Essentialism Across Disciplines: A Multidimensional Inquiry into its Philosophical, Psychological, Educational, Social, and Scientific Foundations

Abstract

The study provides a thorough analysis of the essentialism theory and its various manifestations in the fields of philosophy, psychology, education, society, and science. The paper makes the case that essentialist thought endures in both overt and covert ways across disciplines by drawing on more recent empirical and conceptual work on psychological essentialism and domain-specific applications, as well as classical metaphysical treatments of "essence," or the collection of characteristics that make a thing what it fundamentally is. In philosophy, for example, essentialism maintains that entities have immutable cores; in psychology, the idea of psychological essentialism implies that people intuitively believe that categories of things and people have hidden essences; in education, the philosophy of essentialism emphasizes a core curriculum of foundational knowledge; group-based categorization is shaped by socially essentialist assumptions; and natural-kind theories are supported by scientific essentialist stances. (Sahin, 2018, p. 2) The study aims to map the similarities and differences of essentialist frameworks by interacting with these threads in an interdisciplinary manner. It does this by examining how essentialist frameworks function, the circumstances in which they thrive, and the criticisms that they face.

            Essentialism is an approach that makes the assumption that things and individuals have fundamental, innate, and unalterable qualities. It is therefore recognized as a philosophy of education. However, having the same essence and the same basics at the same levels might also result in undesirable behaviors in real life. A philosophy is a set of views about reality based on how we view ourselves and others in terms of our existence, and even nouns and pronouns used in everyday speech have some implications of this. The paper aims to demonstrate how essentialism serves as the foundation for our everyday interactions and how it influences our efforts to discriminate and unite in the social, cultural, and scientific spheres. Essentialism in education holds that all citizens should receive instruction at the same level, particularly in primary school, in common and fundamental concepts and abilities that are specific to a given culture.