P.S.: To the extent that Objectivism regards "essence" as merely "epistemological," it is flirting with idealism, which conditions everything on the act of knowing (which is part of the subject matter of epistemology), not on the presupposition that things exist independently of our knowing them (the realist position).
“P.S.: To the extent that Objectivism regards “essence” as merely “epistemological,” it is flirting with idealism.”
So if I put a straight string of dots on a piece of paper and you label it “a line”, you needed divine intervention to identifying that “essence”?
I know it’s simple, but that’s an example of concept formation, one that then build upon its own conclusions to form letters, literature etc... It’s no more complicated than that.