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Single Idea 11185

[from 'Essential Attribution' by Ruth Barcan Marcus, in 9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 7. Essence and Necessity / b. Essence not necessities ]

Full Idea

There seems to be surface synonymy between 'is essentially' and de re occurrences of 'is necessarily', but intersubstitution often fails to preserve sense (as in 'Winston is essentially a cyclist' and 'Winston is necessarily a cyclist').

Gist of Idea

'Is essentially' has a different meaning from 'is necessarily', as they often cannot be substituted

Source

Ruth Barcan Marcus (Essential Attribution [1971], p.193)

Book Reference

-: 'Nous' [-], p.193


A Reaction

Clearly the two sentences have different meanings, with 'essentially' being a comment about the nature of Winston, and 'necessarily' probably being a comment about the circumstances in which he finds himself. Very nice. See also Idea 11186.

Related Idea

Idea 11186 'Essentially' won't replace 'necessarily' for vacuous properties like snub-nosed or self-identical [Marcus (Barcan)]