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Wittgenstein on Essence
Author(s) -
Ring Merrill
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
philosophical investigations
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.172
H-Index - 14
eISSN - 1467-9205
pISSN - 0190-0536
DOI - 10.1111/phin.12217
Subject(s) - commit , philosophy , object (grammar) , essentialism , subject (documents) , grammar , epistemology , linguistics , computer science , database , library science
In the Investigations, #s 371 and 373, Wittgenstein said: “Essence is expressed by grammar” and “Grammar tells what kind of object anything is …”. Those passages, which commit Wittgenstein to holding that things have essences and which offer an account of what essences consist in, have been ignored by commentators, chiefly because it is thought that in #65ff (family resemblances) Wittgenstein rejected essentialism. The aim of this paper is to straighten out the story of Wittgenstein's thought on the subject of essence and to show that he produced (somewhat following in Kant's footsteps) a major change in the conception of an essence.