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Full Idea
If necessity is explained in terms of possible worlds, ...then an essential property is a property that a thing has in all possible worlds in which it exists.
Gist of Idea
An essential property is one had in all the possible worlds where a thing exists
Source
Robert C. Stalnaker (Anti-essentialism [1979], p.71)
Book Ref
Stalnaker,Robert C.: 'Ways a World Might Be' [OUP 2003], p.71
A Reaction
This seems to me to be a quite shocking confusion of necessary properties with essential properties. The point is that utterly trivial properties can be necessary, but in no way part of the real essence of something.
| 12761 | An essential property is one had in all the possible worlds where a thing exists [Stalnaker] |
| 12762 | Bare particular anti-essentialism makes no sense within modal logic semantics [Stalnaker] |
| 12763 | Necessarily self-identical, or being what it is, or its world-indexed properties, aren't essential [Stalnaker] |
| 12764 | For the bare particular view, properties must be features, not just groups of objects [Stalnaker] |
| 12765 | Why imagine that Babe Ruth might be a billiard ball; nothing useful could be said about the ball [Stalnaker] |
| 12766 | Logical space is abstracted from the actual world [Stalnaker] |