more on this theme | more from this thinker
Full Idea
There seems to be surface synonymy between 'is essentially' and de re occurrences of 'is necessarily', but intersubstitution often fails to preserve sense (as in 'Winston is essentially a cyclist' and 'Winston is necessarily a cyclist').
Gist of Idea
'Is essentially' has a different meaning from 'is necessarily', as they often cannot be substituted
Source
Ruth Barcan Marcus (Essential Attribution [1971], p.193)
Book Ref
-: 'Nous' [-], p.193
A Reaction
Clearly the two sentences have different meanings, with 'essentially' being a comment about the nature of Winston, and 'necessarily' probably being a comment about the circumstances in which he finds himself. Very nice. See also Idea 11186.
Related Idea
Idea 11186 'Essentially' won't replace 'necessarily' for vacuous properties like snub-nosed or self-identical [Marcus (Barcan)]
11180 | Essentialist sentences are not theorems of modal logic, and can even be false [Marcus (Barcan)] |
11181 | Aristotelian essentialism involves a 'natural' or 'causal' interpretation of modal operators [Marcus (Barcan)] |
11182 | If essences are objects with only essential properties, they are elusive in possible worlds [Marcus (Barcan)] |
11183 | The use of possible worlds is to sort properties (not to individuate objects) [Marcus (Barcan)] |
11184 | Aristotelian essentialism is about shared properties, individuating essentialism about distinctive properties [Marcus (Barcan)] |
11186 | 'Essentially' won't replace 'necessarily' for vacuous properties like snub-nosed or self-identical [Marcus (Barcan)] |
11185 | 'Is essentially' has a different meaning from 'is necessarily', as they often cannot be substituted [Marcus (Barcan)] |
11187 | In possible worlds, names are just neutral unvarying pegs for truths and predicates [Marcus (Barcan)] |
11189 | Dispositional essences are special, as if an object loses them they cease to exist [Marcus (Barcan)] |