intrinsèque

Intrinsèque is a French adjective meaning belonging to or inherent in the essential nature of something. It describes aspects that are internal or constitutive, as opposed to extrinsèque aspects that depend on context, external conditions, or observers. The term is commonly used in philosophy, science, and everyday language to distinguish what is intrinsic from what is contingent or external.

In philosophy and ethics, valeur intrinsèque refers to value something has in itself, independently of usefulness or consequences. This notion is central to debates about whether experiences like pleasure, beauty, or life possess intrinsic value, as opposed to being valuable only for what they can produce or achieve. The distinction between intrinsic and instrumental goods also appears in discussions of ethics and well-being.

In science and mathematics, intrinsic describes properties that do not depend on external factors. For an object, intrinsic properties include chemical composition and density, while extrinsic properties depend on location or environment, such as position or velocity. In geometry, curvature can be intrinsic (depending only on distances measured along the surface) or extrinsic (depending on how the surface sits in surrounding space). The concept helps separate internal characteristics from those that arise from an object's relation to its surroundings.

Etymology traces intrinsecus, from Latin meaning inward. In French, intrinsèque is often contrasted with extrinsèque and is widely used in technical, academic, and everyday discourse to denote inherent, internal, or essential qualities.