The belief in essences is called essentialism. It presupposes that certain categories—sadness and fear, dogs and cats, African and European Americans, men and women, good and evil—each have a true reality or nature. Within each category, the members are thought to share a deep, underlying property (an essence) that causes them to be similar, even if they have some superficial differences. There are many varieties of dog with differences in size, shape, color, gait, temperament, and so on, but these differences are considered superficial with regard to some essence that all dogs share. A dog is
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