Fact-checked by Grok 2 weeks ago

Essence

In philosophy, particularly within metaphysics, essence refers to the intrinsic nature or the core set of properties that define and constitute the identity of an entity, distinguishing it from its accidental or contingent attributes.^[1] This concept contrasts essence with mere existence or superficial qualities, emphasizing what makes a thing fundamentally what it is rather than how it happens to be.^[2] The notion of essence has roots in ancient Greek philosophy, most prominently articulated by Aristotle in his Metaphysics, where he equates essence with substance (ousia) and describes it as the "what it was to be" (to ti ên einai) for a given entity.^[1] For Aristotle, the essence of a thing is captured in its definition, which serves as "the formula of the essence," applicable primarily to substances as the primary bearers of being.^[1] In this framework, essences enable scientific knowledge by revealing the necessary principles underlying natural kinds, such as the form that actualizes potential in matter.^[1] During the medieval period, Thomas Aquinas further developed the concept in his On Being and Essence (De Ente et Essentia), introducing a real distinction between essence and existence (esse) in all finite beings.^[3] Aquinas argued that essence signifies the quiddity or "whatness" of a thing—what it is—while existence is the act by which that essence is actualized in reality; these are distinct in creatures because every essence can be conceived without its existence, as in understanding a phoenix without knowing if it exists.^[3] Only in God, Aquinas posited, is essence identical to existence, making divine being pure act without composition.^[3] This distinction underpins Aquinas's proofs for God's existence and his hylomorphic view of substances, where essence integrates form and matter.^[3] In the modern era, John Locke reframed essence in empiricist terms in his Essay Concerning Human Understanding, differentiating between real essence—the underlying, often unknowable constitution of a substance from which its observable qualities arise—and nominal essence—the abstract collection of perceptible properties humans use to classify and name things.^[4] For instance, the real essence of gold is its imperceptible atomic structure, while its nominal essence is the idea of yellowness, malleability, and fusibility.^[4] Locke emphasized that human knowledge is limited to nominal essences, as real essences remain hidden, challenging Aristotelian essentialism by grounding classification in experience rather than innate forms.^[4] Twentieth-century existentialism marked a significant reversal, with Jean-Paul Sartre famously declaring in Existentialism is a Humanism that "existence precedes essence," particularly for human beings.^[5] Sartre argued that unlike manufactured objects, such as a paper-knife with a predefined purpose, humans first exist and then define their essence through free choices and actions, bearing absolute responsibility in a world without predetermined nature or divine blueprint.^[5] This anti-essentialist stance underscores themes of freedom, authenticity, and the absurdity of seeking fixed meaning.^[5] Contemporary analytic philosophy continues to engage essence, often linking it to modality and identity without reducing it solely to necessity. Kit Fine, in his influential paper "Essence and Modality," contends that essence is better captured by real definitions specifying an object's nature, rather than modal notions of what must be true of it across possible worlds.^[2] Fine illustrates this with cases like Socrates, whose essence as a person is non-modal, critiquing earlier views that conflate essence with de re necessity.^[2] Today, essence informs debates in metaphysics, philosophy of science, and even linguistics, influencing discussions on natural kinds, identity, and ontological dependence.^[2]

Foundations

Etymology

The term "essence" originates from the Latin essentia, a neologism coined by the Roman philosopher Cicero around 45 BCE to render Aristotle's Greek concept of ousia (οὐσία), his term for substance or essence, which he expressed through the phrase "the what it was to be" (τὸ τί ἦν εἶναι).^[6]^[7] This translation addressed the challenge of conveying Aristotle's ontological ideas in Latin, where no direct equivalent existed, and essentia was derived from the verb esse ("to be").^[8] The foundational use of ousia appears in Aristotle's Metaphysics (circa 350 BCE), where it denotes the primary substance or underlying reality of things.^[8] Roman philosophers further popularized essentia. Seneca, in his Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Letter 58, circa 65 CE), explicitly references Cicero's invention of the term as a Latin counterpart to ousia, using it to explore categories of being and criticizing the limitations of Latin philosophical vocabulary.^[9]^[10] This adoption helped embed essentia in Roman Stoic and rhetorical discourse, bridging Greek philosophy with Latin expression. In medieval Latin, essentia gained prominence through scholasticism. Thomas Aquinas, in the 13th century, employed it extensively in works like De Ente et Essentia (1252–1256) to signify the intrinsic nature or quiddity of entities, distinguishing it from existence (esse) and integrating Aristotelian ideas into Christian theology.^[11]^[12] The word transitioned to modern English in the late 14th century via Old French essence, initially appearing in philosophical and theological texts like those of John Wycliffe, where it retained its metaphysical connotation but broadened to encompass the core attributes defining an entity's identity.^[6]^[13] This evolution marked a shift from a specialized translation tool to a versatile concept in Western ontology.

Core Concepts

In metaphysics, essence denotes the intrinsic and indispensable nature of a thing that defines its identity, distinguishing it from accidental properties that do not affect what the thing fundamentally is. For instance, the essence of a triangle lies in its possession of three sides and three angles summing to 180 degrees, irrespective of its size, color, or material composition.^[1] This core property ensures that any alteration to the essence would result in a different kind of entity altogether, whereas changes to accidents leave the identity intact.^[14] A key distinction in metaphysical thought separates essence from existence: essence addresses the question of "what" a thing is—its quiddity or definitional structure—while existence concerns "that" it is, or the act of being actualized in reality.^[3] In this framework, the essence of a being provides the blueprint for its possible instantiation, but existence is the realization of that blueprint, without which the essence remains potential rather than actual. This separation underscores that not every conceivable essence need exist; for example, the essence of a unicorn can be defined geometrically and logically, yet unicorns do not exist in the empirical world.^[15]

Philosophical Perspectives

Ancient and Medieval Views

In ancient Greek philosophy, Plato developed the theory of Forms in the 4th century BCE, positing essences as eternal, ideal archetypes existing in a non-physical, intelligible realm separate from the sensible world. These Forms, such as the Form of Beauty, represent the perfect and unchanging essence of properties, while physical objects participate in them imperfectly, deriving their qualities through this participation but never fully attaining the ideal. For instance, a beautiful object like a statue partakes in the Form of Beauty, yet remains a flawed imitation due to its material composition.^[16] Aristotle, also in the 4th century BCE, critiqued and reformulated Plato's approach through his doctrine of hylomorphism, viewing essence as the form (eidos) that actualizes matter (hyle) to constitute a substance. In works like the Categories and Metaphysics, essence answers the question "what is it?" by defining the intrinsic nature that unifies matter into a specific being, such as the form of a human soul shaping organic matter into a living person. Unlike Plato's transcendent Forms, Aristotle's essences are immanent, inherent to individual substances rather than separate entities.^[17]^[8] During the medieval period, Thomas Aquinas in the 13th century synthesized Aristotelian essence with Christian theology, defining it as the "quiddity" or "whatness" (quidditas) of a being that specifies its nature within God's creation. In the Summa Theologica, Aquinas portrayed created essences as substantial forms subordinate to God's simple and infinite essence, which serves as the ultimate source and exemplar of all finite beings, ensuring theological harmony by aligning philosophical substance with divine causation.^[18] This realist tradition faced critique from nominalism in the 14th century, particularly through William of Ockham, who rejected universal essences as real entities outside the mind, treating them instead as mental constructs or concepts formed by abstraction from individual particulars. In texts like the Summa Logicae, Ockham emphasized that only singular substances exist in reality, with shared natures arising from linguistic and cognitive conventions rather than objective universals, thus prioritizing empirical individuals over metaphysical commonalities.^[19]

Modern and Contemporary Developments

In the Enlightenment era, John Locke introduced a pivotal empiricist distinction between real and nominal essences in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690). Real essence constitutes the underlying microscopic structure of a substance, such as the atomic arrangement defining gold, which determines its observable properties. Nominal essence, by contrast, refers to the abstract collection of qualities humans abstract and use for classification, like gold's yellowness and malleability. Locke maintained that human knowledge is limited to nominal essences, as real essences elude direct empirical access.^[20] Immanuel Kant further transformed conceptions of essence through his transcendental idealism in Critique of Pure Reason (1781). He argued that essences are not intrinsic to objects in themselves (noumena) but arise from the mind's a priori categories of understanding, such as causality and substance, which structure sensory experience. This framework posits that while phenomena possess essences shaped by human cognition, the noumenal realm—independent of perception—harbors essences forever inaccessible to empirical inquiry.^[21] Twentieth-century analytic philosophy mounted robust challenges to essentialism, exemplified by W.V.O. Quine's critique in "Two Dogmas of Empiricism" (1951). Quine dismantled the analytic-synthetic distinction underpinning necessary essences, rejecting the idea of truths grounded solely in meaning apart from empirical fact. He advocated descriptivism, wherein concepts like essence dissolve into holistic webs of belief revisable by experience, undermining Aristotelian-style necessities.^[22] Concurrently, feminist and postmodern thinkers interrogated essentialism's social implications; Simone de Beauvoir, in The Second Sex (1949), contended that gender essences are not biologically fixed but socially imposed, declaring "one is not born, but rather becomes, a woman" to expose how cultural norms construct femininity as an otherness relative to male norms.^[23] Post-2000 developments have witnessed a revival of essentialism within modal metaphysics, building on critiques of modality-first approaches. Kit Fine's influential framework, elaborated in works like "Essence and Modality" (1994) and subsequent refinements, treats essence as a primitive notion of necessary properties grounded directly in an entity's identity, rather than reducible to possible worlds or modal truths. This shift, gaining traction in the 2000s through debates on grounding and hyperintensionality, reinvigorates essence as explanans for metaphysical necessity, influencing contemporary discussions in ontology.^[2]

Religious Interpretations

Abrahamic Traditions

In Judaism, the essence of God is conceptualized as Ein Sof, the infinite and unknowable divine reality that transcends all manifestation and limitation, as articulated in Kabbalistic literature from the 13th century, particularly the Zohar.^[24] This term denotes God's transcendent essence, existing prior to any self-revelation or creation, emphasizing an boundless unity beyond human comprehension.^[25] Regarding human essence, Jewish thought draws from Genesis 1:26-27, where humanity is created in tzelem Elohim, the image of God, signifying an inherent divine likeness that endows people with moral agency, intellect, and relational capacity toward the divine.^[26] In Christianity, the divine essence is central to the doctrine of the Trinity, formalized at the Council of Nicaea in 325 CE, which affirmed that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit share one ousia (essence or substance), distinguishing this unity from Arian views of subordination.^[27] This shared essence underscores the coeternal and consubstantial nature of the three persons, preserving monotheism while allowing for relational distinctions.^[28] The concept extends to sacramental theology, as in the doctrine of transubstantiation defined by the Council of Trent in 1551, where the substance (essence) of bread and wine converts entirely into the body and blood of Christ during the Eucharist, while the accidents (appearances) remain unchanged.^[29] In Islam, the essence of God, referred to as dhat, represents Allah's eternal and indivisible reality, which is beyond full human grasp yet eternally possesses attributes like omniscience and mercy without implying composition or change.^[30] This aligns with tawhid, the absolute oneness of God, succinctly expressed in Quran Surah Al-Ikhlas (112:1-4), which declares Allah as singular, eternal, and incomparable, rejecting any plurality or partners.^[31] Human essence is understood as fitrah, the innate disposition toward monotheism and submission to God, as described in a hadith from Sahih Muslim where the Prophet Muhammad states that every child is born upon this natural inclination, though environment may alter it.^[32] Across Abrahamic traditions, essence denotes an immutable divine reality that contrasts with the mutable nature of creation, a theme elaborated in Thomas Aquinas's analogy of being, where God's simple and unchanging essence participates analogically in creatures, allowing limited resemblance without equality.^[33] This framework highlights the creator-creation distinction, with divine essence as the unchanging source of all contingent being.^[34]

Dharmic Traditions

In Hinduism, the Upanishads, composed between approximately 800 and 200 BCE, articulate the concept of atman as the eternal essence of the individual self, fundamentally identical to Brahman, the universal essence underlying all reality. This identity is expressed in key statements such as "Tat tvam asi" ("You are that"), emphasizing that the true nature of the self is not separate from the infinite, unchanging reality of Brahman.^[35] The realization of this unity is seen as the path to liberation (moksha), transcending the illusions of individuality and the material world.^[36] The Bhagavad Gita, dated to around the 2nd century BCE, further develops these ideas by distinguishing swadharma—one's personal duty aligned with one's essential nature—from swabhava, the inherent disposition or intrinsic qualities shaping an individual's role in society and cosmos. Krishna advises Arjuna that performing swadharma, even imperfectly, is superior to excelling in another's duty, as it harmonizes action with one's core essence and promotes ethical living without attachment to outcomes.^[37]^[38] This framework integrates essence with moral responsibility, viewing swabhava as karmically determined yet conducive to spiritual growth. In Advaita Vedanta, systematized by Adi Shankara in the 8th century CE, essence is refined as the non-dual (advaita) reality of Brahman, described as sat-chit-ananda (being-consciousness-bliss), the pure, undifferentiated ground of existence. The apparent multiplicity of the world is attributed to maya, an illusory power that veils this true essence, leading to misidentification of the self with the body and ego; liberation arises from discerning the illusory nature of maya through knowledge (jnana).^[39] Buddhist traditions, in contrast, fundamentally reject the idea of a permanent, inherent essence. Theravada Buddhism, drawing from the Pali Canon teachings attributed to the 5th century BCE, upholds anatman (no-self) as a core doctrine, asserting that there is no enduring, independent self or essence within persons or phenomena; instead, experience arises from the transient aggregation of five skandhas (form, sensation, perception, mental formations, consciousness).^[40] This rejection counters the Vedic notion of atman, aiming to dismantle attachment to a false sense of self for attaining nirvana. In Mahayana Buddhism, Nagarjuna's Madhyamaka philosophy of the 2nd century CE advances shunyata (emptiness) as the absence of inherent essence (svabhava) in all dharmas (phenomena), which are empty of independent existence and arise through dependent origination (pratityasamutpada); this emptiness is not nihilism but the ultimate truth enabling liberation via insight into interdependence.^[41] A key distinction within Dharmic traditions lies in their treatment of essence: Hinduism affirms an eternal, non-dual core leading to unity with the divine, while Buddhism deconstructs it as illusory or empty, fostering liberation through the cessation of clinging; this soteriological emphasis on impermanence and insight markedly differs from Western philosophical views of essence as a fixed, substantial permanence.^[35]^[41]

Interdisciplinary Applications

In Science and Metaphysics

In biology, essentialism historically dominated taxonomic classification during the pre-Darwinian era, particularly in the 18th and 19th centuries, where species were viewed as fixed archetypes defined by an unchanging essence that distinguished them from others. Carl Linnaeus's system of binomial nomenclature, introduced in Systema Naturae (1758), categorized organisms based on shared morphological traits and has traditionally been seen as exemplifying this essentialist approach, though modern scholarship debates the extent to which his method embodied strict essentialism. This essentialist framework posited that species boundaries were sharp and eternal, reflecting a divine or natural order rather than variability. Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection, outlined in On the Origin of Species (1859), fundamentally critiqued this biological essentialism by portraying species not as static entities with fixed essences but as dynamic populations shaped by descent with modification and environmental pressures. Darwin argued that the apparent fixity of species was an illusion, arising from incomplete observations of gradual changes, and emphasized variation within populations as the raw material for evolution, thereby undermining the notion of an inherent, unchanging essence defining species identity. Contemporary philosophy of biology continues to engage with essentialism, exploring alternatives such as homeostatic property cluster kinds that accommodate evolutionary dynamics.^[42] In chemistry and physics, the concept of essence finds application in the identification of molecular and subatomic structures that underpin the properties of matter, though these are often challenged by probabilistic frameworks. The 1953 Watson-Crick model of DNA's double helix structure revealed it as the molecular basis for genetic information, effectively serving as the "essence" that encodes and transmits species-specific traits across generations.^[43] This discovery shifted biological essentialism toward a materialist foundation, where DNA sequences define the heritable core of an organism's identity, influencing everything from morphology to behavior.^[43] However, in physics, Werner Heisenberg's uncertainty principle (1927) introduced a profound challenge to classical notions of essence by demonstrating that fundamental particles lack determinate positions and momenta simultaneously, rendering precise, essential descriptions of quantum systems inherently indeterminate. This principle implies that at the quantum level, reality defies the fixed, Aristotelian substances of classical metaphysics, favoring relational and probabilistic essences over absolute ones.^[44] Extending into modal metaphysics, possible worlds semantics provides a framework for understanding essence as the set of necessary properties that an entity retains across all possible worlds in which it exists. David Lewis's Counterfactuals (1973) developed this semantics, positing that essence encompasses unalterable identity facts—such as a person's origin or intrinsic nature—that hold invariantly, distinguishing essential from accidental traits in counterfactual scenarios. For instance, an individual's essence might include their biological parents, a property true in every accessible possible world, thereby grounding modal claims about what must be the case for that entity's persistence.^[45] Contemporary debates in the philosophy of science further explore essence through the lens of "natural kinds," where scientific discoveries reveal underlying structures that rigidly define categories. Saul Kripke's Naming and Necessity (1980) argues that terms like "water" refer essentially to H₂O, its molecular structure, making it a necessary truth that water is H₂O in all possible worlds where the substance exists, thus exemplifying how empirical science uncovers metaphysical essences of natural kinds.^[46] This view bridges science and metaphysics by suggesting that essences are not a priori impositions but discoveries of necessary microstructures, as seen in chemical analyses that fix the identity of elements and compounds beyond superficial appearances.^[47]

In Arts and Culture

In literature, the concept of essence as an intrinsic nature has been explored through themes of human identity and meaninglessness. In Albert Camus's The Stranger (1942), the protagonist Meursault embodies the absurd, where existence lacks predefined essence, highlighting the tension between individual life and inherent purpose in an indifferent universe.^[48] Similarly, William Shakespeare's Hamlet (c. 1603) contemplates the essence of humanity in the famous soliloquy "What a piece of work is a man," praising human reason and form while questioning its ultimate value amid corruption and mortality.^[49] In visual arts, essence manifests as the pursuit of inner form and emotion, diverging from mere surface representation. During the Renaissance, humanism emphasized capturing the human essence through anatomical precision, as seen in Leonardo da Vinci's studies from the late 15th century, which dissected bodies to reveal underlying structures and vitality, aligning art with empirical understanding of the self.^[50] In contrast, 20th-century abstract expressionism, exemplified by Jackson Pollock's drip paintings of the 1940s, evoked the raw emotional essence of the psyche, prioritizing subconscious expression over figurative depiction to convey universal inner turmoil.^[51] Popular culture has adapted essence symbolically to probe reality and commodification. The 1999 film The Matrix questions the distinction between simulated illusion and authentic essence, drawing on philosophical skepticism to depict humans awakening from a fabricated world that obscures their true nature.^[52] Meanwhile, the marketing of "essential oils" since the early 20th century has repurposed the philosophical notion of essence—rooted in the alchemical "quintessence" as the pure, vital principle of matter—to describe distilled plant extracts, framing them as concentrated "life forces" for wellness despite their chemical rather than metaphysical basis.^[53] In cultural anthropology, essence intersects with identity politics through critiques of fixed traits. Postcolonial theory, particularly Edward Said's Orientalism (1978), challenges essentialist portrayals of ethnicity and culture, arguing that Western depictions reduce non-European identities to static, inherent qualities to justify domination, thereby exposing how such views perpetuate colonial power dynamics.^[54]

References

[1]
Metaphysics by Aristotle - The Internet Classics Archive
Clearly, then, definition is the formula of the essence, and essence belongs to substances either alone or chiefly and primarily and in the unqualified sense.
[2]
[PDF] ESSENCE AND MODALITY Kit Fine Philosophy, NYU June, 1992
The concept of essence has then taken to reside in the "real" or objectual cases of definition, as opposed to the "nominal" or verbal cases. On the one hand, ...
[3]
[PDF] Thomas Aquinas On Being and Essence - Fordham University Faculty
This is an expression of Aquinas' metaphysical claim that a material substance cannot be identical with its essence, but its essence is its part that is really ...
[4]
[PDF] An Essay Concerning Human Understanding Book III: Words
Essay III. John Locke vi: Names of substances distinguished from one another by real essences. 50. Consider what is happening when we affirm All gold is ...
[5]
Existentialism is a Humanism, Jean-Paul Sartre 1946
What do we mean by saying that existence precedes essence? We mean that man first of all exists, encounters himself, surges up in the world – and defines ...Missing: primary | Show results with:primary
[6]
Essence - Etymology, Origin & Meaning
Originating in late 14th-century Latin essentia, meaning "being, essence," late derives from esse "to be," reflecting the core meaning of existence or ...
[7]
Could "essentia" be understood in Latin as "the act of being"?
Jan 10, 2019 · Essentia (to-be-ness) was coined by Cicero as a Latin counterpart for the Greek οὐσία (ousia). Both words refer to something's essence or ...
[8]
Aristotle's Metaphysics - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Oct 8, 2000 · Aristotle's preliminary answer (Ζ.4) to the question “What is substance?” is that substance is essence, but there are important qualifications.The Subject Matter of Aristotle... · Substance and Essence · Unity Reconsidered
[9]
Moral letters to Lucilius/Letter 58 - Wikisource, the free online library
Feb 20, 2025 · I beg you accordingly to allow me to use this word essentia. I shall nevertheless take pains to exercise the privilege, which you have ...
[10]
Ousia, substance, essence: on the Roman understanding of being
First there is ousia, which Plautus calls essence, the only available translation: under this category we inquire whether a thing is (an sit). Secondly, there ...
[11]
Aquinas: Metaphysics | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Having established (at some stage) that essence and existence are distinct and that there exists a being whose essence is its existence, Thomas goes on to ...
[12]
Thomas Aquinas: De ente et essentia: English
De Ente et Essentia. by. Thomas Aquinas. translated as. Aquinas on Being and Essence a translation and interpretation 1965 adapted and html-edited by Joseph ...
[13]
essence noun - Definition, pictures, pronunciation and usage notes
Word Originlate Middle English: via Old French from Latin essentia, from esse 'be'. ... essence in the Oxford Learner's Dictionary of Academic English. Check ...Missing: etymology | Show results with:etymology
[14]
[PDF] Definition and Essence in Aristotle's Metaphysics vii 4 - PhilArchive
We may take Aristotle's Metaphysics vii 4 as advancing a theory about essence. (to ti en einai) and at least a part of Aristotle's theory of definitions.
[15]
CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Essence and Existence - New Advent
Essence, however, is properly described as that whereby a thing is what it is. Existence is that whereby the essence is an actuality in the line of being.<|control11|><|separator|>
[16]
Locke on Real Essence and Water as a Natural Kind - jstor
everything is water, or at least that everything has its origin in water. That is possibly not quite literally what he meant.1 However, it does seem that he ...
[17]
Plato's Middle Period Metaphysics and Epistemology
Jun 9, 2003 · Thus each Form is separate from every particular instance of it. Moreover, since its essence is predicated of the Form independently from our ...
[18]
Form vs. Matter - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Feb 8, 2016 · Aristotle famously contends that every physical object is a compound of matter and form. This doctrine has been dubbed “hylomorphism”.
[19]
Thomas Aquinas (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Summary of each segment:
[20]
William of Ockham (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
### Summary of Ockham's Nominalism
[21]
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding - Project Gutenberg
This, therefore, being my purpose—to inquire into the original, certainty, and extent of HUMAN KNOWLEDGE, together with the grounds and degrees of BELIEF, ...CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION. · CHAPTER IV. OTHER... · CHAPTER VIII. SOME...
[22]
The Critique of Pure Reason | Project Gutenberg
The Critique of Pure Reason. By Immanuel Kant. Translated by J. M. D. Meiklejohn. Contents. Preface to the First Edition (1781) Preface to the Second Edition ...
[23]
Two Dogmas of Empiricism - DiText
Modern empiricism has been conditioned in large part by two dogmas. One is a belief in some fundamental cleavage between truths which are analytic, or grounded ...
[24]
Simone de Beauvoir The Second Sex, Woman as Other 1949
Every female human being is not necessarily a woman; to be so considered she must share in that mysterious and threatened reality known as femininity.
[25]
Ein-Sof - Jewish Virtual Library
Ein-Sof, meaning 'The Infinite,' is a Kabbalistic term for God's transcendent essence, apart from His relationship to the created world.
[26]
Ein Sof (Kabbalah) | Texts & Source Sheets from Torah, Talmud and ...
In kabbalistic literature, Ein Sof, or the Infinite One, has two meanings. One is the initial stage of creation, what is referred to as the Creator's intent ...
[27]
B'tzelem Elohim, "In God's Image" | Reform Judaism
Oct 14, 2006 · God now said, "Let us make human beings in our image, after our likeness; and let them hold sway over the fish of the sea and the birds of the sky.
[28]
Trinity > History of Trinitarian Doctrines (Stanford Encyclopedia of ...
3.1 Up to 325 CE ... The council also endorsed a statement recently composed by Agatho and a synod at Rome which says about the Trinity, “one is the essence . . .
[29]
The Doctrine of the Trinity at Nicaea and Chalcedon - Stand to Reason
Apr 5, 2013 · The Council of Nicaea affirmed that Jesus was of one substance with the Father and the Spirit; He shares in the divine essence and continued to ...
[30]
General Council of Trent: Thirteenth Session - Papal Encyclicals
General Council of Trent: Thirteenth Session. Council Fathers - 1551 ... On Transubstantiation. And because that Christ, our Redeemer, declared that ...Missing: essence accidents
[31]
Allah (2/4) - Belief - Islamic Shariah - Alukah.net
Feb 13, 2016 · ' God's essence (dhat) cannot be understood by the limited human capacity. A famous statement with regard to the nature of God has dominated ...
[32]
Surah Al-Ikhlas - 1-4 - Quran.com
112:2. الله الصمد ٢. ٱللَّهُ ٱلصَّمَدُ ٢ ; 112:3. لم يلد ولم يولد ٣. لَمْ يَلِدْ وَلَمْ يُولَدْ ٣ ; 112:4. ولم يكن له كفوا احد ٤. وَلَمْ يَكُن لَّهُۥ كُفُوًا أَحَدٌۢ ٤.
[33]
The covenant taken from the sons of Adam is the fitrah - Islam ...
Jan 2, 2017 · If you want to ask about it, then we say to you: It is the fitrah (natural inclination/sound human nature) which is instilled in our souls ...
[34]
SUMMA THEOLOGIAE: The immutability of God (Prima Pars, Q. 9)
I answer that, God alone is altogether immutable; whereas every creature is in some way mutable. Be it known therefore that a mutable thing can be called so in ...
[35]
Immutability - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Mar 28, 2024 · In such “classical theist” writers as Augustine and Aquinas, being immutable makes God atemporally eternal (see, e.g., Aquinas, ST Ia 9–10), and ...
[36]
Personhood in Classical Indian Philosophy (Stanford Encyclopedia ...
Jan 3, 2022 · The concept of ātman (soul, self) as the essence of individual persons and knowledge of that ātman is the central focus in all of the Upanishads ...
[37]
Upanisads - Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
The majority of these texts were composed between the 2nd and 15th centuries CE, although texts referred to as “upaniṣad” have continued to be composed up to ...
[38]
[PDF] Bhagavad Gita 1.1 - Princeton University
269– 232 BCE) and Gupta dynasty (320– 547 CE), as part of a much larger poetic composition, the epic poem Mahabharata.
[39]
6. Svadharma (one's own duty)
Oct 14, 2022 · Svadharma is the duty that is in tune with a person's disposition. The word svabhava means one's own trait-type moulded by one's karmic impressions.
[40]
Śaṅkara - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Oct 4, 2021 · Śaṅkara was a preeminent Advaita Vedāntin, a systematizer of nonduality, and the most authoritative philosopher of Advaita Vedānta.
[41]
Mind in Indian Buddhist Philosophy
Dec 3, 2009 · Buddhist theories of mind center on the doctrine of not-self [1] (Pāli anatta, Skt. [2] anātma), which postulates that human beings are reducible to the ...Missing: Theravada | Show results with:Theravada
[42]
Nāgārjuna - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Feb 10, 2010 · Nāgārjuna (ca 150–250 CE) is the most important Buddhist philosopher after the historical Buddha himself and one of the most original and influential thinkers.
[43]
Linnaeus, the essentialism story, and the question of types - Witteveen
Oct 1, 2020 · According to an influential twentieth-century narrative, Linnaeus's taxonomic endeavors rested on a suspect metaphysical basis of “typological thinking” or “ ...
[44]
[PDF] The Creation of the Essentialism Story - Mary P Winsor
ABSTRACT – The essentialism story is a version of the history of biological classi- fication that was fabricated between 1953 and 1968 by Ernst Mayr, ...
[45]
A Structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid - Nature
The determination in 1953 of the structure of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), with its two entwined helices and paired organic bases, was a tour de force in ...
[46]
The Uncertainty Principle (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Oct 8, 2001 · The uncertainty principle (for position and momentum) states that one cannot assign exact simultaneous values to the position and momentum of a physical system.
[47]
Possible Worlds - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Oct 18, 2013 · Possible world semantics, therefore, explains the intensionality of modal logic by revealing that the syntax of the modal operators prevents an ...Missing: essence | Show results with:essence
[48]
[PDF] NAMING AND NECESSITY Saul A. Kripke - neuroself
According to the view I advocate, then, terms for natural kinds are much closer to proper names than is ordinarily supposed. ... discovery that water is H20.
[49]
Rigid Designators - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Oct 24, 2006 · A rigid designator designates the same object in all possible worlds in which that object exists and never designates anything else.
[50]
Prototypes of Existence and Essence in Camus's The Stranger
The theme of existence versus essence provides an important key in unlocking one of the most significant works of the existentialist movement. Works Cited.
[51]
[PDF] renaissance humanism through william shakespeare's hamle - o ...
Hamlet is a concrete example. Shakespeare writes: “What a piece of work is a man! […] The beauty of the world, the paragon of animals (SHAKESPEARE ...
[52]
Anatomy in the Renaissance - The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Oct 1, 2002 · Italian Renaissance artists became anatomists by necessity, as they attempted to refine a more lifelike, sculptural portrayal of the human figure.Missing: humanism | Show results with:humanism
[53]
Abstract Expressionism Movement Overview - The Art Story
Nov 22, 2011 · The Abstract Expressionists were committed to representing profound emotions and universal themes brought on by the post-war mood of anxiety ...
[54]
There Is No Spoon: The Matrix
The central philosophical interest of The Matrix lies in its exploitation of the classic fear of René Descartes: What if all of life is actually just a dream?
[55]
[PDF] ESSENTIAL OILS
” This essence is the term that describes essential oils; these natural liquids are drawn from the very essence of the plant. The word “quintessential” has ...
[56]
Edward Said and Postcolonial Theory: Disjunctured Identities ... - jstor
Indeed, postcolonial theory develops approaches to studying diversity, hybridity, and diasporic subjects that have become pressing concerns today.