Gerald Bivens

Projects

Definitions

'antiessentialism'=df

In order to attack that notion [the notion that knowing X is a matter of being related to something intrinsic to X, whereas using X is a matter of standing in an extrinsic, accidental, relation to X], they need to break down the distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic — between the inner core of X and a peripheral area of X which is constituted by the fact that X stands in certain relations to the other items which make up the universe. The attempt to break down this distinction is what I shall call antiessentialism.1

Notes

  1. Richard Rorty, "A World without Substances or Essences," in Philosophy and Social Hope (London: Penguin Books, 1999), Page range.