Combining Texts

Ideas for 'Mahaprajnaparamitashastra', 'Principia Mathematica' and 'Inessential Aristotle: Powers without Essences'

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3 ideas

9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 5. Essence as Kind
15145 A kind essence is the necessary and sufficient properties for membership of a class [Chakravartty]
     Full Idea: The modern concept of a kind essence is a set of intrinsic properties that are individually necessary and jointly sufficient for the membership of something in a class of things, or 'kind'.
     From: Anjan Chakravarrty (Inessential Aristotle: Powers without Essences [2012], 2)
     A reaction: I am always struck by the problem that the kind itself is constructed from the individuals, so circularity always seems to loom.
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 15. Against Essentialism
15147 Cluster kinds are explained simply by sharing some properties, not by an 'essence' [Chakravartty]
     Full Idea: The fact that members of some cluster kinds are subjects of causal generalizations reflects the degree to which they share causally efficacious properties, not the fact that they may be composed of essence kinds per se.
     From: Anjan Chakravarrty (Inessential Aristotle: Powers without Essences [2012], 2)
     A reaction: I think this is right. I am a fan of individual essences, but not of kind essences. I take kinds, and kind explanations, to be straightforward inductive generalisations from individuals. Extreme stabilities give the illusion of a kind essence.
9. Objects / F. Identity among Objects / 7. Indiscernible Objects
12033 An object is identical with itself, and no different indiscernible object can share that [Russell/Whitehead, by Adams,RM]
     Full Idea: Trivially, the Identity of Indiscernibles says that two individuals, Castor and Pollux, cannot have all properties in common. For Castor must have the properties of being identical with Castor and not being identical with Pollux, which Pollux can't share.
     From: report of B Russell/AN Whitehead (Principia Mathematica [1913], I p.57) by Robert Merrihew Adams - Primitive Thisness and Primitive Identity 2
     A reaction: I suspect that either the property of being identical with itself is quite vacuous, or it is parasytic on primitive identity, or it is the criterion which is actually used to define identity. Either way, I don't find this claim very illuminating.