I've seen a lot of posts still assuming "reality" or some placeholder--"consciousness", "meaning" (metaphysical, logical, internal, behavioral, scientific, etc.)--as if Kant hadn't already made a sufficient argument that we can't know the Thing-In-Itself (though he thought we could, through rationality, accomplish the same goal without an objective world). Separately, in a discussion about Wittgenstein's ("Witt")'s quote about understanding lions, I discuss why we postulate such a quality to our world (or to rationality)--for certainty, universality, e.g, something fixed--in that case, in order to remove ourselves from the responsibility for the Other in the face of the limits of knowledge (wanna argue with that, go there).

If you grant me these premises (that there is no Thing-In-Itself, and that our desire for certainty is misguided), must we give up the "essence" of the world?

Witt points out that "Essence is expressed by Grammar." #371. (Italics in original.)

Now, again, this isn't that "Grammar"=essence, or that certainty, etc., is now provided by Grammar (Forms of Life, social agreement, etc.). So what is the essence of something if it isn't to ensure meaning, or communication, or moral agreement? Well, first, imagine it isn't a singular, constant quality, like people believe about "existence". Grammar is Witt's term for all the ways things work: differentiate from others, their consequences, our expectations; the standards used to judge when an action is done correctly, when an object fits into a category, etc.

Now, the reason we have all these variations of criteria is because they come from our interests, what we care about. To say what is essential to us is expressed by Grammar, is to say what matters to us about something is reflected in what counts for us that it is that thing.

So our philosophical quest for the essence of a thing turns out to be a search for what is important to us about it. Aren't these (essentially) the same thing? And this is still an analytical endeavor, but the investigation of our concepts (good, knowledge, intention) are not for the goal of finding one point to ensure their (or all) application, but to draw out the ways they express what we desire and need.