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Full Idea
Three essentialist claims are labelled 'Aristotelian': the thing would cease to exist without the property; an essential property is explanatory; and it is such that it must belong to everything to which it belongs.
Gist of Idea
Aristotelian essences underlie a thing's existence, explain it, and must belong to it
Source
Joan Kung (Aristotle on Essence and Explanation [1977], Intro)
Book Ref
-: 'Philosophical Studies' [-], p.361
A Reaction
She says the second one is indispensable, and that it rules out the third one. My working assumption, like hers, is that the second one is the key part of the game, because Aristotle wanted to explain things.
| 11992 | Aristotelian essences underlie a thing's existence, explain it, and must belong to it [Kung] |
| 11995 | Some peripheral properties are explained by essential ones, but don't themselves explain properties [Kung] |
| 11996 | Some non-essential properties may explain more than essential-but-peripheral ones do [Kung] |
| 11993 | Jones may cease to exist without some simple property, but that doesn't make it essential [Kung] |
| 11997 | A property may belong essentially to one thing and contingently to another [Kung] |