Necessary Properties and Linnaean Essentialism

Canadian Journal of Philosophy 5 (1):83 - 102 (1975)
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Abstract

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.

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Citations of this work

Species pluralism and anti-realism.Marc Ereshefsky - 1998 - Philosophy of Science 65 (1):103-120.
McGinn and essential properties of natural kinds.Laurance J. Splitter - 1980 - Australasian Journal of Philosophy 58 (1):19 – 25.

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References found in this work

The effect of essentialism on taxonomy—two thousand years of stasis.David L. Hull - 1965 - British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 16 (61):1-18.
Essential attribution.Ruth Barcan Marcus - 1971 - Journal of Philosophy 68 (7):187-202.

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