102,815
edits
Changes
New page: Image:lighterstill.jpg In philosophy, '''essence''' is the attribute or set of attributes that make an object or substance what it fundamentally is, and which it has by necessity,...
[[Image:lighterstill.jpg]]
In [[philosophy]], '''essence''' is the attribute or set of attributes that make an object or substance what it fundamentally is, and which it has by necessity, and without which it loses its [[identity]]. Essence is contrasted with accident: a property that the object or substance has contingently, without which the substance can still retain its identity. The concept originates with Aristotle, who used the Greek expression ''to ti ên einai'', literally 'the what it was to be', or sometimes the shorter phrase ''to ti esti'', literally 'the what it is,' for the same idea. This phrase presented such difficulties for his Latin translators that they coined the word ''essentia'' to represent the whole expression. For Aristotle and his scholastic followers the notion of essence is closely linked to that of definition (''horismos'') [http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-metaphysics/ S. Marc Cohen, "Aristotle's Metaphysics"]
In the [[history]] of western thought, essence has often served as a vehicle for doctrines that tend to individuate different forms of existence as well as different identity conditions for objects and properties; in this eminently logical meaning, the concept has given a strong theoretical and common-sense basis to the whole family of logical theories based on the "possible worlds" analogy set up by Leibniz and developed in the intensional logic from Rudolf Carnap to Saul Kripke, which was later challenged by "extensionalist" philosophers such as Quine.
The English word "essence" comes from the Latin ''essentia'', which was coined (from the Latin ''esse'', "to be") by ancient Roman scholars in order to translate the Ancient Greek phrase ''to ti ēn einai'' (literally, "what it is for a thing to be"), coined by Aristotle to denote a [[thing]]'s essence.
In modern times, the dominant critique of [[essentialism]] has been countered by a few outstanding philosophers, among whom we find [[Edmund Husserl]] and [[Leo Strauss]]. The first, approached the problem of "essence" from a primarily epistemic perspective; the latter, drew attention to the "political" import of the problem.
==Ontologic status==
According to Plato, essences are ''eide''; species and forms separate of the sense's [[things]].
These forms are models of the sense's things, and represent genuine reality; sense's world is less real; for instance, ''justice'' in relation to ''just actions''. These forms are pure and eternal forms.
Aristotle moves the forms of Plato to the nucleus of the [[individual]] thing, which is called ''ousía'' or substance. Essence is the ''tí'' of the thing, the ''to tí en einai''. Essence corresponds to the ousia's definition; essence is a real and physical aspect of the ousía. (Aristotle, "Metaphisic", I)
According to nominalists (Roscelin of Compiègne, [[William of Ockham]], John Duns Scoto, William of Champeaux, Bernard of Chartres), [[universal]]s aren't concrete entities, just voice's sounds; there are only individuals: "''nam cum habeat eorum sententia nihil esse praeter individuum(...)''" (Roscelin, De gener. et spec., 524). Universals are words that can to call several individuals; for example the word "homo". Therefore a universal is reduced to a sound's emission. (Roscelin, "De generibus et speciebus")
According to [[Edmund Husserl]] essence is ''[[ideal]]''. However, ''ideal'' means that essence is the intentional object of the conscience. Essence is interpreted as ''sense''. (E. Husserl, "Ideas pertaining to a pure phenomenology and to a phenomenological philosophy", paragraphs 3 and 4).
==Existentialism==
[[Existentialism]] was coined by [[Jean-Paul Sartre]]'s statement that for [[human being]]s "existence precedes essence." In as much as "essence" is a cornerstone of all metaphysical philosophy and the grounding of [[Rationalism]], Sartre's statement was a refutation of the philosophical system that had come before him (and, in particular, that of [[Husserl]], [[Hegel]], and [[Heidegger]]). Instead of "is-ness" generating "actuality," he argued that existence and actuality come first, and the essence is derived afterward. For [[Kierkegaard]], it is the individual person who is the supreme moral entity, and the [[personal]], subjective aspects of human life that are the most important; also, for Kierkegaard all of this had religious implications.
==In metaphysics==
"Essence," in metaphysics, is often synonymous with the [[soul]], and some existentialists argue that individuals gain their souls and spirits after they exist, that they develop their souls and spirits during their lifetimes. For Kierkegaard, however, the emphasis was upon essence as "nature." For him, there is no such thing as "human nature" that determines how a human will behave or what a human will be. First, he or she exists, and then comes attribute. [[Jean-Paul Sartre]]'s more materialist and skeptical existentialism furthered this existentialist tenet by flatly refuting any metaphysical essence, any soul, and arguing instead that there is merely existence, with attributes as essence.
Thus, in existentialist [[discourse]], essence can refer to physical aspect or attribute, to the ongoing being of a person (the [[character]] or internally determined goals), or to the infinite inbound within the human (which can be lost, can atrophy, or can be developed into an equal part with the [[finite]]), depending upon the type of existentialist discourse.
==Marxism's essentialism==
[[Karl Marx]] was, along with Kierkegaard, a follower of [[Hegel]]'s, and he, too, developed a philosophy in reaction to his master. In his early work, Marx used Aristotalian style teleology and derived a concept of [[humanity]]'s essential [[nature]]. Marx's Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844 describe a theory of [[alienation]] based on human existence being completely different from human essence. Marx said human nature was social, and that humanity had the distinct essence of free activity and conscious thought.
Some scholars, such as Philip Kain, have argued that Marx abandoned the idea of a human essence, but many other scholars point to Marx's continued discussion of these ideas despite the decline of terms such as essence and alienation in his later work.
== Buddhism ==
Within the Madhyamika school of [[Mahayana]] [[Buddhism]], Candrakirti identifies the self as:
:''an essence of [[things]] that does not depend on others; it is an intrinsic [[nature]]. The non-existence of that is [[Anatta|selflessness]]''.
Indeed the concept of Buddhist Emptiness is the strong assertion that all [[phenomena]] are '''empty of any essence''' - demonstrating that anti-essentialism lies at the very root of Buddhist praxis. Therefore, within this school it is the innate belief in '''essence''' that is considered to be an afflictive obscuration which serves as the root of all suffering. However, the school also rejects the tenets of [[Idealism]] and [[Materialism]]; instead, the [[ideas]] of ''[[truth]]'' or ''existence'', along with any assertions that depend upon them are limited to their function within the [[context]]s and conventions that assert them, somewhat akin to Relativism or Pragmatism. For them, replacement [[paradox]]es such as ''Ship of Theseus'' are answered by stating that the Ship of Thesesus remains so (within the conventions that assert it) until it ceases to function as the Ship of Theseus.
Of the many places to find the philosophical Examination of Essence, it is discussed in [[Nagarjuna]]'s [[Mulamadhyamakakarika]], The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way. Chapter I examines the Conditions of Existence, while Chapter XV examines Essence in itself, [[difference]], the eternalist's view and nihilists view of essence and non-essence.
==Hinduism==
In understanding any [[individual]] [[personality]], a distinction is made between one's ''Swadharma'' (essence) and ''Swabhava''(mental habits and conditionings of ego personality). Svabhava is the nature of a person, which is a result of his or her samskaras (impressions created in the mind due to one's interaction with the external world). These samskaras create habits and mental models and those become our nature. While there is another kind of svabhava that is a pure internal [[quality]], we are here focusing only on the svabhava that was created due to samskaras (because to discover the pure, internal svabhava, one should become aware of one's samskaras and take control over them). [[Dharma]] is derived from the root Dhr - to hold. It is that which holds an entity together. That is, Dharma is that which gives integrity to an entity and holds the core [[quality]] and [[identity]] (essence), form and function of that entity. Dharma is also defined as righteousness and duty. To do one's dharma is to be righteous, to do one's dharma is to do one's duty (express one's essence). [http://www.prasadkaipa.com/blog/archives/2005/07/svabhava_and_sv.php]
== Political Valence ==
The appeal to "essence" suggests the irreducibility of [[things]] to their external conditions. No [[tradition]]al teaching (not even those found in pre-modern Buddhism) rejects the reality of essence insofar as that rejection invites the reduction of all traditional teachings to an absolute, universal teaching grounded in the negation of all finite/traditional teachings.
If a traditional teaching cannot have an "internal" or "essential" principle of constitution, it must be constituted by external conditions. The certainty that there is no essence is the certainty that all things (and thus also all teachings) must be understood as functions of external conditions, or that meaning is "historically" determined. The absence of any essential root casts all things in an "anarchic" condition, subjecting them to the only form capable of containing anarchy--namely, tyranny (the iron fist or ''factum brutum'' of existence).
In short: the [[radical]] or [[universal]] negation of essence (anti-essentialism, historicism, nihilism, atheism, anarchism, etc.) presupposes by necessity that the negation in question is absolutely determined by the totality of external conditions, or by Existence itself. For that negation, too, must be devoid of essence. Since it presupposes that only the teaching of no-essence is the true or ultimate teaching, it must understand that teaching as the direct expression or the self-expression of all existential or "external" conditions, i.e.--to speak with Hegel--as the form in which History finds its self-realization. The teaching of no-essence turns at once into the teaching that is beyond all question--the ultimate tyrannical teaching.
==Notes and References==
# S. Marc Cohen, "Aristotle's Metaphysics", Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, accessed 20 April 2008.
# The Story of Philosophy, Bryan Magee, Dorling Kindersley Lond. 1998, ISBN 0-7513-0590-1
== Literature ==
* Edmund Husserl: Ideas pertaining to a pure phenomenology and to a phenomenological philosophy, Academic Publisher, London Kluwer, 1,982.
==External links ==
*Husserl's Ideas on a Pure Phenomenology[http://www.angelfire.com/md2/timewarp/husserl.html]
*A Sense of Eidos[http://www.eidos.uwaterloo.ca/pdfs/novak-eidos.pdf]
*Nominalism, realism, conceptualism[http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11090c.htm]
[[Category: General Reference]]
[[Category: Philosophy]]
In [[philosophy]], '''essence''' is the attribute or set of attributes that make an object or substance what it fundamentally is, and which it has by necessity, and without which it loses its [[identity]]. Essence is contrasted with accident: a property that the object or substance has contingently, without which the substance can still retain its identity. The concept originates with Aristotle, who used the Greek expression ''to ti ên einai'', literally 'the what it was to be', or sometimes the shorter phrase ''to ti esti'', literally 'the what it is,' for the same idea. This phrase presented such difficulties for his Latin translators that they coined the word ''essentia'' to represent the whole expression. For Aristotle and his scholastic followers the notion of essence is closely linked to that of definition (''horismos'') [http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-metaphysics/ S. Marc Cohen, "Aristotle's Metaphysics"]
In the [[history]] of western thought, essence has often served as a vehicle for doctrines that tend to individuate different forms of existence as well as different identity conditions for objects and properties; in this eminently logical meaning, the concept has given a strong theoretical and common-sense basis to the whole family of logical theories based on the "possible worlds" analogy set up by Leibniz and developed in the intensional logic from Rudolf Carnap to Saul Kripke, which was later challenged by "extensionalist" philosophers such as Quine.
The English word "essence" comes from the Latin ''essentia'', which was coined (from the Latin ''esse'', "to be") by ancient Roman scholars in order to translate the Ancient Greek phrase ''to ti ēn einai'' (literally, "what it is for a thing to be"), coined by Aristotle to denote a [[thing]]'s essence.
In modern times, the dominant critique of [[essentialism]] has been countered by a few outstanding philosophers, among whom we find [[Edmund Husserl]] and [[Leo Strauss]]. The first, approached the problem of "essence" from a primarily epistemic perspective; the latter, drew attention to the "political" import of the problem.
==Ontologic status==
According to Plato, essences are ''eide''; species and forms separate of the sense's [[things]].
These forms are models of the sense's things, and represent genuine reality; sense's world is less real; for instance, ''justice'' in relation to ''just actions''. These forms are pure and eternal forms.
Aristotle moves the forms of Plato to the nucleus of the [[individual]] thing, which is called ''ousía'' or substance. Essence is the ''tí'' of the thing, the ''to tí en einai''. Essence corresponds to the ousia's definition; essence is a real and physical aspect of the ousía. (Aristotle, "Metaphisic", I)
According to nominalists (Roscelin of Compiègne, [[William of Ockham]], John Duns Scoto, William of Champeaux, Bernard of Chartres), [[universal]]s aren't concrete entities, just voice's sounds; there are only individuals: "''nam cum habeat eorum sententia nihil esse praeter individuum(...)''" (Roscelin, De gener. et spec., 524). Universals are words that can to call several individuals; for example the word "homo". Therefore a universal is reduced to a sound's emission. (Roscelin, "De generibus et speciebus")
According to [[Edmund Husserl]] essence is ''[[ideal]]''. However, ''ideal'' means that essence is the intentional object of the conscience. Essence is interpreted as ''sense''. (E. Husserl, "Ideas pertaining to a pure phenomenology and to a phenomenological philosophy", paragraphs 3 and 4).
==Existentialism==
[[Existentialism]] was coined by [[Jean-Paul Sartre]]'s statement that for [[human being]]s "existence precedes essence." In as much as "essence" is a cornerstone of all metaphysical philosophy and the grounding of [[Rationalism]], Sartre's statement was a refutation of the philosophical system that had come before him (and, in particular, that of [[Husserl]], [[Hegel]], and [[Heidegger]]). Instead of "is-ness" generating "actuality," he argued that existence and actuality come first, and the essence is derived afterward. For [[Kierkegaard]], it is the individual person who is the supreme moral entity, and the [[personal]], subjective aspects of human life that are the most important; also, for Kierkegaard all of this had religious implications.
==In metaphysics==
"Essence," in metaphysics, is often synonymous with the [[soul]], and some existentialists argue that individuals gain their souls and spirits after they exist, that they develop their souls and spirits during their lifetimes. For Kierkegaard, however, the emphasis was upon essence as "nature." For him, there is no such thing as "human nature" that determines how a human will behave or what a human will be. First, he or she exists, and then comes attribute. [[Jean-Paul Sartre]]'s more materialist and skeptical existentialism furthered this existentialist tenet by flatly refuting any metaphysical essence, any soul, and arguing instead that there is merely existence, with attributes as essence.
Thus, in existentialist [[discourse]], essence can refer to physical aspect or attribute, to the ongoing being of a person (the [[character]] or internally determined goals), or to the infinite inbound within the human (which can be lost, can atrophy, or can be developed into an equal part with the [[finite]]), depending upon the type of existentialist discourse.
==Marxism's essentialism==
[[Karl Marx]] was, along with Kierkegaard, a follower of [[Hegel]]'s, and he, too, developed a philosophy in reaction to his master. In his early work, Marx used Aristotalian style teleology and derived a concept of [[humanity]]'s essential [[nature]]. Marx's Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844 describe a theory of [[alienation]] based on human existence being completely different from human essence. Marx said human nature was social, and that humanity had the distinct essence of free activity and conscious thought.
Some scholars, such as Philip Kain, have argued that Marx abandoned the idea of a human essence, but many other scholars point to Marx's continued discussion of these ideas despite the decline of terms such as essence and alienation in his later work.
== Buddhism ==
Within the Madhyamika school of [[Mahayana]] [[Buddhism]], Candrakirti identifies the self as:
:''an essence of [[things]] that does not depend on others; it is an intrinsic [[nature]]. The non-existence of that is [[Anatta|selflessness]]''.
Indeed the concept of Buddhist Emptiness is the strong assertion that all [[phenomena]] are '''empty of any essence''' - demonstrating that anti-essentialism lies at the very root of Buddhist praxis. Therefore, within this school it is the innate belief in '''essence''' that is considered to be an afflictive obscuration which serves as the root of all suffering. However, the school also rejects the tenets of [[Idealism]] and [[Materialism]]; instead, the [[ideas]] of ''[[truth]]'' or ''existence'', along with any assertions that depend upon them are limited to their function within the [[context]]s and conventions that assert them, somewhat akin to Relativism or Pragmatism. For them, replacement [[paradox]]es such as ''Ship of Theseus'' are answered by stating that the Ship of Thesesus remains so (within the conventions that assert it) until it ceases to function as the Ship of Theseus.
Of the many places to find the philosophical Examination of Essence, it is discussed in [[Nagarjuna]]'s [[Mulamadhyamakakarika]], The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way. Chapter I examines the Conditions of Existence, while Chapter XV examines Essence in itself, [[difference]], the eternalist's view and nihilists view of essence and non-essence.
==Hinduism==
In understanding any [[individual]] [[personality]], a distinction is made between one's ''Swadharma'' (essence) and ''Swabhava''(mental habits and conditionings of ego personality). Svabhava is the nature of a person, which is a result of his or her samskaras (impressions created in the mind due to one's interaction with the external world). These samskaras create habits and mental models and those become our nature. While there is another kind of svabhava that is a pure internal [[quality]], we are here focusing only on the svabhava that was created due to samskaras (because to discover the pure, internal svabhava, one should become aware of one's samskaras and take control over them). [[Dharma]] is derived from the root Dhr - to hold. It is that which holds an entity together. That is, Dharma is that which gives integrity to an entity and holds the core [[quality]] and [[identity]] (essence), form and function of that entity. Dharma is also defined as righteousness and duty. To do one's dharma is to be righteous, to do one's dharma is to do one's duty (express one's essence). [http://www.prasadkaipa.com/blog/archives/2005/07/svabhava_and_sv.php]
== Political Valence ==
The appeal to "essence" suggests the irreducibility of [[things]] to their external conditions. No [[tradition]]al teaching (not even those found in pre-modern Buddhism) rejects the reality of essence insofar as that rejection invites the reduction of all traditional teachings to an absolute, universal teaching grounded in the negation of all finite/traditional teachings.
If a traditional teaching cannot have an "internal" or "essential" principle of constitution, it must be constituted by external conditions. The certainty that there is no essence is the certainty that all things (and thus also all teachings) must be understood as functions of external conditions, or that meaning is "historically" determined. The absence of any essential root casts all things in an "anarchic" condition, subjecting them to the only form capable of containing anarchy--namely, tyranny (the iron fist or ''factum brutum'' of existence).
In short: the [[radical]] or [[universal]] negation of essence (anti-essentialism, historicism, nihilism, atheism, anarchism, etc.) presupposes by necessity that the negation in question is absolutely determined by the totality of external conditions, or by Existence itself. For that negation, too, must be devoid of essence. Since it presupposes that only the teaching of no-essence is the true or ultimate teaching, it must understand that teaching as the direct expression or the self-expression of all existential or "external" conditions, i.e.--to speak with Hegel--as the form in which History finds its self-realization. The teaching of no-essence turns at once into the teaching that is beyond all question--the ultimate tyrannical teaching.
==Notes and References==
# S. Marc Cohen, "Aristotle's Metaphysics", Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, accessed 20 April 2008.
# The Story of Philosophy, Bryan Magee, Dorling Kindersley Lond. 1998, ISBN 0-7513-0590-1
== Literature ==
* Edmund Husserl: Ideas pertaining to a pure phenomenology and to a phenomenological philosophy, Academic Publisher, London Kluwer, 1,982.
==External links ==
*Husserl's Ideas on a Pure Phenomenology[http://www.angelfire.com/md2/timewarp/husserl.html]
*A Sense of Eidos[http://www.eidos.uwaterloo.ca/pdfs/novak-eidos.pdf]
*Nominalism, realism, conceptualism[http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11090c.htm]
[[Category: General Reference]]
[[Category: Philosophy]]