This volume brings together 12 essays exploring the history of theories of definition and essence in Western philosophy from Aristotle to Kant. Definition and essence have been central to philosophical theorising since antiquity and remain so to this day. This volume presents a series of explorations of key authors and themes connected by a common set of questions: What are definitions and essences? What are the connections between them? What are their logical and metaphysical properties? What sorts of things have definitions and essences and what sorts of things do not? What functions do definitions and essences serve in the physical, mathematical, and human sciences? How, if at all, can we come to know them? This volume shows that answering these questions allows us to see in a new light key figures and movements in the history of Western thought. The volume’s broad historical sweep also facilitates comparisons between different figures. And it reveals important connections between different subfields of philosophy as these were developed over the centuries – logic, metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of language, and natural philosophy among them.

Definition and Essence from Aristotle to Kant will be of interest to scholars and graduate students working in the history of philosophy, history of logic, history of mathematics, epistemology, and metaphysics.

Peter R. Anstey is Professor of Philosophy in the School of Humanities, University of Sydney, Australia. He specialises in early modern philosophy.

David Bronstein is co-director of the Centre for the History of Philosophy and Associate Professor and Senior Research Fellow in the Institute for Ethics and Society, University of Notre Dame Australia. He specialises in ancient Greek and Roman philosophy with a focus on Aristotle.