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Full Idea
If there are alternative definitions for an essence, we must distinguish three notions. There is the essence as the manifold (the combined definitions), or as the range of alternative definitions (with component essences), or there is the common essence.
Gist of Idea
If there are alternative definitions, then we have three possibilities for essence
Source
Kit Fine (Senses of Essence [1995], §8)
Book Ref
'Modality, Morality and Belief', ed/tr. Sinnott-Armstrong/Raffman/Asher [CUP 1995], p.67
A Reaction
Fine opts for the third alternative (what the definitions all have in common) as the best account. He says (p.68) 'definitive' properties come from one definition, and 'essential' properties from every possible definition.
| 11175 | Logical concepts rest on certain inferences, not on facts about implications [Fine,K] |
| 11174 | A logical truth is true in virtue of the nature of the logical concepts [Fine,K] |
| 11173 | Being a man is a consequence of his essence, not constitutive of it [Fine,K] |
| 11176 | The property of Property Abstraction says any suitable condition must imply a property [Fine,K] |
| 11177 | Can the essence of an object circularly involve itself, or involve another object? [Fine,K] |
| 11179 | If there are alternative definitions, then we have three possibilities for essence [Fine,K] |
| 11178 | The essence or definition of an essence involves either a class of properties or a class of propositions [Fine,K] |