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Single Idea 12239

[filed under theme 26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 8. Scientific Essentialism / a. Scientific essentialism ]

Full Idea

It is incorrect to hold that the job of the real essentialist just is the job of the scientist.

Gist of Idea

The real essentialist is not merely a scientist

Source

David S. Oderberg (Real Essentialism [2007], 1.3)

Book Ref

Oderberg,David S.: 'Real Essentialism' [Routledge 2009], p.13

A Reaction

Presumably scientific essentialism, while being firmly a branch of metaphysics, is meant to clarify the activities of science, and thereby be of some practical use. You can't beat knowing what it is you are trying to do.

The 22 ideas from David S. Oderberg

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]