display all the ideas for this combination of philosophers
2 ideas
| 11976 | Aristotelian essentialism says essences are not relative to specification [Lewis] |
| Full Idea: So-called 'Aristotelian essentialism' is the doctrine of essences not relative to specifications. | |
| From: David Lewis (Counterpart theory and Quant. Modal Logic [1968], III) | |
| A reaction: In other words, they are so-called 'real essences', understood as de re. Quine says essences are all de dicto, and relative to some specification. I vote for Aristotle. |
| 13793 | An essential property is one possessed by all counterparts [Lewis, by Elder] |
| Full Idea: For Lewis, if a property possessed by a given individual or kind is missing in some of the contextually relevant counterparts, that property is accidental to the individual or kind; if it is possessed by all of them, that property is essential. | |
| From: report of David Lewis (On the Plurality of Worlds [1986], 248-263) by Crawford L. Elder - Real Natures and Familiar Objects 1.4 | |
| A reaction: This is a sophisticated version of the idea that essential properties are just necessary properties. It might make sense with a very sparse view of properties (mainly causal ones), but I think of essences as quite different from necessities. |