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Full Idea
Essential properties may be trivial or nontrivial. It is characteristic of P's being trivially essential to x that x's possession of P is not grounded in the specific nature of x.
Gist of Idea
Properties are trivially essential if they are not grounded in a thing's specific nature
Source
Graeme Forbes (In Defense of Absolute Essentialism [1986], 2)
Book Ref
'Midwest Studs XI:Essentialism', ed/tr. French,Uehling,Wettstein [Minnesota 1986], p.4
A Reaction
This is where my objection to the modal view of essence arises. How is he going to explain 'grounded' and 'specific nature' without supplying an entirely different account of essence?
| 13804 | A property is essential iff the object would not exist if it lacked that property [Forbes,G] |
| 13805 | Properties are trivially essential if they are not grounded in a thing's specific nature [Forbes,G] |
| 13808 | A relation is essential to two items if it holds in every world where they exist [Forbes,G] |
| 13806 | Trivially essential properties are existence, self-identity, and de dicto necessities [Forbes,G] |
| 13807 | A property is 'extraneously essential' if it is had only because of the properties of other objects [Forbes,G] |
| 13810 | The source of de dicto necessity is not concepts, but the actual properties of the thing [Forbes,G] |
| 13809 | One might be essentialist about the original bronze from which a statue was made [Forbes,G] |