"It's a chronic problem -- the idea that there is a privileged ontological level (the atom or the quark or the gene) and everything else is just illusion, or epiphenomenon, or at best circumlocution for what's happening at the real, privileged causal level.
This habit of mind has a reactionary thrust, I think, though I've never been able to articulate this case in terms that satisfied me."
I'd say the reactionary thrust is implicit in the idea that the right theory of essences will make an acquaintance with pheonomena unnecessary. It also excludes the significance of relationship.
If something is "circumlocutious," you can get it to shut up and not matter without it looking like censorship.
Joanna