According to Essentialism, an object’s properties divide into those that are essential and those that are accidental. While being human is commonly thought to be essential to Socrates, being a philosopher plausibly is not. We can motivate the distinction by appealing—as we just did—to examples. However, it is not obvious how best to characterize the notion of essential property, nor is it easy to give conclusive arguments for the essentiality of a given property. In this (...) paper, I elaborate on these issues and explore the way in which essential properties behave in relation to other related properties, like sufficient-for-existence properties and individual essences. (shrink)

This paper aims to build a bridge between two areas of philosophical research, the structure of kinds and metaphysical modality. Our central thesis is that kinds typically involve super-explanatory properties, and that these properties are therefore metaphysically essential to natural kinds. Philosophers of science who work on kinds tend to emphasize their complexity, and are generally resistant to any suggestion that they have “essences”. The complexities are real enough, but they should not be allowed to obscure the way that (...) kinds are typically unified by certain core properties. We shall show how this unifying role offers a natural account of why certain properties are metaphysically essential to kinds. (shrink)

ABSTRACT In ‘The Pro‐Life Argument from Substantial Identity: A Defence’, Patrick Lee argues that the right to life is an essential property of those that possess it. On his view, the right arises from one's ‘basic’ or ‘natural’ capacity for higher mental functions: since human organisms have this capacity essentially, they have a right to life essentially. Lee criticises an alternative view, on which the right to life arises from one's ‘developed’ capacity for higher mental functions (or development (...) of some other accidental property). I argue that his criticisms of this alternative view are misguided or self‐defeating, and that there are good reasons to hold we have a right to life accidentally rather than essentially. (shrink)

I begin by introducing the ideas of possible worlds, books on worlds, and essential properties. A possible world is a broadly logically possible state of affairs that is maximal. Furthermore, for any possible world W and proposition p, let the book on W be the set S of propositions such that p is a member of S if W entails p. Finally, an object x has property P essentially if and only if x has P and has it (...) in every world in which x exists. I use the above three concepts to give a sound argument for the conclusion that human persons are essentially immaterial. (shrink)

Common sense believes in objects which, if real, routinely lose component parts or particles. Statues get chipped, people undergo haircuts and amputations, and ships have planks replaced. Sometimes philosophers argue that in addition to these objects, there are others which could not possibly lose any of their parts or particles, nor have new ones added to them--objects which could not possibly have been bigger or smaller, at any time, than how they actually were.1 (Sometimes the restriction on size is argued (...) independently of the restriction on switches of parts.2) If these other objects are real at all, they are alarmingly abundant. Exactly where the statue sits, there sits a parcel or piece of clay which would cease to be itself, and hence cease to exist, were even so small a part as the statue's nose removed.3 In exactly the place where the recently reconditioned ship is found, there is a mass of wood which never contained, and never could contain, any particles of wood--or bits of wood-stuff--other than those it now has.4 Moreover, since masses of matter (or "aggregates") can continue to exist even if divided into separate parts, while parcels cannot, the abundance is two-fold: where every parcel is found, there is also a mass.5 But how can there be room for all these additional objects if, at any time, two different objects cannot occupy exactly the same place? Or, worse, if even some of these additional objects are real, how can room remain for familiar objects? Recent treatments of this ancient puzzle have urged that we retain both "the principle of one object to a place" and the other ontological assumptions which make that principle seem to force a choice between affirming the reality of familiar objects, and that of the strangely brittle intruders.6 But all the recent treatments have left standing the reality of at least some of these brittle objects.7 By doing so they have passed up what is, perhaps, the simplest and safest response to the ancient puzzle.. (shrink)

The paper discusses sortal essentialism': the view that some sortal concepts represent essential properties of the things that fall under them. Although sortal essentialism is widely accepted, there is a dearth of theories purporting to explain why some sortals should have this characteristic. The paper examines two theories that do attempt this explanatory task, theories proposed by Baruch Brody and David Wiggins. It is argued that Brody's theory rests on an untenable principle about "de re" modality, while Wiggins' theory (...) appeals to a thesis about principles of individuation that is either unjustified, or vacuous and incapable of supporting sortal essentialism. (shrink)

A novel treatment of an issue central to much current work in metaphysics: the distinction between the essential and accidental properties of individuals. Mackie challenges widely held views, and arrives at what she calls "minimalist essentialism," an unorthodox theory according to which ordinary individuals have relatively few interesting essential properties. Mackie's clear and accessible discussions of issues surrounding necessity and essentialism mean that the book will appeal as much to graduate students as it will to seasoned metaphysicians.

Foreword -- Acknowledgements -- Preface -- 1. Introduction -- 2. The concept of Dharma in Purvamīmāmsā -- 3. Dharma as in Buddhism and Jainism -- 4. Dharma as in Mahabharata -- 5. Dharma : the essential properties of man -- 6. Some problems along with critical remarks -- Bibliography -- Index.

Of the three kinds of essential property those individuals may be thought to possess — essential physical characteristics, substance-type, and origin — it is the third, origin, that has been the most active subject of debate in recent years. As with many other philosophical debates over the last twenty-five years, the discussion of origins began with Kripke. Kripke asks, how could a person originating from a different sperm and egg from the one she actually came from, _be_ (...) that person? The implication is that she could not, and that it is consequently essential, for every person _x_, that _x_ should originate from the very sperm and egg that _x_ actually originates from. (shrink)

Alvin Plantinga defends Theological Compatibilism (TC) and Essential- ism about property possession (E). TC is the claim that human freedom to act otherwise and God’s essential omniscience are compatible, while E is the claim that every individual entity whatsoever has a modal profile consisting in having both essential and accidental properties. I purport to show that, if E is assumed in the argument for TC, then the latter leads to a very puzzling upshot. I also intend (...) to show that, even if TC is suitably fixed in order to avoid that upshot, TC is still unconvincing in that it merges into one the de re and the de dicto rendering of ‘human freedom to act otherwise’; I end up by briefly sketching why the two renderings should instead be kept well apart. (shrink)

Having rejected the standard views about the essential properties of ordinary individuals, this chapter confronts the question whether such individuals have any interesting essential properties at all. It defends a version of ‘extreme haecceitism’, also known as ‘minimalist essentialism’, according to which ordinary individuals have relatively few interesting essential properties. According to this theory, many properties that might be assumed to be essential properties of ordinary individuals are not, strictly speaking, essential, but rather ‘tenacious’ or (...) ‘quasi-essential’, where this implies that the possibility that the thing should lack the property is so remote as normally to be ignored in the context of counterfactual speculation. It is argued that the appearance of conflict between this version of extreme haecceitism and our intuitions may largely be dispelled, partly by appeal to the fact that in many contexts in which we make _de re_ modal claims, we restrict ourselves to what all theorists must acknowledge to be a limited subset of the full range of _de re_ possibilities. It is also argued that extreme haecceitism need not undermine the role played by an appeal to essential properties in various philosophical arguments, such as the debate between psychological and biological theorists concerning personal identity and a standard form of argument that appeals to modal distinctions, in order to establish the numerical distinctness of coincident entities. (shrink)

Bloom argues that concepts depend on psychological essentialism. He rejects the proposal that concepts are based on perceptual similarity spaces because it cannot account for how we handle new properties and does not fit with our intuitions about essences. I argue that by using a broader notion of similarity space, it is possible to explain these features of concepts.

The two opinions concerning real essences that Locke mentions in III.iii.17 represent competing theories about the way in which naturally occurring objects are divided into species. In this paper I explain what these competing theories amount to, why he denies the theory of kinds that is embodied in the first of these opinions, and how this denial is related to his general critique of essentialism. I argue first, that we cannot meaningfully ask whether Locke accepts the existence of natural kinds, (...) per se, since he affirms the theory of kinds that is embodied in the second opinion, while he denies the theory that is embodied in the first opinion. Second, I show that his denial of this theory is not solely or even primarily directed against the scholastic/Aristotelian theory of substantial forms, since he is most interested in refuting a corpuscularian version of this theory. And third, I argue that Locke’s anti-essentialism does not follow solely from his denial of (deeply objective) natural kinds, since one could consistently make this denial and affirm the existence of de re essential properties. (shrink)

본 논문은 양상 인식론에서의 합리주의가 개별자의 본질에 대한 지식을 해명할 수 없다는 소니아 로카-로이즈(Sonia Roca-Royes)의 주장을 비판적으로 평가한다. 이를 위해 합리주의가 형이상학적 필연성과 가능성에 대한 지식을 해명하기 위해 본질에 대한 지식을 우선 해명해야 한다는 점을 1절에서 설명한다. 2절에서는 양상성이 적재된 개념으로부터 개별자의 본질에 대한 지식이 획득될 수 없다는 로카-로이즈의 주장을 합리주의에 대한 비판으로 제시한다. 3절에서는 이러한 비판을 수용하더라도 여전히 개별자의 본질에 대한 지식이 개념으로부터 획득될 수 있음을 보인다. 구체적으로는 양상성이 적재되지 않은 개념으로부터 초설명적 속성을 통해 본질에 대한 일반적 원리를 도출할 (...) 수 있고 이는 개별자의 본질에 대한 지식을 허용한다는 점이 논증된다. 마지막으로 4절에서 본고는 로카-로이즈의 비판이 갖는 한계와 합리주의에서 개념분석이 갖는 중요성을 언급하면서 글을 마무리한다. (shrink)

This chapter examines versions of so-called ‘sortal essentialism’. This is the view that some sortal concepts (roughly, concepts that provide criteria of identity or principles of individuation) represent essential properties of the things to which they apply. This chapter argues against Baruch Brody’s version of sortal essentialism, which appeals to a version of an ‘overlap requirement’ on _de re_ possibilities, in order to argue that substance sortals — sortal concepts that must apply to an object throughout its existence if (...) they apply to it at all — are essential sortals. (shrink)

This chapter examines David Wiggins’s version of sortal essentialism, which relies on the EPI thesis, that a thing’s principle of individuation is essential to it in order to derive the result that certain sortals (‘ultimate sortals’) are essential sortals. It argues that the attempt to defend sortal essentialism by appeal to EPI faces a dilemma: either the thesis is vacuous, and lends no support to sortal essentialism, or it is a substantial thesis, but one that we have no (...) good reason to accept. It concludes that even if it is true that, for any given individual, there are some sorts or kinds to which it could _not_ have belonged, there is insufficient reason to believe the sortal essentialist’s explanation that this is because there is some sortal kind to which it belongs essentially. (shrink)

David Lewis may be regarded as an antiessentialist. The reason is that he is said to believe that individuals do not have essential properties independent of the ways they are represented. According to him, indeed, the properties that are determined to be essential to individuals are a matter of which similarity relations among individuals are salient, and salience, in turn, is a contextual matter also determined to some extent by the ways individuals are represented. Todd Buras argues that (...) the acknowledgment of natural properties in counterpart theoretic ontology affects Lewis’s theory with regard to essentialism. Buras’s reasoning is appealing. He claims that, since natural properties determine the existence of similarity relations among individuals that are salient independent of context, Lewis can no longer be claimed to be an antiessentialist. The aim of this paper is to argue, against Buras, that if counterpart theory was antiessentialist before natural properties were taken into account, then it remains so afterwards. (shrink)

The distinction between essential versus accidental properties has been characterized in various ways, but it is currently most commonly understood in modal terms: an essential property of an object is a property that it must have, while an accidental property of an object is one that it happens to have but that it could lack. Let’s call this the basic modal characterization, where a modal characterization of a notion is one that explains the notion in (...) terms of necessity/possibility. In the characterization just given of the distinction between essential and accidental properties, the use of the word “must” reflects the fact that necessity is invoked, while the use of the word “could” reflects that possibility is invoked. The notions of necessity and possibility are interdefinable: to say that something is necessary is to say that its negation is not possible; to say that something is possible is to say that its negation is not necessary; to say that an object must have a certain property is to say that it could not lack it; and to say that an object could have a certain property is to say that it is not the case that it must lack it. (shrink)

Dispositional essentialism maintains that all sparse properties are essentially powerful. Two conceptions of sparse properties appear compatible with dispositional essentialism: sparse properties as pure powers or as powerful qualities. This paper compares the two views, criticizes the powerful qualities view, and then develops a new theory of pure powers, termed Point Theory. This theory neutralizes the main advantage powerful qualities appear to possess over pure powers—explaining the existence of powers during latency periods. The paper discusses the relation between powers and (...) space-time points, whether pure powers need to occupy space, and how to account for the movement of pure powers through space-time. Given Point Theory, dispositional essentialists should maintain that sparse properties are pure powers. (shrink)

Quine's arguments against the attribution of essential properties de re to individuals have been the motivation for attempts at reinstating essentialism as a respectable metaphysical thesis and at defending the coherence of modal logic in general.I shall argue here along somewhat different lines, that the particular version of essentialism Quine objects to is in fact untenable but that this conclusion is far from entailing a commitment to some version of conventionalism, and in particular that it does not entail the (...) view that the only kind of necessity that is coherent is de dicto necessity.In what follows, I shall assume, without arguing for it, that de re essentialism and subjunctive conditionals are intimately related, and in particular, that any version of de re essentialism which conflicts with our basic intuitions about subjunctive conditionals is untenable. (shrink)

This paper argues that the following three popular doctrines are in tension with one another: (i) property essentialism, the view that at least some properties have essences; (ii) the canonical reduction of modality to essence, due to Fine; and (iii) Aristotelianism, the view that properties cannot exist uninstantiated. I consider the different ways in which the Aristotelian might respond to the tension I raise, and I show that each of them has a metaphysically interesting upshot. I also suggest that (...) none of the Aristotelian’s possible responses is prima facie preferable to Platonism, the view that properties can exist uninstantiated, and that Aristotelianism is less plausible overall than ETM or property essentialism. I tentatively conclude, then, that my arguments make a case that the property essentialist—and, more tentatively, the property realist—should embrace Platonism over Aristotelianism. My primary aim in doing so, however, is not to definitively argue for Platonism, but more modestly to raise a challenge to the Aristotelian that has not yet appeared in the literature on properties. (shrink)

In this chapter, I discuss the distinction between essential and accidental properties from a contemporary perspective. I first distinguish between the modal notion and the Aristotelian notion of essence. I present various ways of cashing out the modal notion, and then I turn to the Aristotelian notion, which has been at the centre of metaphysical enquiry over the past thirty years or so. I present and discuss simple modal accounts of that notion, then sophisticated accounts and finally non-modal accounts. (...) In the very last part of the chapter, I briefly go through various topics: individual essences; the question of what is essential to what; the use of essence in the characterisation of other notions; so-called generic essence and other generalizations of the standard, objectual notion of essence; and finally, scepticism and anti-realism about essence. (shrink)

There are three outstanding issues raised by my critics in this volume. The first concerns the nature and status of universals (John Heil). The second is ‘the essential problem’, which is the issue of how to distinguish the essential properties of natural kinds from their accidental ones, and the related question of whether we really need to believe in the essences of natural kinds (Stephen Mumford). The third is that of strong versus weak dispositional essentialism (Alexander Bird), or (...) equivalently, whether there is any place for categorical properties in an essentialist metaphysic (John Heil). This paper addresses these three issues. (shrink)

David Lewis advised essentialists to judge his counterpart theory a false friend. He also argued that counterpart theory needs natural properties. This essay argues that natural properties are all essentialists need to find a true friend in counterpart theory. Section one explains why Lewis takes counterpart theory to be anti-essentialist and why he thinks it needs natural properties. Section two establishes the connection between the natural properties counterpart theory needs and the essentialist consequences Lewis disavows. Section three answers two objections: (...) the first attempts to block the consequences of adding natural properties to counterpart theory; the second grants the consequences, but denies that they amount to essentialism. –Correspondence to: [email protected]. (shrink)

Properties seem to play an important role in causal relations. But philosophers disagree over whether or not properties play their causal or nomic roles essentially. Causal essentialists say that they do, while quidditists deny it. This article surveys these two views, as well as views that try to find a middle ground.

It is widely accepted that if a property is essential then it is necessary. Against this I present numerous counterexamples from biology and chemistry, which fall into two groups: (I) A property is essential to a genus or species, yet some instances of this genus or species do not have this essential property. (II) A property is essential to a genus, yet some species of this genus do not have this essential (...) property. I discuss and reject four minor objections. Then I discuss in depth whether a distinction between constitutive essence and consequential essence is able to handle these counterexamples. I conclude that this distinction is better put as one between (1) the essence, which is necessary, and (2) the essential properties, which are not formally necessary. An essence of an object X is the substantial universal expressed by its real definition. An object X has a property P essentially iff the property P is explanatory and non-trivial, and P follows from the essence of X. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that Psychological Essentialism (PE), the view that essences are a heuristic or mental shortcut, is a better explanation for modal intuitions than Metaphysical Essentialism (ME), the view that objects have essences, or more precisely, that (at least some) objects have (at least some) essential properties. If this is correct, then the mere fact that we have modal intuitions is not a strong reason to believe that objects have essential properties.

Scientific Essentialism defends the view that the fundamental laws of nature depend on the essential properties of the things on which they are said to operate, and are therefore not independent of them. These laws are not imposed upon the world by God, the forces of nature or anything else, but rather are immanent in the world. Ellis argues that ours is a dynamic world consisting of more or less transient objects which are constantly interacting with each other, and (...) whose identities depend on their roles in these processes. Natural objects must behave as they do, because to do otherwise would be contrary to their natures. The laws of nature are, therefore, metaphysically necessary, and consequently, there are necessary connections between events. Brian Ellis calls for the rejection of the theory of Humean Supervenience and an implementation of a new kind of realism in philosophical analysis. (shrink)

Traditional Christology maintains that Christ was a single divine person with two natures (human and divine). According to kenotic Christology, certain divine properties such as omniscience and omnipotence were divested in order for Christ to acquire essential human properties. However, such a view appears to conflict with perfect-being theology, which takes omniscience and omnipotence to be essential properties for being divine. I propose a view that adopts a Thomistic theory of essences in order to show that there need (...) be no conflict, and hence Christ can give up the property of being omniscient while still being essentially omniscient. (shrink)