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Ideas for 'Essence and Potentiality', 'fragments/reports' and 'The Limits of Contingency'

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4 ideas

9. Objects / A. Existence of Objects / 4. Impossible objects
A Meinongian principle might say that there is an object for any modest class of properties [Rosen]
     Full Idea: Meinongian abstraction principles say that for any (suitably restricted) class of properties, there exists an abstract entity (arbitrary object, subsistent entity) that possesses just those properties.
     From: Gideon Rosen (The Limits of Contingency [2006], 04)
     A reaction: This is 'Meinongian' because there will be an object which is circular and square. The nub of the idea presumably resides in what is meant by 'restricted'. An object possessing every conceivable property is, I guess, a step too far.
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 4. Essence as Definition
Real definition fits abstracta, but not individual concrete objects like Socrates [Vetter]
     Full Idea: I can understand the notion of real definition as applying to (some) abstact entities, but I have no idea how to apply it to a concrete object such as Socrates or myself.
     From: Barbara Vetter (Essence and Potentiality [2010], §1)
     A reaction: She is objecting to Kit Fine's account of essence, which is meant to be clearer than the normal account of essences based on necessities. Aristotle implies that definitions get fuzzy when you reach the level of the individual.
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 7. Essence and Necessity / a. Essence as necessary properties
Modal accounts make essence less mysterious, by basing them on the clearer necessity [Vetter]
     Full Idea: The modal account was meant, I take it, to make the notion of essence less mysterious by basing it on the supposedly better understood notion of necessity.
     From: Barbara Vetter (Essence and Potentiality [2010], §1)
9. Objects / E. Objects over Time / 1. Objects over Time
Something must be unchanging to make recognition and knowledge possible [Aristotle on Parmenides]
     Full Idea: Parmenides and Melissus were the first to appreciate that there must be unchanging entities, if recognition and knowledge are to exist.
     From: comment on Parmenides (fragments/reports [c.474 BCE], A25) by Aristotle - On the Heavens 298b14