“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.
I don't think of a straight string of dots as finding its "essence" in a straight line (sounds kinda metaphysical to me...). This suggests that dot strings find their "fulfillment" in the line. ("Analog" would be a better word than "fulfillment" here, IMHO.) Whatever the case, sometimes our problem requires that we think in terms of dots (points), and sometimes in terms of line. Thus the two are non-equivalent, and not in a condition where one's essence lies in or depends on the other. Point and line have meanings of their own, and typically are associated with different dimensions; point, zero dimensions; line, one dimension.
If you're interested in concept formation, I'd recommend Kant's Critique of Pure Reason (See, e.g., his remarks on synthetic a priori concepts), and not the Objectivist literature.
How come you slipped "divine intervention" into this piece? Just because I'm Christian? I feel reasonably sure that God is confident that the gift of reason He indued in me from creation is sufficient for me to handle problems like this.