Intrinsic properties

Philosophical Studies 83 (1):1 - 27 (1996)
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Abstract

An intrinsic property, as David Lewis puts it, is a property "which things have in virtue of the way they themselves are", as opposed to an extrinsic property, which things have "in virtue of their relations or lack of relations to other things".1 Having long hair is an intrinsic property; having a long-haired brother is not. Intuitive as this notion is (and valuable in doing philosophy, I might add), it seems to resist analysis. Analysis, that is, to “quasi-logical” notions such as necessity, spatiotemporal location: using stronger tools, Lewis has given an analysis of intrinsicality that I take to be roughly correct. Lewis initially described intrinsic properties in his 1983 paper "Extrinsic Properties" as follows

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Theodore Sider
Rutgers - New Brunswick

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References found in this work

On the Plurality of Worlds.David K. Lewis - 1986 - Malden, Mass.: Wiley-Blackwell.
Fact, Fiction, and Forecast.Nelson Goodman - 1965 - Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Individualism and the mental.Tyler Burge - 1979 - Midwest Studies in Philosophy 4 (1):73-122.
On the Plurality of Worlds.David Lewis - 1986 - Revue Philosophique de la France Et de l'Etranger 178 (3):388-390.
Individualism and the Mental.Tyler Burge - 1979 - In John Heil (ed.), Philosophy of Mind: A Guide and Anthology. Oxford University Press.

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