 Vaidya (2010) has proposed an account of our knowledge of essence that is influenced by Husserl’s (1973) method of eidetic variation, according to which we get access to the essence of an object by varying its features in imagination. If a feature is seen to be invariant, then it is an essence. In contrast to other essentialists discussed here, Vaidya explicitly targets understanding and not knowledge of essence. (Following Kvanvig 2009, Vaidya takes understanding [but not knowledge] to be compatible with epistemic luck.) Taking Husserl’s ideas only as a point of departure, Vaidya holds that we can gain understanding of the essence of some object \(x\) by varying properties of \(x\) in our imagination. Of those properties that are invariant over the multiplicity of variations, we judge that they are essential to \(x\). (See Wallner forthcoming for a discussion of Husserl’s epistemology of essence in contrast to that of Lowe and Hale, and Michels (2020) for a critical discussion of Vaidya.)