Full Idea
The reasonableness of the essentialist hypothesis will be proportional to the extent that we can, as a result, use a's possession of P to explain a's other properties, ...and there is an inability to explain otherwise why a has P.
Gist of Idea
Essentialism is justified if the essential properties of things explain their other properties
Source
Baruch Brody (Identity and Essence [1980], 6.3)
Book Reference
Brody,Baruch: 'Identity and Essence' [Princeton 1980], p.152
A Reaction
Brody as a rather liberal notion of properties. I would hope that we can do rather more than explain a's non-essential properties. If the non-essential properties were entailed by the essential ones, would they not then also be essential?