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Single Idea 12012
[filed under theme 9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 7. Essence and Necessity / a. Essence as necessary properties
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Full Idea
An essential property of an object x is a property without possessing which x could not exist.
Gist of Idea
Essential properties are those without which an object could not exist
Source
Graeme Forbes (The Metaphysics of Modality [1985], 5.1)
Book Ref
Forbes,Graeme: 'The Metaphysics of Modality' [OUP 1985], p.97
A Reaction
This is certainly open to question. See Joan Kung's account of Aristotle on essence. I am necessarily more than eight years old (now), and couldn't exist without that property, but is the property part of my essence?
The
21 ideas
with the same theme
[essence just is necessary properties]:
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13083
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The essence is the necessary properties, and the concept includes what is contingent
[Leibniz]
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11156
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The essence is that without which a thing can neither be, nor be conceived to be
[Mill]
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16997
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An essential property is true of an object in any case where it would have existed
[Kripke]
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17045
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De re modality is an object having essential properties
[Kripke]
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13952
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Essentialism says some of a thing's properties are necessary, and could not be absent
[Cartwright,R]
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12761
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An essential property is one had in all the possible worlds where a thing exists
[Stalnaker]
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12142
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Essentially, a has P, always had P, must have had P, and has never had a future without P
[Brody]
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12143
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An object having a property essentially is equivalent to its having it necessarily
[Brody]
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16467
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'Socrates is essentially human' seems to say nothing could be Socrates if it was not human
[Stalnaker]
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14076
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Essentialism is the existence of a definite answer as to whether an entity fulfils a condition
[Gibbard]
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13793
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An essential property is one possessed by all counterparts
[Lewis, by Elder]
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13969
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Kripkean essential properties and relations are necessary, in all genuinely possible worlds
[Soames]
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18888
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Essentialism says some properties must be possessed, if a thing is to exist
[Salmon,N]
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13808
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A relation is essential to two items if it holds in every world where they exist
[Forbes,G]
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12012
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Essential properties are those without which an object could not exist
[Forbes,G]
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11158
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Essentialist claims can be formulated more clearly with quantified modal logic
[Fine,K]
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11160
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Simple modal essentialism refers to necessary properties of an object
[Fine,K]
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13072
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Modern essences are sets of essential predicate-functions
[Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
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17080
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Modern essentialists express essence as functions from worlds to extensions for predicates
[Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
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14380
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The distinction between necessary and essential properties can be ignored
[Rocca]
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17952
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Modal accounts make essence less mysterious, by basing them on the clearer necessity
[Vetter]
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