It is singularly unfortunate that Husserl, who conscientiously avoided use of terminology with long and varied philosophical histories, should choose the notion "essence" as a central concept in his philosophy. In the Introduction to Ideen, he comments that "its equivocations are harmless." But this is far from true regarding the disastrous effects of his own use of the notion. His talk of "essential Being" and "essences as objects of knowledge" has generated such antagonism among American philosophers that the formulation of an acceptable interpretation of Husserl's philosophy has become an almost thankless task. While most of his supporters remain content to give their endorsement to the insistence that philosophy must concern itself only with essences and the Being of essences, Husserl's detractors have not found it difficult to dismiss all talk of "essences" as an unwelcome remnant of a paradigm of philosophy long out-moded.