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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 .
Aristotle (384–322 BC) applied the term essence to that which things in a category have in common and without which they cannot be members of that category (for example, rationality is the essence of man; without rationality a creature cannot be a man).
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]
[28]: 3 [5] For example, it belongs to the essence of a house to keep the bad weather out, which is why it has walls and a roof. Humans are different from houses because—unlike houses—they do not have an inbuilt purpose: they are free to choose their own purpose and thereby shape their essence; thus, their existence precedes their essence.
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 ...
The essence–energy distinction was formulated by Gregory Palamas of Thessaloniki (1296–1359), as part of his defense of the Athonite monastic practice of hesychasmos, the mystical exercise of "stillness" to facilitate ceaseless inner prayer and noetic contemplation of God, against the charge of heresy brought by the humanist scholar and theologian Barlaam of Calabria.
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.
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.