 As noted in the preceding section, Feuerbach’s espousal of sensuousness coincides with a movement toward nominalism that is reflected in a shift of emphasis from the human species to the individual human being in his later works on religion. One way that this shift shows itself is in a striking change in Feuerbach’s estimation of egoism. Among the many issues that remain unclear in Feuerbach’s later writings is what the expression “human essence” can mean for him once he has abandoned the species-ontology of his earlier writings and declared himself a nominalist. That pivotal question aside, it is at least clear that in Principles, and in his later writings on ethics, Feuerbach continues to emphasize the importance of inter-subjectivity and of the I-Thou relationship, but that these are no longer conceived in idealistic terms, as they had been in his earlier writings, including his doctoral dissertation, where he spoke of thought as a species-activity in which the individual thinking subject participates. In his later writings on ethics Feuerbach continues to affirm that human beings are essentially communal and dialogical beings, both with respect to our cognitive and linguistic capacities, and with respect to the range of moral sentiments we experience toward one another, but the communality in which the human essence is manifested is now said to be one that presupposes a real, “sensible” distinction between I and Thou.