# Being Before Essence **URL:** \ **Category:** Metaphysics & Epistemology\ **Created:** [July 8, 2026, 4:51am UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/being-before-essence/1674 "2026-07-08T04:51:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 4
**Author:** ![Johnathanrs](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Johnathanrs](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/u/Johnathanrs)\ **Post date:** [July 23, 2026, 3:24am UTC](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/being-before-essence/1674/4 "2026-07-23T03:24:52Z")
Usually only the author can provide feedback like this, but this is my interpretion. A) human language simplifies reality by finding what things share in common at the expense of its uniqueness. B) existence comes before essence. The thing in question didnt create itself. It has to exist first. Labels help define its traits (the.essence.of what.it.is) C) existence is being different than everything else. At the deepest level of abstraction, no two things are alike.(If we categorize two trees, tree a and tree b, we know what trees are. By providing it this name, we lose the true reality of what makes tree a and b unique from one another. What is a and what is b?) D) things exist and are in a state of pure being long before human language plays a role. Its existence isnt bound to your identifier/name or construct that you have abstracted. E) identifers/names freeze also what is changing. True is continous. Tree a and b is sheding atoms and is always in a state of change. Overall, were trying to understand is why it is or why does it exists, its ontology, rather than what it is by abstracting it and turning it into a mental construct that meets whatever standard through human language. This matters for certain fields. If we go into a virtual world and look at a virtual tree, we can capture the essence of what it is, but not the being, as it would not exist on its own. It is spiritually hollow and has no existance only essence. The rest of the authors talk is about applying the theory into real world expressions found on tweets identified from social media. In one of the examples, you are weaving this framework back into the non-binary analysis, for example, a physical object is trapped as a passive thing (in-itself), a human being has consciousness (for-self). Therefore, a human can actively reject a fixed label, whereas a rock cannot and so on. Finally, I noticed that this was posted in metaphysics instead of language category. The arguments provided break down when you start bridging other schools of thought like idealism, whereas the framework is sound if left outside of it. --- _[View the full topic](https://www.thephilosophyforum.com/t/being-before-essence/1674)._