Full Idea
The Aristotelian view is that essential properties sort entities in some fashion. ...Being an entity, or being self-identical, or being a unity, fail to sort Socrates from anything else, but being identical with Socrates sorted him from everything.
Gist of Idea
The Aristotelian view is that the essential properties are those that sort an object
Source
report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], props) by Ruth Barcan Marcus - Essential Attribution p.196
Book Reference
-: 'Nous' [-], p.196
A Reaction
[She cites Daniel Bennett 1969 for this] This doesn't feel right. I take it that sorting things is posterior to discovering that they have different causal powers, as with H2O and XYZ, or jadeite and nephrite.
Related Idea
Idea 12099 Aristotelian essences are causal, not classificatory [Aristotle, by Witt]