Essentialism

Chapter 1 - Worldview

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Essentialism

Welcome to the Essentialism page

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Essentialism assumes that people and things have natural and essential characteristics that are inherent, innate, and unchanging.

In this view, entities have a set of attributes necessary to their identity and functioning, which sets them apart from other entities. Those attributes are permanent, unalterable, eternal and of a metaphysical kind. They don't need relationships to let them foster.

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Core idea

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Four core criteria constitute essentialist thinking

• The first is the unique causal mechanisms from essence to fulfilment.
• The second is the assumption that an object will fulfil its predetermined course of development.
• The third is that it does not remove its essence despite altering an object's superficial appearance. Observable changes in features of an entity are not salient enough to alter its essential characteristics.
• The fourth suggests that entities share common features but are fundamentally different. However similar two beings maybe, their characteristics will be analogous, differing most importantly in essence.

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Deep dive

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Essentialism vs evolution theory

One of the most important things we have learned from Darwin (but some, alas, still don’t get it), is that essentialism is simply a mistake. There is no mystery about why many resist this verdict: their method, going back to Socrates, demands exceptionless definitions and self-evident axioms, from which deductive consequences can be made to flow. (1)

	Content source
(1)	Darwinian Populations and Natural Selection – D. Dennett - 2011

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Essentialism and religion

Essentialist beliefs, particularly entitativity beliefs (Spencer-Rodgers, Hamilton, & Sherman, 2007), have been associated with increased endorsement of stereotypes (Bastian & Haslam, 2006), increased attention to stereotype consistent information (Bastian & Haslam, 2007), and increased justification of social inequalities (Verkuyten, 2003). (2)

	Content source
(2)	Negin R Toosi - Ratings of Essentialism for Eight Religious Identities - Int J Psychol Relig. - 2011

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