Combining Philosophers

Ideas for Hermarchus, Richard Cartwright and Friedrich Jacobi

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3 ideas

9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 7. Essence and Necessity / a. Essence as necessary properties

13952	Essentialism says some of a thing's properties are necessary, and could not be absent [Cartwright,R]
	Full Idea: Essentialism, as I shall understand it, is the doctrine that among the attributes of a thing some are essential, others merely accidental. Its essential attributes are those it has necessarily, those it could not have lacked.
	From: Richard Cartwright (Some Remarks on Essentialism [1968], p.149)
	A reaction: The problem with this, which Cartwright does not address, is that trivial and gerrymandered properties (such as having self-identity, or being 'such that 2+2=4') seem to be necessarily, but don't seem to constitute the essence of a thing.

9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 14. Knowledge of Essences

13954	The difficulty in essentialism is deciding the grounds for rating an attribute as essential [Cartwright,R]
	Full Idea: I see no reason for thinking essentialism unintelligible, but a chief perplexity is the obscurity of the grounds on which ratings of attributes as essential or accidental are to be made.
	From: Richard Cartwright (Some Remarks on Essentialism [1968], p.158)
	A reaction: In that case some of us younger philosophers will have to roll up our sleeves and tease out the grounds for essentialism, starting with Aristotle and Leibniz, and ending with the successes of modern science.

9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 15. Against Essentialism

13955	Essentialism is said to be unintelligible, because relative, if necessary truths are all analytic [Cartwright,R]
	Full Idea: Apparently those who think essentialism unintelligible see support for their position in the doctrine that necessary truths are all analytic. Only relative to some mode of designation does it make sense to speak of an object as necessarily this or that.
	From: Richard Cartwright (Some Remarks on Essentialism [1968], p.158)
	A reaction: He has in mind Quine and his mathematician-cyclist (Idea 8482). Personally I have no problems with the example. No one is essentially a cyclist - that isn't what essence is. Two-legged people can be cyclists.