I’m not sure why you think reductionism eliminates essences, rather than finding more fundamental ones and pointing them out with greater precision. What definition of “essence” are you using in this post?
EDIT: XiXiDu already asked essentially the same question.
EDIT 2: How did this comment get onto the wrong article? It belongs here.
In a sense, it does find more fundamental ones, but I don’t think this is a good way of thinking about it. I’ve suggested elsewhere that what typically gets labeled “non-reductionism” is really basically a form of “greedy reductionism”—essences add, in some sort of pretty much linear fashion. But real things aren’t typically just collections of fundamental things, with their properties summed up; they’re patterns in the interactions of these things (not just collections of particles!), and understanding their properties requires understanding these interactions.
I’m not sure why you think reductionism eliminates essences, rather than finding more fundamental ones and pointing them out with greater precision. What definition of “essence” are you using in this post?
EDIT: XiXiDu already asked essentially the same question.
EDIT 2: How did this comment get onto the wrong article? It belongs here.
In a sense, it does find more fundamental ones, but I don’t think this is a good way of thinking about it. I’ve suggested elsewhere that what typically gets labeled “non-reductionism” is really basically a form of “greedy reductionism”—essences add, in some sort of pretty much linear fashion. But real things aren’t typically just collections of fundamental things, with their properties summed up; they’re patterns in the interactions of these things (not just collections of particles!), and understanding their properties requires understanding these interactions.