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| 13804 | A property is essential iff the object would not exist if it lacked that property |
| Full Idea: A property P is an essential property of an object x iff x could not exist and lack P, that is, as they say, iff x has P at every world at which x exists. | |||
| From: Graeme Forbes (In Defense of Absolute Essentialism [1986], 1) | |||
| A reaction: This immediately places the existence of x outside the normal range of its properties, so presumably 'existence is not a predicate', but that dictum may be doubted. As it stands this definition will include trivial and vacuous properties. |
| 13805 | Properties are trivially essential if they are not grounded in a thing's specific nature |
| Full Idea: Essential properties may be trivial or nontrivial. It is characteristic of P's being trivially essential to x that x's possession of P is not grounded in the specific nature of x. | |||
| From: Graeme Forbes (In Defense of Absolute Essentialism [1986], 2) | |||
| A reaction: This is where my objection to the modal view of essence arises. How is he going to explain 'grounded' and 'specific nature' without supplying an entirely different account of essence? |
| 13808 | A relation is essential to two items if it holds in every world where they exist |
| Full Idea: A relation R is essential to x and y (in that order) iff Rxy holds at every world where x and y both exist. | |||
| From: Graeme Forbes (In Defense of Absolute Essentialism [1986], 2) | |||
| A reaction: I find this bizarre. Not only does this seem to me to have nothing whatever to do with essence, but also the relation might hold even though it is a purely contingent matter. All rabbits are a reasonable distance from the local star. Essence of rabbit? |
| 13806 | Trivially essential properties are existence, self-identity, and de dicto necessities |
| Full Idea: The main groups of trivially essential properties are (a) existence, self-identity, or their consequences in S5; and (b) properties possessed in virtue of some de dicto necessary truth. | |||
| From: Graeme Forbes (In Defense of Absolute Essentialism [1986], 2) | |||
| A reaction: He adds 'extraneously essential' properties, which also strike me as being trivial, involving relations. 'Is such that 2+2=4' or 'is such that something exists' might be necessary, but they don't, I would say, have anything to do with essence. |
| 13807 | A property is 'extraneously essential' if it is had only because of the properties of other objects |
| Full Idea: P is 'extraneously essential' to x iff it is possessed by x at any world w only in virtue of the possession at w of certain properties by other objects. | |||
| From: Graeme Forbes (In Defense of Absolute Essentialism [1986], 2) | |||
| A reaction: I would say that these are the sorts of properties which have nothing to do with being essential, even if they are deemed to be necessary. |
| 13809 | One might be essentialist about the original bronze from which a statue was made |
| Full Idea: In the case of artefacts, there is an essentialism about original matter; for instance, it would be said of any particular bronze statue that it could not have been cast from a totally different quantity of bronze. | |||
| From: Graeme Forbes (In Defense of Absolute Essentialism [1986], 3) | |||
| A reaction: Forbes isn't endorsing this, and it doesn't sound convincing. He quotes the thought 'I wish I had made this pot from a different piece of clay'. We might corrupt a statue by switching bronze, but I don't think the sculptor could do so. |
| 13810 | The source of de dicto necessity is not concepts, but the actual properties of the thing |
| Full Idea: It is widely held that the source of de dicto necessity is in concepts, ..but I deny this... even with simple de dicto necessities, the source of the necessity is to be found in the properties to which the predicates of the de dicto truth refer. | |||
| From: Graeme Forbes (In Defense of Absolute Essentialism [1986], 3) | |||
| A reaction: It is normal nowadays to say this about de re necessities, but this is more unusual. |