more from David Lewis

Single Idea 13793

[catalogued under 9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 7. Essence and Necessity / a. Essence as necessary properties]

Full Idea

For Lewis, if a property possessed by a given individual or kind is missing in some of the contextually relevant counterparts, that property is accidental to the individual or kind; if it is possessed by all of them, that property is essential.

Gist of Idea

An essential property is one possessed by all counterparts

Source

report of David Lewis (On the Plurality of Worlds [1986], 248-263) by Crawford L. Elder - Real Natures and Familiar Objects 1.4

Book Reference

Elder,Crawford L.: 'Real Natures and Familiar Objects' [MIT 2004], p.18


A Reaction

This is a sophisticated version of the idea that essential properties are just necessary properties. It might make sense with a very sparse view of properties (mainly causal ones), but I think of essences as quite different from necessities.