ABSTRACT
The view that there are essential properties which define what something is, and without which it could not be what it is. One form of essentialism ascribes these properties in virtue of a definition being given. For example, an essentialist of this kind would hold that there are certain essential properties which define what the term ‘gold’ refers to (a particular atomic weight, colour, properties of hardness, malleability, etc.). In turn, any piece of gold must have those properties which are included within the definition of ‘gold’ in order to be designated as real gold. Whether or not adoption of this view commits one to holding that these properties must exist in reality prior to the act of naming an object, so that a definition, if it is true is a priori true (see Lyotard’s criticism of essentialism in The Differend: Phrases in Dispute (1988), section 88) is perhaps an open question.
