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Full Idea
The identity of an object - what it is - is not a worldly matter; essence will precede existence in that the identity of an object may be fixed by its unworldly features even before any question of its existence or other worldly features is considered.
Clarification
For 'worldly', see Idea 15063
Gist of Idea
What it is is fixed prior to existence or the object's worldly features
Source
Kit Fine (Necessity and Non-Existence [2005], Intro)
Book Ref
Fine,Kit: 'Modality and Tense' [OUP 2005], p.321
A Reaction
I'm not clear how this cashes out. If I remove the 'worldly features' of an object, what is there left which establishes identity? Fine carefully avoids talk of 'a priori' knowledge of identity.
Related Idea
Idea 15063 Some sentences depend for their truth on worldly circumstances, and others do not [Fine,K]
| 15063 | Some sentences depend for their truth on worldly circumstances, and others do not [Fine,K] |
| 15065 | What it is is fixed prior to existence or the object's worldly features [Fine,K] |
| 15064 | Proper necessary truths hold whatever the circumstances; transcendent truths regardless of circumstances [Fine,K] |
| 15067 | A-theorists tend to reject the tensed/tenseless distinction [Fine,K] |
| 15066 | B-theorists say tensed sentences have an unfilled argument-place for a time [Fine,K] |
| 15069 | Possible worlds may be more limited, to how things might actually turn out [Fine,K] |
| 15068 | The actual world is a totality of facts, so we also think of possible worlds as totalities [Fine,K] |
| 15070 | It is the nature of Socrates to be a man, so necessarily he is a man [Fine,K] |
| 15071 | Tensed and tenseless sentences state two sorts of fact, which belong to two different 'realms' of reality [Fine,K] |
| 15073 | Self-identity should have two components, its existence, and its neutral identity with itself [Fine,K] |
| 15074 | We would understand identity between objects, even if their existence was impossible [Fine,K] |
| 15072 | Bottom level facts are subject to time and world, middle to world but not time, and top to neither [Fine,K] |
| 15076 | Essential features of an object have no relation to how things actually are [Fine,K] |
| 15075 | Modal features are not part of entities, because they are accounted for by the entity [Fine,K] |
| 15078 | There are levels of existence, as well as reality; objects exist at the lowest level in which they can function [Fine,K] |
| 15077 | It is said that in the A-theory, all existents and objects must be tensed, as well as the sentences [Fine,K] |