Essentialism

Essentialism, contrasted with existentialism (separate entry), is a long standing philosophical metaphysical tradition that claims simply that the essence, or set of properties, is what defines a thing’s existence. An early form of essentialism has been around since Ancient Greece in the Theory of the Forms - which postulates that each thing has a certain [divine, almost] form and structure that pertains to it. Thus to know a thing is to know what it actually is, and what its necessary properties are. Not everything that is a property of an object is part of its essence, only that which is necessary. For example, it is part of a dryer’s essence to have the capability to dry - thus it is a necessary property. What isn’t a part of the dryer’s essence is its being white. While there may be no dryers that are not white (though obviously there are), its color is not a necessary part of its essence (it continues to be a dryer even if painted green) - thus its color is called an accidental property. Classifying a thing’s essence also has a utilitarian [not used in an ethical sense] purpose of being able to differentiate one thing from another - as well as to build a categorical system of the different things that exist (Aristotle did a similar thing). Notably, essentialism is a metaphysical position, and not an epistemological one. Thus, essentialism does not specifically claim that we are actually able to know a thing’s essence - rather that our knowledge of a thing is limited to knowing its essence (i.e. if it turns out to be impossible to reach any kind of knowledge about a thing’s essence, then we would have no knowledge of the thing itself). This primacy of a thing’s essence, which the essentialist states everything has, is what defines the view.