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Single Idea 15681

[filed under theme 9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 2. Types of Essence ]

Full Idea

We map types of essentialism by asking is it in the world or in our representations, is it sortal or causal or ideal, and is it specific particulars or placeholders for the unknown?

Gist of Idea

Essentialism: real or representational? sortal, causal or ideal? real particulars, or placeholders?

Source

Susan A. Gelman (The Essential Child [2003], 01 'Prelims')

Book Ref

Gelman,Susan A.: 'The Essential Child' [OUP 2005], p.8

A Reaction

I am struck by the way that this practising experimental psychologist gets to ask questions and make distinctions much more extensively than most armchair philosophers on the subject. She focuses on the representational, causal, placeholder view.

The 17 ideas with the same theme [distinctions about how essence should be understood]:

11237 Only universals have essence [Plato, by Politis]
12099 Aristotelian essences are causal, not classificatory [Aristotle, by Witt]
15036 An essence can either be universal (in the mind) or singular (in concrete particulars) [Avicenna, by Panaccio]
11203 Specific individual essence is defined by material, and generic essence is defined by form [Aquinas]
22126 Avicenna and Duns Scotus say essences have independent and prior existence [Duns Scotus, by Dumont]
16038 Locke may distinguish real essence from internal constitution, claiming the latter is knowable [Locke, by Jones,J-E]
5444 'Individual essences' fix a particular individual, and 'kind essences' fix the kind it belongs to [Ellis]
5450 For Kripke, essence is origin; for Putnam, essence is properties; for Wiggins, essence is membership of a kind [Kripke, by Mautner]
14656 Does Socrates have essential properties, plus a unique essence (or 'haecceity') which entails them? [Plantinga]
12066 Aristotelian and Kripkean essentialism are very different theories [Witt]
11152 Essences are either taken as real definitions, or as necessary properties [Fine,K]
14256 How do we distinguish basic from derived esssences? [Fine,K]
14258 Maybe some things have essential relationships as well as essential properties [Fine,K]
15184 Causal reference presupposes essentialism if it refers to modally extended entities [Sidelle]
15681 Essentialism: real or representational? sortal, causal or ideal? real particulars, or placeholders? [Gelman]
14190 Deep essentialist objects have intrinsic properties that fix their nature; the shallow version makes it contextual [Paul,LA]
17313 Modern views want essences just to individuate things across worlds and times [Koslicki]