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| 10938 | The extremes of essentialism are that all properties are essential, or only very trivial ones |
| Full Idea: It would be natural to label one extreme view 'maximal essentialism' - that all of an object's properties are essential - and the other extreme 'minimal' - that only trivial properties such as self-identity of being either F or not-F are essential. | |||
| From: Adolph Rami (Essential vs Accidental Properties [2008]) | |||
| A reaction: Personally I don't accept the trivial ones as being in any way describable as 'properties'. The maximal view destroys any useful notion of essence. Leibniz is a minority holder of the maximal view. I would defend a middle way. |
| 10940 | An 'individual essence' is possessed uniquely by a particular object |
| Full Idea: An 'individual essence' is a property that in addition to being essential is also unique to the object, in the sense that it is not possible that something distinct from that object possesses that property. | |||
| From: Adolph Rami (Essential vs Accidental Properties [2008], §5) | |||
| A reaction: She cites a 'haecceity' (or mere bare identity) as a trivial example of an individual essence. |
| 10939 | 'Sortal essentialism' says being a particular kind is what is essential |
| Full Idea: According to 'sortal essentialism', an object could not have been of a radically different kind than it in fact is. | |||
| From: Adolph Rami (Essential vs Accidental Properties [2008], §4) | |||
| A reaction: This strikes me as thoroughly wrong. Things belong in kinds because of their properties. Could you remove all the contingent features of a tiger, leaving it as merely 'a tiger', despite being totally unrecognisable? |
| 10934 | Unlosable properties are not the same as essential properties |
| Full Idea: It is easy to confuse the notion of an essential property that a thing could not lack, with a property it could not lose. My having spent Christmas 2007 in Tennessee is a non-essential property I could not lose. | |||
| From: Adolph Rami (Essential vs Accidental Properties [2008], §1) | |||
| A reaction: The idea that having spent Christmas in Tennessee is a property I find quite bewildering. Is my not having spent my Christmas in Tennessee one of my properties? I suspect that real unlosable properties are essential ones. |
| 10933 | Physical possibility is part of metaphysical possibility which is part of logical possibility |
| Full Idea: The usual view is that 'physical possibilities' are a natural subset of the 'metaphysical possibilities', which in turn are a subset of the 'logical possibilities'. | |||
| From: Adolph Rami (Essential vs Accidental Properties [2008], §1) | |||
| A reaction: [She cites Fine 2002 for an opposing view] I prefer 'natural' to 'physical', leaving it open where the borders of the natural lie. I take 'metaphysical' possibility to be 'in all naturally possible worlds'. So is a round square a logical possibility? |
| 10932 | If it is possible 'for all I know' then it is 'epistemically possible' |
| Full Idea: There is 'epistemic possibility' when it is 'for all I know'. That is, P is epistemically possible for agent A just in case P is consistent with what A knows. | |||
| From: Adolph Rami (Essential vs Accidental Properties [2008], §1) | |||
| A reaction: Two problems: maybe 'we' know, and A knows we know, but A doesn't know. And maybe someone knows, but we are not sure about that, which seems to introduce a modal element into the knowing. If someone knows it's impossible, it's impossible. |