Essentialism vs Existentialism

‘An essence characterizes a substance or a form, in the sense of the Forms or Ideas in Platonic idealism. It is permanent, unalterable, and eternal; and present in every possible world. Classical humanism has an essentialist conception of the human being, which means that it believes in an eternal and unchangeable human nature. This viewpoint has been criticized by Marx, Nietzsche, Sartre, and many modern and existential thinkers.’

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essentialism

What gives so many moderns (especially ‘westerns’) the arrogance to sneeringly scorn essentialism?

Are they hoping it will just quietly crawl away and die, for some ‘unknown’ reason?

Because essentialism doesn’t make sense, not even a little.

Primarily the fact that it’s wrong

i can’t speak for anyone else, but i don’t have any hopes for it one way or the other - i just find it ridiculous

OK.

Makes perfect sense to me.

‘Wrong’ is quite a bold statement.

What makes you say that?

‘Ridiculous’ sounded very sneering to me, correct me if I’m wrong.

Having read some of your posts… I bet it does.

Alrighty then, time to escape the shadows Cave Master.

youtube.com/watch?v=Nh2iyPmucFk

Plato got it backward.

What do you expect, that I just believe you or Plato on your word?

If you want to present your case, go ahead.

My case is that Plato is vaild AND sound.

Your turn.

it puts the universal cart before the universal horse

no, you’re right, it’s meant to recall the sort of sneering i detect behind your “God is too quick for philosophy” and “Nietzsche is a chimp” threads …

:astonished:

There was a Cart and Horse???

Yeah, one was painted red, the other was made of wood.

Was there a chicken and an egg too?

they were both in the cart that got put before the horse

2 things - 1) ‘essence’ as you define it is unobservable, giving people the right to doubt its existence, and 2) we seem to live in a universe of change - nothing stays the same - and so an unchanging, permanent fixture imbedded in everything seems unlikely.

That’s not to say I don’t believe in essences myself, but I’d go with a different definition: that which things ultimately are.

I will at this point, point out the futility of identifying the first case of a circular cause and consequence, in the form of the horse and cart causality dilemma commonly stated as:

Which came first, horse that can’t come without cart, or cart that can’t come without horse?

  1. The proof is in the pudding. Essence is obvious. Life, consciousness, truth…
  2. How does this refute the essences you believe in?

You’re welcome to point that out - but it doesn’t have much bearing on anything - since cart before horse is just a manner of speaking, and essence and existence are no more parts of a circular cause and consequence than sculpture and sculptor. Essence is abstraction - it is preceded by what exists.

Not sure how this proves anything.

Here’s how you defined essence: “'An essence characterizes a substance or a form, in the sense of the Forms or Ideas in Platonic idealism. It is permanent, unalterable, and eternal;”

For me, there is nothing necessarily permanent, unalterable, or eternal about essences. There can be such a thing as a tree-as-it-ultimately-is without it being permanent, unalterable, or eternal.

  1. Assumption.
  2. ‘Abstraction’ is every bit as real as 10110011101.
  3. Abstraction exists, essence exists. There is nothing that doesn’t exist.