explorations of the endeavours of human beings..."
Bill Scott, 2001