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Single Idea 11186

[filed under theme 9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 7. Essence and Necessity / b. Essence not necessities ]

Full Idea

We would never use 'is essentially' for 'is necessarily' where vacuous properties are concerned, as in 'Socrates is essentially snub-nosed' or 'Socrates is essentially Socrates'.

Gist of Idea

'Essentially' won't replace 'necessarily' for vacuous properties like snub-nosed or self-identical

Source

Ruth Barcan Marcus (Essential Attribution [1971], p.193)

Book Ref

-: 'Nous' [-], p.193


A Reaction

This simple point does us a huge service in rescuing the word 'essential' from several hundred years of misguided philosophy.


The 22 ideas from Ruth Barcan Marcus

Essentialist sentences are not theorems of modal logic, and can even be false [Marcus (Barcan)]
Aristotelian essentialism involves a 'natural' or 'causal' interpretation of modal operators [Marcus (Barcan)]
The use of possible worlds is to sort properties (not to individuate objects) [Marcus (Barcan)]
If essences are objects with only essential properties, they are elusive in possible worlds [Marcus (Barcan)]
'Essentially' won't replace 'necessarily' for vacuous properties like snub-nosed or self-identical [Marcus (Barcan)]
'Is essentially' has a different meaning from 'is necessarily', as they often cannot be substituted [Marcus (Barcan)]
Aristotelian essentialism is about shared properties, individuating essentialism about distinctive properties [Marcus (Barcan)]
In possible worlds, names are just neutral unvarying pegs for truths and predicates [Marcus (Barcan)]
Dispositional essences are special, as if an object loses them they cease to exist [Marcus (Barcan)]
Maybe a substitutional semantics for quantification lends itself to nominalism [Marcus (Barcan)]
Is being just referent of the verb 'to be'? [Marcus (Barcan)]
Anything which refers tends to be called a 'name', even if it isn't a noun [Marcus (Barcan)]
Nominalists see proper names as a main vehicle of reference [Marcus (Barcan)]
Nominalists say predication is relations between individuals, or deny that it refers [Marcus (Barcan)]
Quantifiers are needed to refer to infinitely many objects [Marcus (Barcan)]
Substitutional semantics has no domain of objects, but place-markers for substitutions [Marcus (Barcan)]
The nominalist is tied by standard semantics to first-order, denying higher-order abstracta [Marcus (Barcan)]
Substitutional language has no ontology, and is just a way of speaking [Marcus (Barcan)]
If objects are thoughts, aren't we back to psychologism? [Marcus (Barcan)]
Substitutivity won't fix identity, because expressions may be substitutable, but not refer at all [Marcus (Barcan)]
A true universal sentence might be substitutionally refuted, by an unnamed denumerable object [Marcus (Barcan)]
Nominalists should quantify existentially at first-order, and substitutionally when higher [Marcus (Barcan)]