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Full Idea
Essentialists are modal realists; ..what is really possible, they say, is what is compatible with the natures of things in this world (and this does not commit them to the existence of any world other than the actual world).
Clarification
'Modal realists' believe in possibilities as actual things
Gist of Idea
Essentialists deny possible worlds, and say possibilities are what is compatible with the actual world
Source
Brian Ellis (The Philosophy of Nature: new essentialism [2002], Ch.7)
Book Ref
Ellis,Brian: 'The Philosophy of Nature: new essentialism' [Acumen 2002], p.131
A Reaction
This introduces something like 'compatibilities' into our ontology. That must rest on some kind of idea of a 'natural contradiction'. We can discuss the possibilities resulting from essences, but what are the possible variations in the essences?
Related Idea
Idea 12469 Possible worlds semantics gives little insight into modality [Jacobs]
| 3013 | Nothing is stronger than necessity, which rules everything [Thales, by Diog. Laertius] |
| 12978 | A perfect idea of an object shows that the object is possible [Leibniz] |
| 5483 | Essentialists deny possible worlds, and say possibilities are what is compatible with the actual world [Ellis] |
| 16436 | Modal concepts are central to the actual world, and shouldn't need extravagant metaphysics [Stalnaker] |
| 17572 | Actuality proves possibility, but that doesn't explain how it is possible [Inwagen] |
| 12186 | Modal realists hold that necessities and possibilities are part of the totality of facts [McFetridge] |
| 6080 | Modality is not objects or properties, but the type of binding of objects to properties [McGinn] |
| 14689 | Necessity and possibility are not just necessity and possibility according to the actual world [Salmon,N] |
| 11108 | Your properties, not some other world, decide your possibilities [Jubien] |
| 11111 | Modal truths are facts about parts of this world, not about remote maximal entities [Jubien] |
| 11118 | Modal propositions transcend the concrete, but not the actual [Jubien] |
| 10745 | Science is modally committed, to disposition, causation and law [Oliver] |
| 15025 | The world does not contain necessity and possibility - merely how things are [Sider] |
| 12468 | A state of affairs is only possible if there has been an actual substance to initiate it [Pruss] |
| 12466 | All modality is in the properties and relations of the actual world [Jacobs] |