Essence (n.) is wrongheadedly thought such that each man is a particular example of a universal conception, the conception of man.
Essence (n.) precedes existence only in manufactured things: the paperknife is conceived before it is made, and man is not a paperknife.
Essence (n.) is already in use whenever we sort facts: without implicit recourse to the essence of emotion we could not even pick out the facts of emotion.
Essence (n.) is not hidden by appearance but is the appearance: no property sunk in the thing's cavity, but the manifest law of its series of appearances.
Essence (n.) and fact are incommensurable: whoever begins with the facts will never reach the essences — no heap of counting-behaviours yields the essence of number.
Essence (n.) is, in man, wrongheadedly discussed like the essence of a paper-knife which is necessarily preceded by a conception and procedure, serving as an example of a universal conception.