Essence (philosophy)

The expression essence (Greek ousia , Latin essentia , quidditas ) has a double meaning in philosophical usage. In the tradition of Aristotle it first of all denotes the self-sufficient concrete individual . In a second sense, “essence” denotes the general and permanent determinacy of a concrete individual. In the latter sense, the term "essence" ( essentia ) is also used in the philosophical tradition . Since the “essence” is also what is asked for with a “What is that?”, It is also referred to as quidditas (“whatness”) in medieval philosophy . In the philosophical tradition, the concept of substance is also closely related to the concept of essence .

Central concepts of the essence concept

Antiquity

The Greek word οὐσία ( ousia ) becomes a basic concept of philosophy through the Platonic-Aristotelian metaphysics . In Plato , the question of essence is first raised in the early dialogues on the basis of the question of virtues and their uniformity. It is answered by specifying what every thing is as itself: its wholeness. Plato used to denote the general instead of the word ousia usually mainly eidos (German for Pape : View, shape, "the falling in his eyes," Plato "the archetype of things in mind," Latin them forth: idea ) , that is, what something really is, essentially, essentially. Beyond this essence, in Plato the idea of the good grants the essence itself continuity. Essence is the unchangeable and indissoluble, which always behaves in the same way according to it. It is thus opposed to everything that has the basic character of becoming, i.e. H. everything individual as a mere individual. Hence the essence as that which is really being is in all its characters opposed to that which can be grasped by the senses, i.e. That is, it is the nonsensual that can only be grasped in thought.

Aristotle provides the basis of all essential determinations that is still valid today. In his early category writing, he made the fundamental differentiation of the concept of essence into “first” and “second substance” ( próte ousia and deutera ousia ). For him, ousia in the original and full sense is the concrete individual ( synholon ) - such as B. a certain person or a certain horse (cat 5, 2 a 11-14). It is "substance in the truest, most original and most excellent sense (cat 5, 2 a 11 f.), Because it is the basis of everything else". The “first substances” cannot be predicated of any subject and are not attached to any subject (Cat 5, 2 b 37 - 3 a 1).

Everything else, on the other hand, is predicated of these “first substances” as the subject or is in them as the subject (Cat 5, 2 a 34 f.) And belongs to one of the ten categories. The “second substance” is the first of these categories. The “second” substance can be predicated of the first. As a species term, it then designates the “essence” of the individual thing (e.g. “man” in “Socrates is a man”); also the superordinate generic term (e.g. “sensory being” in “Socrates is a sensory being”) is referred to by Aristotle in the categorical writing as the “second substance”.

Species and genus have the rank of second substance insofar as they represent predicates which determine the first and actual substance in more detail in its what-being (Cat 5, 2 b 29-31). They are only called (“secondary”) substances because they define the first substance in more detail. Within the second substance terms, the species term (“human”) defines the first substance much more precisely than the generic term (“sensory beings”) and is closer to it. Therefore, for Aristotle, “the species is more substance than the species” (Cat 5, 2 b 7 f.).

In his later work, Metaphysics (Books VII and VIII), Aristotle placed the concept of form ( eidos ) in the foreground. This now takes precedence over the individual thing and becomes the actual being, the “first substance” ( próte ousia ).

scholasticism

In the scholastic tradition that appeals to Aristotle and has an impact on modern times, the conceptual component of the essence-concept wins the predominance. The general essence is understood as “the real” about which science alone is possible. The individual is subordinated to the general and viewed as something that has arisen through limitation and is imperfect. Typical of this way of thinking is the scholastic question about the “principle of individuation ”, that is, the question of how the individual can result from the general. The predominance of the general, detached from the concrete real, leads to the idea that it makes sense to speak of a “being in itself”, of being as a pure possibility, that is, of a being without existence ( eat without existentia ). In this view of an essence-metaphysics ( essentialism ) a so-called "realdistinction" is made between being and essence. The essence appears as the principle that enables a certain content of being, which is realized, “ activated ” by being.

The scholastic essence metaphysics - classically represented by the early Thomas Aquinas - initially takes an antiplatonic stance from its starting point. Following Aristotle, she assumes that what is real in the primary sense is the individual, the single substance. These individual substances can be divided into groups according to this idea. An important role is played by the type ( species ) than the group of those beings that can be called with the same definition. The unity of the species is seen not only as an achievement of thought, but as something real in a certain way. It is the determining principle, the " form " of being, through which it is what it is. From this point of view, the essence becomes so much a reality that the individuality needs its own explanation. From this arises the question of the principle of individuation, which is stated in the materia quantitate signata (designated matter). This "isolated" the form, i. that is, it individualizes and limits it to the particular.

In the understanding of essence-metaphysics, essence stands in opposition to being. It is seen as a limited possibility of being ( potentia ), which is only brought into reality through being. Being is understood as a mere principle of existence and as itself completely devoid of content.

Critique of the concept of essence

From the standpoint of a metaphysics of being, philosophy of essence is criticized for leading to an understanding of metaphysics as a science of the merely possible. At the same time, the view that essence is something given in itself leads to an emptied understanding of being, according to which being is mere existence without any content. The fundamental lack of this approach consists in equating the model of reality provided by conceptual thinking with reality itself. In the sense of a philosophy of being, the concept of essence is abandoned by the concept of the "analogy of beings" ( analogia entis ).

From the point of view of many epistemological positions (e.g. postmodernism ), the concept of essence is rejected as being rigid and normatively overloaded. Karl Popper has accepted the description of "modified essentialism" for his position: ever "deeper" levels of explanation, but no ultimate justification . The criticism of the concept of essence is countered by the fact that giving up a core of essence entails the risk of dissolving the consideration of the object.

Other essential concepts

A fundamentally different concept of “essential” is present when Max Weber speaks of “essential” in the sense of meaning or sense , following the value philosophy of Neo-Kantianism . The clarification of the questions of what it means, how and why a cultural phenomenon is designed as it is, requires a relationship between this cultural phenomenon and value ideas.

literature

Baruch A. Brody: Identity and Essence. Princeton University, Princeton (NJ) 1980, ISBN 0-691-07256-6 .
Herbert Marcuse : The Concept of Essence. In: Negations. Essays in Critical Theory. Boston 1968. (first: Journal of Social Research, Volume V, 1936)
LP Nolan: Descartes' Theory of Essences . Irvine 1997.
Josef Seifert : Being and being. Winter, Heidelberg 1996, ISBN 3-8253-0367-5 .
Andreas Urs Sommer : Essence (rationalism, empiricism, school philosophy, enlightenment). In: Historical Dictionary of Philosophy . Volume 12, Basel / Darmstadt 2005, p. 634 ff.
Alexander Wiehart-Howaldt: Essence, Perfection, Existence . Stuttgart 1996.

Remarks

^ Wilhelm Pape : Concise dictionary of the Greek language . Reprint of the edition from 1880, 3rd edition, Vieweg & Sohn , Braunschweig 1914, vol. 1, p. 724
↑ The connection between the two conceptions of essence in the categories and metaphysics is controversial. See z. B. Otfried Höffe (Ed.): Aristoteles Lexikon (= Kröner's pocket edition . Volume 459). Kröner, Stuttgart 2005, ISBN 3-520-45901-9 , p. 413 ff. And Wolfgang Welsch : Der Philosopher , p. 248 note.
↑ E.g. Weissmahr : Ontologie , p. 102f.
^ Karl R. Popper: The objective of empirical science. In: Hans Albert (Ed.): Theory and Reality. Selected essays on the science of the social sciences , Tübingen 1964.
↑ Alexander v. Schelting: Max Webers Wissenschaftslehre , Tübingen 1934, p. 224.

[1] Wilhelm Pape : Concise dictionary of the Greek language . Reprint of the edition from 1880, 3rd edition, Vieweg & Sohn , Braunschweig 1914, vol. 1, p. 724

[2] The connection between the two conceptions of essence in the categories and metaphysics is controversial. See z. B. Otfried Höffe (Ed.): Aristoteles Lexikon (= Kröner's pocket edition . Volume 459). Kröner, Stuttgart 2005, ISBN 3-520-45901-9 , p. 413 ff. And Wolfgang Welsch : Der Philosopher , p. 248 note.

[3] E.g. Weissmahr : Ontologie , p. 102f.

[4] Karl R. Popper: The objective of empirical science. In: Hans Albert (Ed.): Theory and Reality. Selected essays on the science of the social sciences , Tübingen 1964.

[5] Alexander v. Schelting: Max Webers Wissenschaftslehre , Tübingen 1934, p. 224.