Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dk4vv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T14:46:13.597Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
Series:   Elements in Metaphysics

Essence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2022

Martin Glazier
Martin Glazier
Affiliation:
University of Hamburg

Summary

This Element examines the contemporary literature on essence in connection with the traditional question whether essence lies within or without our world. Section 1 understands this question in terms of a certain distinction, the distinction between active and latent facts. Section 2 steps back to investigate the connections between essence and other philosophical concepts. Section 3 brings the results of this investigation to bear on the traditional question, sketching an argument from the premise that essentialist facts are explained by the origins of things to the conclusion that such facts are active.
Get access

Keywords

essenceidentitymodalitydependenceexplanation
Type
Element
Information
Series: Elements in Metaphysics
Online ISBN: 9781108935494
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication: 01 December 2022

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Achinstein, P. 1984. The pragmatic character of explanation. Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1984: 275–292.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Almog, J. 1989. Logic and the world. Journal of Philosophical Logic 18(2): 197–220.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Almog, J. 1991. The what and the how. Journal of Philosophy 88(5): 225–244.Google Scholar
Almog, J. 1996. The what and the how II: Reals and mights. Noûs 30(4): 413–433.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Almog, J. 1999. Nothing, something, infinity. Journal of Philosophy 96(9): 462–478.Google Scholar
Almog, J. 2003. The structure-in-things: Existence, essence and logic. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 103(2): 197–225.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Almog, J. 2010. Nature without essence. Journal of Philosophy 107(7): 360–383.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Amijee, F. 2021. Explaining contingent facts. Philosophical Studies 178: 1163–1181.Google Scholar
Aristotle. 1984. The Complete Works of Aristotle: The Revised Oxford Translation. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Armstrong, D. M. 1983. What is a Law of Nature? Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ballarin, R. 2013. The necessity of origin: A long and winding route. Erkenntnis 78: 353–370.Google Scholar
Bigelow, J., Ellis, B., and Lierse, C.. 1992. The world as one of a kind: Natural necessity and the laws of nature. British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 43(3): 371–388.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bird, A. 2007. Nature’s Metaphysics: Laws and Properties. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brody, B. 1980. Identity and Essence. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Brogaard, B. and Salerno, J.. 2013. Remarks on counterpossibles. Synthese 190: 639–660.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burgess, J. M. 2020. Kripke on modality. In Routledge Handbook of Modality, ed. Bueno, O. and Shalkowski, S. A., 400–408. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Cameron, R. P. 2005. A note on Kripke’s footnote 56 argument for the essentiality of origin. Ratio 18: 262–275.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cameron, R. P. 2010. The grounds of necessity. Philosophy Compass 5: 348–358.Google Scholar
Charles, D. 2010. Definition and explanation in the Posterior Analytics and Metaphysics. In Definition in Greek Philosophy, ed. Charles, D., 286–328 Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Correia, F. 2005. Existential Dependence and Cognate Notions. Munich: Philosophia.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Correia, F. 2006. Generic essence, objectual essence, and modality. Noûs 40(4): 753–767.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Correia, F. 2017a. An impure logic of representational grounding. Journal of Philosophical Logic 46: 507–538.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Correia, F. 2017b. Real definitions. Philosophical Issues 27: 52–73.Google Scholar
Correia, F. Forthcoming. Non-modal conceptions of essence. In Routledge Handbook of Essence, ed. Raven, M. J. and Koslicki, K.. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Correia, F. and Skiles, A.. 2019. Grounding, essence, and identity. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 98(3): 642–670.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cowling, S. 2013. The modal view of essence. Canadian Journal of Philosophy 43(2): 248–266.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Damnjanovic, N. 2010. No route to material origin essentialism? Erkenntnis 73: 93–110.Google Scholar
Dasgupta, S. 2014. The possibility of physicalism. Journal of Philosophy 111(9): 557–592.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dasgupta, S. 2015. Inexpressible ignorance. Philosophical Review 124(4): 441–480.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dasgupta, S. 2016. Metaphysical rationalism. Noûs 50(2): 379–418.Google Scholar
Dasgupta, S. 2017. Constitutive explanation. Philosophical Issues 27: 74–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
De, M. 2020. A modal account of essence. Metaphysics 3(1): 17–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Denby, D. 2014. Essence and intrinsicality. In Companion to Intrinsic Properties, ed. Francescotti, R. M., 87–109. Berlin: De Gruyter.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dorr, C. and Goodman, J.. 2020. Diamonds are forever. Noûs 54(3): 632–665.Google Scholar
Ellis, B. 2001. Scientific Essentialism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Fine, K. 1994. Essence and modality. Philosophical Perspectives 8: 1–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fine, K. 1995a. Ontological dependence. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 95: 269–290.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fine, K. 1995b. Senses of essence. In Modality, Morality, and Belief: Essays in Honor of Ruth Barcan Marcus, ed. Sinnott-Armstrong, W., Raffman, D., and Asher, N., 53–73. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Fine, K. 2000. Semantics for the logic of essence. Journal of Philosophical Logic 29: 543–584.Google Scholar
Fine, K. 2002. The varieties of necessity. In Conceivability and Possibility, ed. Gendler, T. S. and Hawthorne, J., 253–282. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Fine, K. 2005. Necessity and non-existence. In Modality and Tense: Philosophical Papers, 321–354. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Fine, K. 2012a. Guide to ground. In Metaphysical Grounding: Understanding the Structure of Reality, ed. Correia, F. and Schnieder, B., 37–80. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fine, K. 2012b. What is metaphysics? In Contemporary Aristotelian Metaphysics, ed. Tahko, T. E., 8–25. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Fine, K. 2013. Fundamental truth and fundamental terms. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 88(3): 725–732.Google Scholar
Fine, K. 2015. Unified foundations for essence and ground. Journal of the American Philosophical Association 1(2): 296–311.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fine, K. 2017a. Naive metaphysics. Philosophical Issues 27: 98–113.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fine, K. 2017b. A theory of truthmaker content II: Subject-matter, common content and ground. Journal of Philosophical Logic 46(6): 675–702.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fine, K. 2020a. Comments on Jessica Wilson’s “Essence and Dependence.” In Metaphysics, Meaning, and Modality: Themes from Kit Fine, ed. Dumitru, M., 471–475. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Fine, K. 2020b. Comments on Penelope Mackie’s “Can Metaphysical Modality Be Based on Essence?” In Metaphysics, Meaning, and Modality: Themes from Kit Fine, ed. Dumitru, M., 461–465. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gettier, E. L. 1963. Is justified true belief knowledge? Analysis 23(6): 121–123.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Glazier, M. 2017. Essentialist explanation. Philosophical Studies 174(11): 2871–2889.Google Scholar
Glazier, M. 2020. Explanation. In The Routledge Handbook of Metaphysical Grounding, ed. Raven, M. J., 121–132. London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Glazier, M. 2021. The difference between epistemic and metaphysical necessity. Synthese 198(6): 1409–1424.Google Scholar
Goodman, N. 1954. Fact, Fiction, and Forecast. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Gorman, M. 2005. The essential and the accidental. Ratio 18(3): 276–289.Google Scholar
Gorman, M. 2014. Essentiality as foundationality. In Neo-Aristotelian Perspectives in Metaphysics, ed. Novotný, D. D. and Novák, L., 119–137. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Hale, B. 2013. Necessary Beings: An Essay on Ontology, Modality, and the Relations between Them. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hawthorne, J. and Gendler, T. S.. 2000. Origin essentialism: The arguments reconsidered. Mind 109(434): 285–298.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hicks, M. T. and van Elswyk, P.. 2015. Humean laws and circular explanation. Philosophical Studies 172: 433–443.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johnston, M. 1987. Is there a problem about persistence? Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 61: 107–135.Google Scholar
Kim, J. 1988. Explanatory realism, causal realism, and explanatory exclusion. Midwest Studies in Philosophy 12: 225–239.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kim, J. 1994. Explanatory knowledge and metaphysical dependence. Philosophical Issues 5: 51–69.Google Scholar
Kitcher, P. 1981. Explanatory unification. Philosophy of Science 48(4): 507–531.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kment, B. 2014. Modality and Explanatory Reasoning. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Kment, B. 2021. Essence and modal knowledge. Synthese 198: 1957–1979.Google Scholar
Koslicki, K. 2012. Varieties of ontological dependence. In Metaphysical Grounding: Understanding the Structure of Reality, ed. Correia, F. and Schnieder, B., 186–213. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Koslicki, K. 2013. Ontological dependence: An opinionated survey. In Varities of Dependence: Ontological Dependence, Grounding, Supervenience, Response-Dependence, ed. Hoeltje, M., Schnieder, B., and Steinberg, A., 31–64. Munich: Philosophia.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Krämer, S. 2018. Towards a theory of ground-theoretic content. Synthese 195: 785–814.Google Scholar
Kripke, S. A. 1980. Naming and Necessity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Lange, M. 2013. Grounding, scientific explanation, and Humean laws. Philosophical Studies 164(1): 255–261.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leech, J. 2018. Essence and mere necessity. Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplements 82: 309–332.Google Scholar
Leech, J. 2021. From essence to necessity via identity. Mind 130(519): 887–908.Google Scholar
Leuenberger, S. 2014. Grounding and necessity. Inquiry 57(2): 151–174.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lewis, D. 1973. Counterfactuals. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Lewis, D. 1986. On the Plurality of Worlds. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Loewer, B. 2012. Two accounts of laws and time. Philosophical Studies 160(1): 115–137.Google Scholar
Lowe, E. J. 2008. Two notions of being: Entity and essence. Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplements 83(62): 23–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lowe, E. J. 2012a. Essence and ontology. In Metaphysics: Aristotelian, Scholastic, Analytic, ed. Novák, L., Novotný, D. D., Sousedík, P., and Svoboda, D., 93–112. Heusenstamm: Ontos Verlag.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lowe, E. J. 2012b. What is the source of our knowledge of modal truths? Mind 121(484): 919–950.Google Scholar
Lowe, E. J. 2013. Forms of Thought: A Study in Philosophical Logic. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Lowe, E. J. 2014. Essence vs. intuition: An unequal contest. In Intuitions, ed. Booth, A. R. and Rowbottom, D. P., 256–268. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Mackie, P. 2020. Can metaphysical modality be based on essence? In Metaphysics, Meaning, and Modality: Themes from Kit Fine, ed. Dumitru, M., 247–264. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Mallozzi, A., Vaidya, A., and Wallner, M.. 2021. The epistemology of modality. In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2021 ed.), ed. Zalta, E. N.. Lab, Metaphysics Research, University, Stanford. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2021/entries/modality-epistemology/Google Scholar
Marshall, D. 2015. Humean laws and explanation. Philosophical Studies 172: 3145–3165.Google Scholar
Maudlin, T. 2007. The Metaphysics within Physics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Miller, E. 2015. Humean scientific explanation. Philosophical Studies 172: 1311–1332.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
O’Connor, T. and Montgomery, N.. 2013. Writing the book of the world. Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews. https://ndpr.nd.edu/reviews/writing-the-book-of-the-world/Google Scholar
Olson, E. T. 2021. Personal identity. In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2021 ed.), ed. Zalta, E. N.. Lab, Metaphysics Research, University, Stanford. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2022/entries/identity-personal/Google Scholar
Plato. 1997. Complete Works. Indianapolis: Hackett.Google Scholar
Politis, V. 2021. Plato’s Essentialism: Reinterpreting the Theory of Forms. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Quine, W. V. 1943. Notes on existence and necessity. Journal of Philosophy 40(5): 113–127.Google Scholar
Quine, W. V. 1966. Three grades of modal involvement. In The Ways of Paradox and Other Essays, 156–174. New York: Random House.Google Scholar
Raven, M. J. 2015. Ground. Philosophy Compass 10(5): 322–333.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Raven, M. J. 2020a. Is logic out of this world? Journal of Philosophy 117(10): 557–577.Google Scholar
Raven, M. J. (ed.). 2020b. The Routledge Handbook of Metaphysical Grounding. London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Raven, M. J. 2021. Explaining essences. Philosophical Studies 178: 1043–1064.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Raven, M. J. 2022. A puzzle for social essences. Journal of the American Philosophical Association 8(1): 128–148.Google Scholar
Robertson, T. 1998. Possibilities and the arguments for origin essentialism. Mind 107(428): 729–749.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rohrbaugh, G. and deRosset, L.. 2004. A new route to the necessity of origin. Mind 113: 705–725.Google Scholar
Rosen, G. 2010. Metaphysical dependence: Grounding and reduction. In Modality: Metaphysics, Logic, and Epistemology, ed. Hale, B. and Hoffmann, A., 109–136. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Rosen, G. 2015. Real definition. Analytic Philosophy 56(3): 189–209.Google Scholar
Ruben, D.-H. 1990. Explaining Explanation. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Salmon, N. 1979. How not to derive essentialism from the theory of reference. Journal of Philosophy 76(12): 703–725.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sartre, J.-P. 2007. Existentialism is a Humanism. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Schaffer, J. 2008. Causation and laws of nature: Reductionism. In Contemporary Debates in Metaphysics, ed. Sider, T., Hawthorne, J., and Zimmerman, D. W., 82–108. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Schaffer, J. 2012. Grounding, transitivity, and contrastivity. In Metaphysical Grounding: Understanding the Structure of Reality, ed. Correia, F. and Schnieder, B., 122–138. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Schnieder, B. 2006. A certain kind of trinity: Dependence, substance, explanation. Philosophical Studies 129: 393–419.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shields, C. 2019. Plato and Aristotle in the academy. In The Oxford Handbook of Plato (2nd ed.), ed. Fine, G., 645–667. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Shimony, A. 1948. The status and nature of essences. Review of Metaphysics 1(3): 38–79.Google Scholar
Shoemaker, S. 1980. Causality and properties. In Time and Cause: Essays Presented to Richard Taylor, ed. van Inwagen, P., 109–135. Dordrecht: Reidel.Google Scholar
Sidelle, A. 1989. Necessity, Essence, and Individuation: A Defense of Conventionalism. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Sider, T. 2001. Four-Dimensionalism: An Ontology of Persistence and Time. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Sider, T. 2003. Reductive theories of modality. In The Oxford Handbook of Metaphysics, ed. Loux, M. J. and Zimmerman, D. W., 180–208. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Sider, T. 2007. Parthood. Philosophical Review 116: 51–91.Google Scholar
Sider, T. 2011. Writing the Book of the World. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Sider, T. 2020. The Tools of Metaphysics and the Metaphysics of Science. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Simons, P. 1987. Parts: A Study in Ontology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Skiles, A. 2015a. Against grounding necessitarianism. Erkenntnis 80: 717–751.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Skiles, A. 2015b. Essence in abundance. Canadian Journal of Philosophy 45(1): 100–112.Google Scholar
Sullivan, M. 2017. Are there essential properties? No. In Current Controversies in Metaphysics, ed. Barnes, E., 45–61. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Tahko, T. E. 2017. Empirically-informed modal rationalism. In Modal Epistemology after Rationalism, ed. Fischer, R. W. and Leon, F., 29–45. Dordrecht: Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tahko, T. E. 2018. The epistemology of essence. In Ontology, Modality, Mind: Themes from the Metaphysics of E. J. Lowe, ed. Carruth, A., Gibb, S. C., and Heil, J., 93–110. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Tahko, T. E. and Lowe, E. J.. 2020. Ontological dependence. In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2020 ed.), ed. Zalta, E. N.. Lab, Metaphysics Research, University, Stanford. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2020/entries/dependence-ontological/Google Scholar
Taylor, E. 2017. Against explanatory realism. Philosophical Studies 175(1): 197–219.Google Scholar
van Fraassen, B. C. 1980. The Scientific Image. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Wiggins, D. 2001. Sameness and Substance Renewed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Wildman, N. 2013. Modality, sparsity, and essence. Philosophical Quarterly 63(253): 760–782.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williamson, T. 2013. Modal Logic as Metaphysics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Wilson, J. 2020. Essence and dependence. In Metaphysics, Meaning, and Modality: Themes from Kit Fine, ed. Dumitru, M., 283–300. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Yablo, S. 2014. Aboutness. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Zylstra, J. 2019. Collective essence and monotonicity. Erkenntnis 84: 1087–1101.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Save element to Kindle

To save this element to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Essence
Available formats
×

Save element to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Essence
Available formats
×

Save element to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Essence
Available formats
×