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Single Idea 11188

[filed under theme 9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 5. Essence as Kind ]

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 Ref

-: '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]

The 27 ideas with the same theme [essence as belonging to a particular natural kind]:

11188 The Aristotelian view is that the essential properties are those that sort an object [Aristotle, by Marcus (Barcan)]
11196 Essence is something in common between the natures which sort things into categories [Aquinas]
13074 Only natural kinds and their members have real essences [Suárez, by Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
17233 Particulars contain universal things [Hobbes]
12530 The less rational view of essences is that they are moulds for kinds of natural thing [Locke]
12532 Even real essence depends on a sort, since it is sorts which have the properties [Locke]
12539 If every sort has its real essence, one horse, being many sorts, will have many essences [Locke]
21218 The sense of anything contingent has a purely apprehensible essence or Eidos [Husserl]
15106 Essence is expressed by grammar [Wittgenstein]
11908 Putnam bases essences on 'same kind', but same kinds may not share properties [Mackie,P on Putnam]
12679 A real essence is a kind's distinctive properties [Ellis]
17055 Atomic number 79 is part of the nature of the gold we know [Kripke]
17523 Sortals basically apply to individuals [Ayers]
15143 Kind essences are the categorical bases of a thing's causal powers [Bhaskar, by Chakravartty]
11895 A sortal essence is a property which once possessed always possessed [Brody, by Mackie,P]
12141 Maybe essential properties are those which determine a natural kind? [Brody]
16509 Natural kinds are well suited to be the sortals which fix substances [Wiggins]
12013 Essential properties depend on a category, and perhaps also on particular facts [Forbes,G]
15678 Essentialism says categories have a true hidden nature which gives an object its identity [Gelman]
15683 Sortals are needed for determining essence - the thing must be categorised first [Gelman]
15697 Kind (unlike individual) essentialism assumes preexisting natural categories [Gelman]
12871 Objects have their essential properties because of the kind of objects they are [Simons]
13129 Essential kinds may be too specific to provide ontological categories [Westerhoff]
11909 Unlike Hesperus=Phosophorus, water=H2O needs further premisses before it is necessary [Mackie,P]
11899 Why are any sortals essential, and why are only some of them essential? [Mackie,P]
15145 A kind essence is the necessary and sufficient properties for membership of a class [Chakravartty]
10939 'Sortal essentialism' says being a particular kind is what is essential [Rami]