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Single Idea 12249
[filed under theme 2. Reason / D. Definition / 5. Genus and Differentia
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Full Idea
The standard classification holds that 'animal' is a genus and 'rational' is a specific difference.
Gist of Idea
'Animal' is a genus and 'rational' is a specific difference
Source
David S. Oderberg (Real Essentialism [2007], 3.5)
Book Ref
Oderberg,David S.: 'Real Essentialism' [Routledge 2009], p.60
A Reaction
My understanding of 'difference' would take it down to the level of the individual, so the question is - which did Aristotle believe in. Not all commentators agree with Oderberg, and Wedin thinks the individual substance is paramount.
The
22 ideas
from 'Real Essentialism'
12234
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Realism about possible worlds is circular, since it needs a criterion of 'possible'
[Oderberg]
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12235
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Necessity of identity seems trivial, because it leaves out the real essence
[Oderberg]
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12237
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Rigid designation has at least three essentialist presuppositions
[Oderberg]
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12236
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Leibniz's Law is an essentialist truth
[Oderberg]
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12238
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The Aristotelian view is that numbers depend on (and are abstracted from) other things
[Oderberg]
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12240
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Essentialism is the main account of the unity of objects
[Oderberg]
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12239
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The real essentialist is not merely a scientist
[Oderberg]
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12243
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The reductionism found in scientific essentialism is mistaken
[Oderberg]
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12242
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Definition distinguishes one kind from another, and individuation picks out members of the kind
[Oderberg]
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12241
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Essences are real, about being, knowable, definable and classifiable
[Oderberg, by PG]
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12244
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Nominalism is consistent with individual but not with universal essences
[Oderberg]
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12245
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Essence is the source of a thing's characteristic behaviour
[Oderberg]
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12246
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What makes Parmenidean reality a One rather than a Many?
[Oderberg]
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12247
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Essence is not explanatory but constitutive
[Oderberg]
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12249
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'Animal' is a genus and 'rational' is a specific difference
[Oderberg]
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12250
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Bodies have act and potency, the latter explaining new kinds of existence
[Oderberg]
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12252
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Empiricists gave up 'substance', as unknowable substratum, or reducible to a bundle
[Oderberg]
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12253
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If tropes are in space and time, in what sense are they abstract?
[Oderberg]
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12254
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Being is substantial/accidental, complete/incomplete, necessary/contingent, possible, relative, intrinsic..
[Oderberg]
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12256
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We need to distinguish the essential from the non-essential powers
[Oderberg]
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12257
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Could we replace essence with collections of powers?
[Oderberg]
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12258
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Properties are not part of an essence, but they flow from it
[Oderberg]
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