Editing Essentialism (section)

==In philosophy==
An ''[[essence]]'' characterizes a [[substance theory|substance]] or a [[Substantial form|form]], in the sense of the forms and ideas in [[Platonic idealism]]. It is permanent, unalterable, and eternal, and is present in every possible world. Classical [[humanism]] has an essentialist conception of the human, in its endorsement of the notion of an eternal and unchangeable [[human nature]]. This has been criticized by [[Kierkegaard]], [[Marx]], [[Heidegger]], [[Sartre]], [[Badiou]] and many other [[Existentialism|existential]], [[Historical materialism|materialist]] and [[antihumanism|anti-humanist]] thinkers. Essentialism, in its broadest sense, is any philosophy that acknowledges the primacy of ''essence''. Unlike [[existentialism]], which posits "being" as the fundamental reality, the essentialist [[wikt:ontology|ontology]] must be approached from a metaphysical perspective. Empirical knowledge is developed from experience of a relational universe whose components and attributes are defined and measured in terms of intellectually constructed laws. Thus, for the scientist, reality is explored as an evolutionary system of diverse entities, the order of which is determined by the principle of causality.{{citation needed|date=May 2024}}

In [[Plato]]'s philosophy, in particular the ''[[Timaeus (dialogue)|Timaeus]]'' and the ''[[Philebus]]'', things were said to come into being by the action of a [[demiurge]] who works to form [[substance theory|chaos]] into ordered entities. Many definitions of ''essence'' hark back to the ancient Greek [[hylomorphic]] understanding of the formation of the things. According to that account, the structure and real existence of any thing can be understood by analogy to an artefact produced by a craftsperson. The craftsperson requires ''hyle'' (timber or wood) and a model, plan or idea in their own mind, according to which the wood is worked to give it the indicated contour or form (''morphe''). Aristotle was the first to use the terms ''hyle'' and ''morphe''. According to [[Metaphysics (Aristotle)|his explanation]], all entities have two aspects: "matter" and "form". It is the particular form imposed that gives some matter its identity—its [[quiddity]] or "whatness" (i.e., "what it is"). Plato was one of the first essentialists, postulating the concept of ideal forms—an [[abstract entity]] of which individual objects are mere facsimiles. To give an example: the ideal form of a circle is a perfect circle, something that is physically impossible to make manifest; yet the circles we draw and observe clearly have some ''idea'' in common—the ideal form. Plato proposed that these ideas are eternal and vastly superior to their manifestations, and that we understand these manifestations in the material world by comparing and relating them to their respective ideal form. Plato's forms are regarded as patriarchs to essentialist dogma simply because they are a case of what is intrinsic and a-contextual of objects—the abstract properties that make them what they are. One example is [[Plato's allegory of the cave|Plato's parable of the cave]]. Plato believed that the universe was perfect and that its observed imperfections came from man's limited perception of it. For Plato, there were two realities: the "essential" or ideal and the "perceived".{{citation needed|date=May 2024}}

[[Aristotle]] (384–322 BC) applied the term ''essence'' to that which things in a category have in common and without which they cannot be members of that category (for example, ''rationality'' is the essence of man; without rationality a creature cannot be a man). In his critique of Aristotle's philosophy, [[Bertrand Russell]] said that his concept of essence transferred to metaphysics what was only a verbal convenience and that it confused the properties of language with the properties of the world. In fact, a thing's "essence" consisted in those defining properties without which we could not use the ''name'' for it.<ref name=russell>Bertrand Russell, ''A History of Western Philosophy'', London: Routledge, 1991</ref> Although the concept of essence was "hopelessly muddled" it became part of every philosophy until modern times.<ref name=russell/> The Egyptian-born philosopher [[Plotinus]] (204–270 AD) brought [[idealism]] to the [[Roman Empire]] as [[Neoplatonism]], and with it the concept that not only do all existents emanate from a "primary essence" but that the mind plays an active role in shaping or ordering the objects of perception, rather than passively receiving empirical data.{{citation needed|date=May 2024}}