Combining Texts

Ideas for 'Particulars in Particular Clothing', 'The World as Will and Idea' and 'Substance and Essence in Aristotle'

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4 ideas

9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 2. Types of Essence
12066 Aristotelian and Kripkean essentialism are very different theories [Witt]
     Full Idea: The differences between Aristotelian essentialism and Kripke's essentialism are so fundamental and pervasive that it is a serious distortion of both views to think of essentialism as a single theory.
     From: Charlotte Witt (Substance and Essence in Aristotle [1989], Intro)
     A reaction: This seems to me to be very important, because there is a glib assumption that when essentialism is needed for modal logic, that we must immediately have embraced what Aristotle was saying. Aristotle was better than Kripke.
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 4. Essence as Definition
12067 An Aristotelian essence is a nonlinguistic correlate of the definition [Witt]
     Full Idea: An Aristotelian essence is a nonlinguistic correlate of the definition of the entity in question.
     From: Charlotte Witt (Substance and Essence in Aristotle [1989], Intro)
     A reaction: This is a simple and necessity corrective to the simplistic idea that Aristotle thought that essences just were definitions. Aristotle believes in real essences, not linguistic essences.
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 6. Essence as Unifier
12082 If unity is a matter of degree, then essence may also be a matter of degree [Witt]
     Full Idea: By holding that the most unified beings have essences in an unqualified sense, while allowing that other beings have them in a qualified sense - we can think of unity as a matter of degree.
     From: Charlotte Witt (Substance and Essence in Aristotle [1989], 4.3)
     A reaction: This is Witt's somewhat unorthodox view of how we should read Aristotle. I am sympathetic, if essences are really explanatory. That means they are unstable, and would indeed be likely to come in degrees.
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 8. Essence as Explanatory
12089 Essences mainly explain the existence of unified substance [Witt]
     Full Idea: The central function of essence is to explain the actual existence of a unified substance.
     From: Charlotte Witt (Substance and Essence in Aristotle [1989], 5 n1)
     A reaction: She is offering an interpretation of Aristotle. Since existence is an active and not a passive matter, the identity of the entity will include its dispositions etc., I presume.