Real Essentialism( Series - Routledge Studies In Contemporary Philosophy )

Real Essentialism defends the metaphysical position that everything in the world has an essence or nature that fixes its identity. Although a traditional view in philosophy, defended most famously by Aristotle, scepticism about and hostility to the notion of essence in modern and contemporary philosophy is a commonplace. Recent work in logic and philosophy of language has given essentialism a new life, but Real Essentialism argues that it has still not been given the contemporary defence it requires. It sets out a full theory of essence and applies it to such questions as the nature of species, the nature of life and the essence of the person.