Essentialism
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In philosophy, Essentialism is a belief that everything has a true essence which can be discovered through the use of reason. The definition of essence varies greatly from philosopher to philosoper. Some possibilities include: a soul, a mind, an idea, or an ideal form.
To distinguish between essential qualities and other qualities, an essential quality is one where the object would no longer be of the same type if the quality was removed.
Plato was an essentialist since he believed in ideal forms of which every object is just a poor copy. This is reflected in his famous parable of the cave.
Karl Popper splits the (ambiguous) term Realism into Essentialism and Realism. He uses Essentialism whenever he means the opposite of Nominalism, and Realism only as opposed to Idealism.
