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Single Idea 13952

[filed under theme 9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 7. Essence and Necessity / a. Essence as necessary properties ]

Full Idea

Essentialism, as I shall understand it, is the doctrine that among the attributes of a thing some are essential, others merely accidental. Its essential attributes are those it has necessarily, those it could not have lacked.

Gist of Idea

Essentialism says some of a thing's properties are necessary, and could not be absent

Source

Richard Cartwright (Some Remarks on Essentialism [1968], p.149)

Book Ref

Cartwright,Richard: 'Philosophical Essays' [MIT 1987], p.149

A Reaction

The problem with this, which Cartwright does not address, is that trivial and gerrymandered properties (such as having self-identity, or being 'such that 2+2=4') seem to be necessarily, but don't seem to constitute the essence of a thing.

The 21 ideas with the same theme [essence just is necessary properties]:

13083 The essence is the necessary properties, and the concept includes what is contingent [Leibniz]
11156 The essence is that without which a thing can neither be, nor be conceived to be [Mill]
16997 An essential property is true of an object in any case where it would have existed [Kripke]
17045 De re modality is an object having essential properties [Kripke]
13952 Essentialism says some of a thing's properties are necessary, and could not be absent [Cartwright,R]
12761 An essential property is one had in all the possible worlds where a thing exists [Stalnaker]
12142 Essentially, a has P, always had P, must have had P, and has never had a future without P [Brody]
12143 An object having a property essentially is equivalent to its having it necessarily [Brody]
16467 'Socrates is essentially human' seems to say nothing could be Socrates if it was not human [Stalnaker]
14076 Essentialism is the existence of a definite answer as to whether an entity fulfils a condition [Gibbard]
13793 An essential property is one possessed by all counterparts [Lewis, by Elder]
13969 Kripkean essential properties and relations are necessary, in all genuinely possible worlds [Soames]
18888 Essentialism says some properties must be possessed, if a thing is to exist [Salmon,N]
13808 A relation is essential to two items if it holds in every world where they exist [Forbes,G]
12012 Essential properties are those without which an object could not exist [Forbes,G]
11158 Essentialist claims can be formulated more clearly with quantified modal logic [Fine,K]
11160 Simple modal essentialism refers to necessary properties of an object [Fine,K]
13072 Modern essences are sets of essential predicate-functions [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
17080 Modern essentialists express essence as functions from worlds to extensions for predicates [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
14380 The distinction between necessary and essential properties can be ignored [Rocca]
17952 Modal accounts make essence less mysterious, by basing them on the clearer necessity [Vetter]