The background
essentialist metaphysics explains why it's metaphysically necessary that, if x has some sui generis normative property, x has some natural property that is involved in the essence of whatever hybrid properties ground it.
Taylor notes that 'the nation state played a central role in the maintenance of fixed and stable political cultures and stable identities around universal and
essentialist categories.
Smith mocks the illusion of the "pleasant libertarian land of the free" (WT 465), disclosing that both the white English society and the migrant hold an
essentialist understanding of identity that attribute a set of inherent characteristics and core qualities to categories of identity, culture, and nation.
still prevail in Germany" (Littler 221) and that there is "a general tendency" in Germany to conceive of the concept of culture "in
essentialist terms" (Yildiz 252).
Is one of the above-mentioned criteria--
essentialist, relational, pragmatic--more decisive than the others?
The
essentialist view hides from us the dark view that "nobody wins the war against death.
Schocket labels Gordon Wood, one of the most famous historians of the founding, an
essentialist because he fights against the politicization of history and rejects the contention that there are as many valid histories as there are historical perspectives.
However,
essentialist thinking is not always accurate.
An
essentialist is able to explore widely, ask tough and searching questions, and then select carefully very few things, based on deep understanding and conviction.
Following his lucid and smart directions will help readers find "the way of the
essentialist.
1) This focus on the nature of the human person, rooted as it is in the Christian appropriation of Hellenistic philosophical traditions, can rightly be described as
essentialist.
In particular, she offers an intervention into the age-old debate between
essentialist and anti-
essentialist philosophers that goes back to Plato and Aristotle, ultimately making the case for a "sexed spirogenetic model" of essence.
