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Full Idea
The modern emphasis has been on the connection between essential properties and the properties that an object must have essentially. But traditionally there is also the connection between essential properties and the sort of thing that it is.
Gist of Idea
Modern emphasis is on properties had essentially; traditional emphasis is on sort-defining properties
Source
Baruch Brody (Identity and Essence [1980], 5.6)
Book Ref
Brody,Baruch: 'Identity and Essence' [Princeton 1980], p.131
A Reaction
These are the modal essence and the definitional essence. My view is that he has missed out a crucial third (Aristotelian) view, which is that essences are explanatory. This third view can subsume the other two.
| 15834 | Brody bases sortal essentialism on properties required throughout something's existence [Brody, by Mackie,P] |
| 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] |
| 12130 | a and b share all properties; so they share being-identical-with-a; so a = b [Brody] |
| 12132 | Indiscernibility is a necessary and sufficient condition for identity [Brody] |
| 12135 | Interrupted objects have two first moments of existence, which could be two beginnings [Brody] |
| 12138 | Identity across possible worlds is prior to rigid designation [Brody] |
| 12137 | De re essentialism standardly says all possible objects identical with a have a's essential properties [Brody] |
| 12140 | Modern emphasis is on properties had essentially; traditional emphasis is on sort-defining properties [Brody] |
| 12139 | Mereological essentialism says that every part that ensures the existence is essential [Brody] |
| 12142 | Essentially, a has P, always had P, must have had P, and has never had a future without P [Brody] |
| 12143 | An object having a property essentially is equivalent to its having it necessarily [Brody] |
| 12144 | Essentialism is justified if the essential properties of things explain their other properties [Brody] |