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Single Idea 9109

[filed under theme 9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 6. Essence as Unifier ]

Full Idea

If essence and existence were two things, then no contradiction would be involved if God preserved the essence of a thing in the world without its existence, or vice versa, its existence without its essence; both of which are impossible.

Gist of Idea

If essence and existence were two things, one could exist without the other, which is impossible

Source

William of Ockham (Summa totius logicae [1323], III,II,c,xxvii)

Book Ref

Ockham,William of: 'Ockham's Philosophical Writings', ed/tr. Boehner,P [Hackett 1990], p.93

A Reaction

Not that William is using the concept of a supreme mind as a tool in argument. His denial of essence as something separable is presumably his denial of the Aristotelian view of universals, as well as of the Platonic view.

The 24 ideas with the same theme [essence is what unifies the parts of a thing]:

11238 Plato and Aristotle take essence to make a thing what it is [Plato, by Politis]
11291 A thing's essence is its intrinsic nature [Aristotle]
10964 Having an essence is the criterion of being a substance [Aristotle, by Lawson-Tancred]
12098 An essence causes both its own unity and its kind [Aristotle]
11208 A simple substance is its own essence [Aquinas]
9109 If essence and existence were two things, one could exist without the other, which is impossible [William of Ockham]
17187 Essence gives existence and conception to things, and is inseparable from them [Spinoza]
12510 Not all identity is unity of substance [Locke]
11155 Essence is the very being of any thing, whereby it is what it is [Locke]
12706 Bodies need a soul (or something like it) to avoid being mere phenomena [Leibniz]
12753 A substantial bond of powers is needed to unite composites, in addition to monads [Leibniz]
15637 Essence is the essential self-positing unity of immediacy and mediation [Hegel]
15262 In logic the nature of a kind, substance or individual is the essence which is inseparable from what it is [Harré/Madden]
12137 De re essentialism standardly says all possible objects identical with a have a's essential properties [Brody]
12082 If unity is a matter of degree, then essence may also be a matter of degree [Witt]
3350 Could a horse lose the essential property of being a horse, and yet continue to exist? [Benardete,JA]
14222 Essences are what it is to be that (kind of) thing - in fact, they are the thing's identity [Shalkowski]
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]
11161 Essentially having a property is naturally expressed as 'the property it must have to be what it is' [Fine,K]
15065 What it is is fixed prior to existence or the object's worldly features [Fine,K]
12240 Essentialism is the main account of the unity of objects [Oderberg]
13797 The loss of an essential property means the end of an existence [Elder]
14191 Deep essentialists say essences constrain how things could change; modal profiles fix natures [Paul,LA]