Perhaps I'm a bit biased, but hasn't the stigma re: spookiness, sorcery, divination, etc. sort of gone by the wayside? There's been a huge revitalization in interest surrounding the notion of essence that would have been anathema not so long ago. And personally I don't think our intuitions surrounding essence are any less well-founded than the egalitarian intuition that underwrites virtually all of contemporary political philosophy (indeed, I think it is probably more defensible). At any rate, I'm not sure how attempting to understand the natures of things is any more obscure than trying to characterize justice.
