more on this theme     |     more from this thinker

Single Idea 12235

[filed under theme 10. Modality / E. Possible worlds / 3. Transworld Objects / a. Transworld identity ]

Full Idea

The necessity of identity carries the appearance of triviality, because it is the eviscerated contemporary essentialist form of a foundational real essentialist truth to the effect that every object has its own nature.

Gist of Idea

Necessity of identity seems trivial, because it leaves out the real essence

Source

David S. Oderberg (Real Essentialism [2007], 1.1)

Book Ref

Oderberg,David S.: 'Real Essentialism' [Routledge 2009], p.5

A Reaction

I like this. Writers like Mackie and Forbes have to put the 'trivial' aspects of essence to one side, without ever seeing why there is such a problem. Real substantial essences have necessity of identity as a side-effect.

The 22 ideas from 'Real Essentialism'

12236 Leibniz's Law is an essentialist truth [Oderberg]
12234 Realism about possible worlds is circular, since it needs a criterion of 'possible' [Oderberg]
12235 Necessity of identity seems trivial, because it leaves out the real essence [Oderberg]
12237 Rigid designation has at least three essentialist presuppositions [Oderberg]
12238 The Aristotelian view is that numbers depend on (and are abstracted from) other things [Oderberg]
12240 Essentialism is the main account of the unity of objects [Oderberg]
12239 The real essentialist is not merely a scientist [Oderberg]
12243 The reductionism found in scientific essentialism is mistaken [Oderberg]
12242 Definition distinguishes one kind from another, and individuation picks out members of the kind [Oderberg]
12241 Essences are real, about being, knowable, definable and classifiable [Oderberg, by PG]
12244 Nominalism is consistent with individual but not with universal essences [Oderberg]
12245 Essence is the source of a thing's characteristic behaviour [Oderberg]
12246 What makes Parmenidean reality a One rather than a Many? [Oderberg]
12247 Essence is not explanatory but constitutive [Oderberg]
12249 'Animal' is a genus and 'rational' is a specific difference [Oderberg]
12250 Bodies have act and potency, the latter explaining new kinds of existence [Oderberg]
12252 Empiricists gave up 'substance', as unknowable substratum, or reducible to a bundle [Oderberg]
12253 If tropes are in space and time, in what sense are they abstract? [Oderberg]
12254 Being is substantial/accidental, complete/incomplete, necessary/contingent, possible, relative, intrinsic.. [Oderberg]
12256 We need to distinguish the essential from the non-essential powers [Oderberg]
12257 Could we replace essence with collections of powers? [Oderberg]
12258 Properties are not part of an essence, but they flow from it [Oderberg]