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Essentialism

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Paradigms in Theory Construction
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Abstract

While essentialism originally was uniquely rhetorical in philosophy, based on arguments rather than evidence, in the last generation essentialism has been the subject of a great deal of psychological research. This research raises serious questions about essentialism actually being considered as a theory rather than as a paradigm. Therefore, essentialism may have started as a paradigm, at least in philosophy, but has emerged as an influential psychological theory worthy of inclusion in this volume.

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Correspondence to Luciano L’Abate .

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L’Abate, L. (2012). Essentialism. In: L'Abate, L. (eds) Paradigms in Theory Construction. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-0914-4_22

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