Chimera in the Dusk: Essentialism

The aim of this chapter is to describe very briefly the classical problem of change and to explain that Aristotle’s notion of a term in general, and his “existential import” in particular, reflect an intended solution to it. This solution, I will maintain, is a compromise between concretism (also known in as “nominalism”) and abstractism (also known as “realism” or “Platonism”). Ontologically, concretism is the theory that only individual or concrete entities exist, and abstractism is the theory that abstract entities exist as well (or, as Plato seems to suggest, that only abstract entities really exist). Semantically, they are theories about names. Traditional conceptions of meaning suggested that names mean by having their hooks into things. So, nominalists maintained, meaningful names must name concrete things (like Socrates). And all other names, they said (like, Pegasus and Humanity) are meaningless. Platonists, however, allowed meaningful names to name abstract entities (like ‘Man’ or ‘Humanity’). The two theories are, thus, incompatible (ontologically and semantically). Of necessity, then, Aristotle’s compromise between them is of the highest logical import (for strictly speaking it is suspected of being incoherent). It is known today as (Aristotelian) essentialism.