Essentialism vis-à-vis Possibilia, Modal Logic, and Necessitism
Philosophy Compass 6 (1):54-64 (2011)
Abstract
Pace Necessitism – roughly, the view that existence is not contingent – essential properties provide necessary conditions for the existence of objects. Sufficiency properties, by contrast, provide sufficient conditions, and individual essences provide necessary and sufficient conditions. This paper explains how these kinds of properties can be used to illuminate the ontological status of merely possible objects and to construct a respectable possibilist ontology. The paper also reviews two points of interaction between essentialism and modal logic. First, we will briefly see the challenge that arises against S4 from flexible essential properties; as well as the moves available to block it. After this, the emphasis is put on the Barcan Formula (BF), and on why it is problematic for essentialists. As we will see, Necessitism can accommodate both (BF) and essential properties. What necessitists cannot do at the same time is to continue to understanding essential properties as providing necessary conditions for the existence of individuals; against what might be for some a truism.Author's Profile
DOI
10.1111/j.1747-9991.2010.00363.x
My notes
Similar books and articles
Essential Properties and Individual Essences.Sonia Roca-Royes - 2011 - Philosophy Compass 6 (1):65-77.
Modal Ontology and Generalized Quantifiers.Peter Fritz - 2013 - Journal of Philosophical Logic 42 (4):643-678.
The Essence of Dispositional Essentialism.David Yates - 2013 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 87 (1):93-128.
Essences and natural kinds.Alexander Bird - 2009 - In Robin Le Poidevin (ed.), The Routledge Companion to Metaphysics. Routledge. pp. 497--506.
How Things Might Have Been: Individuals, Kinds, and Essential Properties.Penelope Mackie - 2006 - Oxford University Press.
The Accidental Properties of Numbers and Properties.Harold Noonan & Mark Jago - 2012 - Thought: A Journal of Philosophy 1 (2):134-140.
How Many Angels Can Dance on the Point of a Needle? Transcendental Theology Meets Modal Metaphysics.J. Hawthorne & G. Uzquiano - 2011 - Mind 120 (477):53-81.
Three ways of resisting essentialism about natural kinds.Bence Nanay - 2011 - In J. K. Campbell & M. H. Slater (eds.), Carving Nature at its Joints: Natural Kinds in Metaphysics and Science. MIT Press. pp. 175--97.
Analytics
Added to PP
2011-01-06
Downloads
830 (#9,780)
6 months
54 (#24,253)
2011-01-06
Downloads
830 (#9,780)
6 months
54 (#24,253)
Historical graph of downloads
Author's Profile
Citations of this work
Essential Properties and Individual Essences.Sonia Roca-Royes - 2011 - Philosophy Compass 6 (1):65-77.
An Imaginative Person’s Guide to Objective Modality.Derek Lam - forthcoming - In Amy Kind & Christopher Badura (eds.), Epistemic Uses of Imagination. Routledge.
References found in this work
How Things Might Have Been: Individuals, Kinds, and Essential Properties.Penelope Mackie - 2006 - Oxford University Press.