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Full Idea
There is a tendency to think of essential properties as having some characteristic in addition to their necessity, such as intrinsicality.
Gist of Idea
Maybe essential properties have to be intrinsic, as well as necessary?
Source
Alan McMichael (The Epistemology of Essentialist Claims [1986], VIII)
Book Ref
'Midwest Studs XI:Essentialism', ed/tr. French,Uehling,Wettstein [Minnesota 1986], p.50
A Reaction
Personally I am inclined to take this view of all properties, and not just the 'essential' ones. General necessities, relations, categorisations, disjunctions etc. should not be called 'properties', even if they are 'predicates'. Huge confusion results.
14637 | Only individuals have essences, so numbers (as a higher type based on classes) lack them [McMichael] |
14636 | Essences are the interesting necessary properties resulting from a thing's own peculiar nature [McMichael] |
14638 | Essentialism is false, because it implies the existence of necessary singular propositions [McMichael] |
14639 | Individuals enter into laws only through their general qualities and relations [McMichael] |
14640 | Maybe essential properties have to be intrinsic, as well as necessary? [McMichael] |