| 11389 | Socrates sought essences, which are the basis of formal logic [Socrates, by Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: It is not surprising that Socrates sought essences. His project was to establish formal reasoning, of whose syllogisms essences are the foundations. | |
| From: report of Socrates (reports of career [c.420 BCE]) by Aristotle - Metaphysics 1078b22 | |
| A reaction: This seems to reinforce the definitional view of essences, since definitions seem to be at the centre of most of Socrates's quests. |
| 12080 | Essence is not all the necessary properties, since these extend beyond the definition [Aristotle, by Witt] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle never thought of an essence as comprising all the necessary properties of an object. In Met VII.4 he limits per se predication appropriate to essences to the definition, and in Topics he distinguishes definition from the 'proprium'. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE]) by Charlotte Witt - Substance and Essence in Aristotle 4.1 | |
| A reaction: [Topics 102a20-25] There seems to be consensus among scholars about this, and only a few misguided modern metaphysicians identify essences with the necessary properties (or maybe the non-trivial necessary properties). |
| 11153 | A definition is an account of a what-it-was-to-be-that-thing [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: A definition is an account of a what-it-was-to-be-that-thing. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1031a12) | |
| A reaction: This is cited by Kit Fine, as expounding his view that essence is definition. He gives this text as "definition is the formula of the essence". Is the account the 'logos', I wonder? I like this view. |
| 12382 | What it is and why it is are the same; screening defines and explains an eclipse [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: What it is and why it is are the same. What is an eclipse? Privation of light from the moon by screening of the earth. Why is there an eclipse? ...What is a harmony? A numerical ratio between high and low. Why do the high and low harmonize? The ratio. | |
| From: Aristotle (Posterior Analytics [c.327 BCE], 90a15) | |
| A reaction: This is right at the heart of Aristotelian essentialism, and (I take it) modern scientific essentialism. If you fully know what cigarette tars are, and what human cell structure is, you understand immediately why cigarettes cause cancer. |
| 12285 | The definition is peculiar to one thing, not common to many [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The definition ought to be peculiar to one thing, not common to many. | |
| From: Aristotle (Topics [c.331 BCE], 149b24) | |
| A reaction: I take this to be very important, against those who think that definition is no more than mere categorisation. To explain, you must get down to the level of the individual. We must explain that uniquely docile tiger. |
| 16797 | Maybe Locke described the real essence of a person [Locke, by Pasnau] |
| Full Idea: Locke may have gone a long way towards describing the real essence of a person. | |
| From: report of John Locke (Essay Conc Human Understanding (2nd Ed) [1694], 2.27.09) by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 30.5 | |
| A reaction: Locke resisted the idea that we could know real essences, but this idea makes the point that if you give a good definition of something you can hardly fail to be invoking its essence. |
| 11216 | If definitions aim at different ideals, then defining essence is not a unitary activity [Gupta] |
| Full Idea: Some definitions aim at precision, others at fairness, or at accuracy, or at clarity, or at fecundity. But if definitions 'give the essence of things' (the Aristotelian formula), then it may not be a unitary kind of activity. | |
| From: Anil Gupta (Definitions [2008], 1) | |
| A reaction: We don't have to accept this conclusion so quickly. Human interests may shift the emphasis, but there may be a single ideal definition of which these various examples are mere parts. |
| 11171 | Defining a term and giving the essence of an object don't just resemble - they are the same [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: There is an analogy between defining a term and giving the essence of an object. ..However, I am inclined to think that the two cases are not merely parallel but are, at bottom, the same. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Essence and Modality [1994], p.13) | |
| A reaction: The proposal is something like the meaning of a concept being the essence of the concept. And essence is definition. The parallel is that they both lead to necessities, either derived from objects or from concepts. Sounds good to me. |
| 11178 | The essence or definition of an essence involves either a class of properties or a class of propositions [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: If each object has a unique essence or definition, this may be identified with either the class of properties that it essentially has, or with the class of propositions that are true in virtue of what it is. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Senses of Essence [1995], §8) | |
| A reaction: Elsewhere Fine says that it is easier to work with the propositions view, but that the properties (or predicates) view is probably more fundamental. He goes on here to raise the question of whether either view makes the essence unique. |
| 16539 | A definition of a circle will show what it is, and show its generating principle [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: If the definition of a circle is based on 'locus of a point', this tells us what a circle is, and it does so by revealing its generating principle, what it takes for a circle to come into being. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (What is the Source of Knowledge of Modal Truths? [2013], 6) | |
| A reaction: Lowe says that real definitions, as essences, do not always have to spell out a 'generating principle', but they do in this case. Another approach would be to try to map dependence relations between truths about circles, and see what is basic. |
| 16540 | Defining an ellipse by conic sections reveals necessities, but not the essence of an ellipse [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: Defining an ellipse in terms of the oblique intersection of a cone and a plane (rather than in terms of the sum of the distance between the foci) gives us a necessary property, but not the essence, because the terms are extrinsic to its nature. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (What is the Source of Knowledge of Modal Truths? [2013], 6) | |
| A reaction: [compressed wording] Helpful and illuminating. If you say some figure is what results when one thing intersects another, that doesn't tell you what the result actually is. Geometrical essences may be a bit vague, but they are quite meaningful. |
| 16548 | An essence is what an entity is, revealed by a real definition; this is not an entity in its own right [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: An entity's essence is just what that entity is, revealed by its real definition. This isn't a distinct entity, but either the entity itself, or (my view) no entity at all. ..We should not reify essence, as that leads to an infinite regress of essences. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (What is the Source of Knowledge of Modal Truths? [2013], 6) | |
| A reaction: The regress problem is a real one, if we wish to treat an essence as some proper and distinct part of an entity. If it is a mechanism, for example, the presumably a mechanism has an essence. No, it doesn't! Levels of explanation! |
| 19291 | A canonical defintion specifies the type of thing, and what distinguish this specimen [Hale] |
| Full Idea: One might think of a full dress, or canonical, definition as specifying what type of thing it is, and what distinguishes it from everything else within its type. | |
| From: Bob Hale (Necessary Beings [2013], 06.4) | |
| A reaction: Good! At last someone embraces the Aristotelian ideas that definitions are a) quite extensive and detailed (unlike lexicography), and b) they aim to get right down to the individual. In that sense, an essence is captured by a definition. |
| 15116 | Essences cause necessary features, and definitions describe those necessary features [Koslicki] |
| Full Idea: Since essences cause the other necessary features of a thing, so definitions, as the linguistic correlates of essences, explain, together with other axioms, the propositions describing those necessary features. | |
| From: Kathrin Koslicki (Essence, Necessity and Explanation [2012], 13.3.1) | |
| A reaction: This is nice and clear. Definitions are NOT essences - they are the linguistic correlates of essences, and mirror those essences. The necessary features are not the only things needing explanation. That picture is too passive. |