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Essence (Latin: essentia) has various meanings and uses for different thinkers and in different contexts. It is used in philosophy and theology as a designation for the property or set of properties or attributes that make an entity the entity it is or, expressed negatively, without which it would lose its identity .
To give an example: the ideal form of a circle is a perfect circle, something that is physically impossible to make manifest; yet the circles we draw and observe clearly have some idea in common—the ideal form. Plato proposed that these ideas are eternal and vastly superior to their manifestations, and that we understand these manifestations ...
The proposition that existence precedes essence (French: l'existence précède l'essence) is a central claim of existentialism, which reverses the traditional philosophical view that the essence (the nature) of a thing is more fundamental and immutable than its existence (the mere fact of its being). [1]
The paradigm examples of essence-existence composites are material substances like cats or trees. Aquinas incorporates Aristotle's distinction between matter and form by holding that the essence of material things, as opposed to the essence of immaterial things like angels, is the composition of their matter and form.
For example, there are countless tables in the world but the Form of tableness is at the core; it is the essence of all of them. [13] Plato's Socrates held that the world of Forms is transcendent to our own world (the world of substances) and also is the essential basis of reality.
In Christian theology, the concept of θεία ουσία (divine essence) is one of the most important doctrinal concepts, central to the development of trinitarian doctrine. [1] The Ancient Greek term θεία ουσία (theia ousia; divine essence) was translated in Latin as essentia or substantia, and hence in English as essence or ...
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Existence precedes essence. The subjective existence of reality precedes and defines its nature. Who you are (your essence) is defined by what you do (your existence). Facticity (facticité): Broadly, facts about the world. More precisely, the For-itself's necessary connection with the In-itself, with the world and its own past.