Full Idea
What makes a property the property it is, what determines its identity, is its potential for contributing to the causal powers of the things that have it.
Gist of Idea
The identity of a property concerns its causal powers
Source
Sydney Shoemaker (Causality and Properties [1980], §04)
Book Reference
Shoemaker,Sydney: 'Identity, Cause and Mind' [OUP 2003], p.212
A Reaction
Does this mean that the 'potential' to act is the essence of the property, or is a property of the property, or is wholly identical with the property? Or is this just epistemological - whatever individuates the property for observers?