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Full Idea
If necessity is explained in terms of possible worlds, ...then an essential property is a property that a thing has in all possible worlds in which it exists.
Gist of Idea
An essential property is one had in all the possible worlds where a thing exists
Source
Robert C. Stalnaker (Anti-essentialism [1979], p.71)
Book Ref
Stalnaker,Robert C.: 'Ways a World Might Be' [OUP 2003], p.71
A Reaction
This seems to me to be a quite shocking confusion of necessary properties with essential properties. The point is that utterly trivial properties can be necessary, but in no way part of the real essence of something.
12761 | An essential property is one had in all the possible worlds where a thing exists [Stalnaker] |
12762 | Bare particular anti-essentialism makes no sense within modal logic semantics [Stalnaker] |
12763 | Necessarily self-identical, or being what it is, or its world-indexed properties, aren't essential [Stalnaker] |
12764 | For the bare particular view, properties must be features, not just groups of objects [Stalnaker] |
12765 | Why imagine that Babe Ruth might be a billiard ball; nothing useful could be said about the ball [Stalnaker] |
12766 | Logical space is abstracted from the actual world [Stalnaker] |