Essence as a Fundamental Concept of Explaining and Understanding Reality

Abstract

Joannis N Markopoulos

According to Aristotle, the “essence” or “substance” of a thing, concept, change or natural phenomenon, of an entity in general, expresses the identity, the fundamental quality of the entity, “the what”, that makes the entity what it fundamentally is. Thus, intrinsically embodied in Aristotle’s onto-theological “Metaphysics”, and connected with the Platonic world of ideas, and ideal forms, the “essence” or “substance” of a thing was, thus, considered unalterable and eternal. The concept of essence was not particularly popular in progressive times due to its controversial nature, as it carried different meanings in the history of modern and post-modern philosophy and was loaded with this metaphysical legacy. Although not entirely rejected in the Early Modernity, the total rejection of “essence” mainly occurs with the philosophical currents of the Enlightenment, Positivism and Logical Positivism, as well the philosophy of Pragmatism, in the modern and post-modern era. Indeed, modern and post-modern empiristic, positivistic, utilitarian, relativistic and pragmatic world-views, seem to totally reject metaphysics and essentialism, in studying reality and all issues interwoven with reality, in all fields. Essence, historically and epistemologically closely connected with Aristotle's causality theory should be interpreted and understood, along with its unalterable characteristic, in a modified, alterable way, so that it can also be used, by empiricists, positivists and progressive spirits, to explain and understand reality, while searching the first causes and fundamental features of things, concepts and any kind of phenomena. Based on literature, and giving some characteristic examples from the field of socioeconomic, environmental and natural science, this paper proves the necessity of the concept of essence in explaining and understanding reality.

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