Essentialism

From Geography

The essentialism is an approach in the Human Geography that means that every entity has his own characterics. These characterics makes the entity to what it in essence means. All objects like a car, house, human being, spoon ore an train have characterisics that make the objects to what they are.

Without these essential characterics the object has not the definition that makes the object to what is should be. Also in Human Geography are characteristics that make difference between different people, spaces and time. The difference between people are determined by the biology. All bodies are different what means that different characteristics of the bodies. Without organs there is no human being and without an engine there is no car.

So, essentialism is the philosophy that for every entity there is a bundle of characteristiscs for him. These characteristics are given to him by nature, it is not that he adopted him, but they are given to him. This vision is exactly the opposite from existentialism, which says entities only can become by adopting.

Essentialism says everything an object needs must be present. If this isn't, it loses its identity, like a heart in the human body. Without a heart you can't call yourself human being.

Essentialism came under scrutiny and criticism in the mid to late 20th century by Richard Rorty. Since then the viewpoint that human nature is eternal and unchangeable has been critized by Karl Marx and Martin Heidegger as both were known for their existentialism thinking, which opposes essentialism.

Essentialism has three main points of critique:

1. Epistemological essentialism tries to discover the true nature or essence of things. The underlying assumption is that all things have a single essence and that it is possible to gain knowledge of all these essences. Richard Rorty "repudiates this sense of essentialism, arguing that it depends on a correspondence theory of truth that offsets reality and representation" (Gregory et al., 2009, p. 210)

2. Social sciences are fallibilistic, and should not try to claim absolute truth (I did not fully understand the first part of the point that Gregory et al. (p. 210) make here. Maybe someone else can improve this part)

3. Essentialism assumes that identities, whether it be sexual, national, political or otherwise, are premised on unifying, shared dimensions of experience, embodiment or social position. The critique is that these identities are constructed socially and spatially and are relational and historically contingent.

References:

Gregory, D., Johnston, R., Pratt, G., Watts, M. & Whatmore, S. (2009). The dictionary of human geography. Wiley-Blackwell

Pollmann T, 1999, De letteren als wetenschap, Amsterdam, Amsterdam University Press. http://books.google.nl/books?id=_goNHAE81WIC&pg=PA48&lpg=PA48&dq=definitie+van+essentialisme&source=bl&ots=uuXuXEQAoB&sig=9M4tQxdXbcZyZqRQQ217soZSA94&hl=nl&ei=EkO0TJCdDYTrOZbfoJMK&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=7&ved=0CC0Q6AEwBjgK#v=onepage&q=definitie%20van%20essentialisme&f=false

Zierhofer, W. (2002). Speech acts and space(s): Language pragmatics and the discursive constitution of the social. Environment and Planning,34,1355-1372

Published by Sonny Joziasse & Benny Jansen & Robbert Vossers Edited BY:--SamanthaHazlett 14:41, 20 October 2011 (CEST) Also edited by Fenki Evers & Anton de Hoogh