Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gvvz8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-24T01:08:19.378Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The modal view of essence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Sam Cowling
Sam Cowling*
Affiliation:
aDepartment of Philosophy, Denison University, Granville, OH, 43023, USA
*
E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

According to the modal view, essence admits of reductive analysis in exclusively modal terms. Fine (1994) argues that modal view delivers an inadequate analysis of essence. This paper defends the modal view from Fine's challenge. This defense proceeds by examining the disagreement between Finean primitivists and Quinean eliminativists about essence. In order to model this disagreement, a distinction between essence and a separable concept, nature, is required. This distinction is then used to show that Fine's challenge is misdirected and therefore unsuccessful.

Keywords

essencemodalityessentialism
Type
Articles
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 43 , Issue 2 , 2013 , pp. 248 - 266
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Journal of Philosophy 2013

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

Almog, Joseph. 1991. The What and the How. Journal of Philosophy, 88: 225–244.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brogaard, Berit and Salerno, Joe. 2007. A Counterfactual Account of Essence. The Reasoner, 4Google Scholar
Burgess, John. 1998. “Quinus Ab Omni Naevo Vindicatus”. In Meaning and Reference, Edited by: Kazmi, Ali. 25–65. Calgary: University of Calgary Press.Google Scholar
Caplan, Ben. 2007. A New Defense of the Modal Existence Requirement. Synthese, 154: 335–343.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Correia, Fabrice. 2006. Generic Essence, Objectual Essence, and Modality. Nous, 40: 753–767.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cowling, Sam. forthcoming. Ideological Parsimony. Synthese,Google Scholar
Fine, Kit. 1994. Essence and Modality. Philosophical Perspectives, 8: 1–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Forbes, Graeme. 1985. The Metaphysics of Modality, Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Kripke, Saul. 1980. Naming and Necessity, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Lewis, David. 1983. New Work for a Theory of Universals. Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 61: 343–377.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lewis, David. 1986. On the Plurality of Worlds, Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Mackie, Penelope. 2006. How Things Might Have Been, Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marcus, Ruth. 1967. Essentialism in Quantified Modal Logic. Nous, 1: 90–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nelson, Michael. 2009. “Quantifying In and Anti-Essentialism”. In Russell vs. Meinong: The Legacy of “On Denoting”, Edited by: Griffin, N. and Jacquette, D. 297–342. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Parsons, Terence. 1969. Essentialism and Quantified Modal Logic. Philosophical Review, 78: 35–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Plantinga, Alvin. 1974. The Nature of Necessity, Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Plantinga, Alvin. 1979. “De Essentia”. In Essays on the Philosophy of Roderick M. Chisholm, Edited by: Sosa, Ernest. 139–157. Amsterdam: Rodopi.Google Scholar
Quine, W. V. O. 1960. Word and Object, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Rosen, Gideon. 2006. “The Limits of Contingency”. In Identity and Modality, Edited by: MacBride, Fraser. 13–39. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Salmon, Nathan. 1981. Reference and Essence, Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Salmon, Nathan. 1990. Existence. Philosophical Perspectives, 1: 49–108.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schaffer, Jonathan. 2004. Two Conceptions of Sparse Properties. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 85: 92–102.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sider, Theodore. 2012. Writing the Book of the World, Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Stalnaker, Robert. 1979. Anti-Essentialism. Midwest Studies in Philosophy, 4: 343–355.CrossRefGoogle Scholar