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Single Idea 13581

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

Full Idea

Scientific essentialism is less concerned with questions of identity, and more with questions of explanation, than is the essentialism of Aristotle or of Kripke. It is closest to the kind of essentialism described by Locke.

Gist of Idea

Scientific essentialism is more concerned with explanation than with identity (Locke, not Kripke)

Source

Brian Ellis (Scientific Essentialism [2001], 1.12)

Book Ref

Ellis,Brian: 'Scientific Essentialism' [CUP 2007], p.55

A Reaction

Locke is popularly held to be anti-essentialist, but that is only because of his epistemological problems. I think Ellis is here misreading Aristotle, and I would ally Aristotle, Locke (cautiously), Leibniz, Ellis and Fine against Kripkeans on this one.

The 35 ideas from 'Scientific Essentialism'

13567 Ontology should give insight into or an explanation of the world revealed by science [Ellis]
13568 Basic powers may not be explained by structure, if at the bottom level there is no structure [Ellis]
13571 Scientific essentialism doesn't really need Kripkean individual essences [Ellis]
13570 Individual essences necessitate that individual; natural kind essences necessitate kind membership [Ellis]
13569 To give essentialist explanations there have to be natural kinds [Ellis]
13566 A proton must have its causal role, because without it it wouldn't be a proton [Ellis]
13572 There are 'substantive' (objects of some kind), 'dynamic' (events of some kind) and 'property' universals [Ellis]
13573 Universals are all types of natural kind [Ellis]
13574 Natural kinds are distinguished by resting on essences [Ellis]
13575 If there are borderline cases between natural kinds, that makes them superficial [Ellis]
13576 Necessities are distinguished by their grounds, not their different modalities [Ellis]
13577 Typical 'categorical' properties are spatio-temporal, such as shape [Ellis]
13578 The old idea that identity depends on essence and behaviour is rejected by the empiricists [Ellis]
13579 What is most distinctive of scientific essentialism is regarding processes as natural kinds [Ellis]
13581 Scientific essentialism is more concerned with explanation than with identity (Locke, not Kripke) [Ellis]
13580 Causal powers must necessarily act the way they do [Ellis]
13582 'Being a methane molecule' is not a property - it is just a predicate [Ellis]
13583 There might be uninstantiated natural kinds, such as transuranic elements which have never occurred [Ellis]
13584 The extension of a property is a contingent fact, so cannot be the essence of the property [Ellis]
13585 The most fundamental properties of nature (mass, charge, spin ...) all seem to be dispositions [Ellis]
13586 Maybe dispositions can be explained by intrinsic properties or structures [Ellis]
13587 There is no property of 'fragility', as things are each fragile in a distinctive way [Ellis]
13596 A causal power is a disposition to produce forces [Ellis]
13595 Laws don't exist in the world; they are true of the world [Ellis]
13594 The ontological fundamentals are dispositions, and also categorical (spatio-temporal and structural) properties [Ellis]
13597 Good explanations unify [Ellis]
13599 Powers are dispositions of the essences of kinds that involve them in causation [Ellis]
13598 Causal powers are often directional (e.g. centripetal, centrifugal, circulatory) [Ellis]
13600 The point of models in theories is not to idealise, but to focus on what is essential [Ellis]
13601 Explanations of particular events are not essentialist, as they don't reveal essential structures [Ellis]
13603 A primary aim of science is to show the limits of the possible [Ellis]
13604 Real possibility and necessity has the logic of S5, which links equivalence classes of worlds of the same kind [Ellis]
9436 The property of 'being an electron' is not of anything, and only electrons could have it [Ellis]
13606 Humean conceptions of reality drive the adoption of extensional logic [Ellis]
13607 If events are unconnected, then induction cannot be solved [Ellis]