Essentialists suppose that for every individual, if that individual exists at any possible world, then necessarily that individual exemplifies some non-trivial qualitative property essential to it, as such. Anti-essentialists deny this. One important argument leveled by some anti-essentialists against essentialism takes the form of a thought experiment, one originally introduced by Chisholm (Nous 1(1):1-8, 1967), sometimes referred to as Chisholm's Paradox (CP). In this essay, I defend essentialism against CP. I begin by presenting the argument and showing how it leads to a contradiction of the essentialist thesis. I then consider one of the most popular solutions to CP to date, that given by Salmon (
It has been argued recently that classical theism and Lewisian modal realism are incompatible theses. The most substantial argument to this effect takes the form of a trilemma. It argues that no sense can be made of God’s being a necessary being in the modal realistic picture, on pain of, among other things, modal collapse. The question of this essay is: Is that so? My goal here is to detail the reasons that have been offered in support of this contention and then defend the coherence of theistic modal realism from the trilemma. I call my reply to the argument an “Anselmian-Thomistic” defense, since it appeals to resources from classical medieval philosophy, especially from Anselm and Aquinas.
The purpose of this essay is exegesis. I explicate Nicholas Malebranche’s concept of intelligible extension. I begin by detailing how the concept matured throughout Malebranche’s work, and the new functions it took on within his metaphysical system. I then examine Gustav Bergmann’s (1956. “Some Remarks on the Philosophy of Malebranche.” The Review of Metaphysics 10(2): 207–26) “axiomatic” interpretation, as well as the criticism of it offered by Daise Radner (1994. “Malebranche and the Individuation of Perceptual Objects.” In Individuation and Identity in Early Modern Philosophy, edited by Kenneth F. Barber, and Jorge J. E. Gracia, New York: SUNY Press). I argue that Radner’s criticism of the interpretation is only partly successful; some of her objections can be met; others cannot. I then develop a novel interpretation of the concept, given insights from this dispute. I call it the “programmatic interpretation.” I argue that this interpretation coheres well with Malebranche’s famous Vision in God thesis, as well as many of his other commitments. I conclude by considering a certain pertinent objection to my proposal, summarizing the dialectic, and forcefully restating my case.
This essay offers an original interpretation and defense of the doctrine of flux, as it is presented in Plato’s Theaetetus. The methodology of the paper’s analysis is in the style of rational reconstruction, and it is highly analytic in scope, in the sense that I will focus on the text itself, and only on certain parts of it too, while ignoring the rest of Plato’s extensive corpus, and without worrying about whether, how, and to what extent the interpretation of the view coheres well with the other elements of the secret doctrine view discussed in the dialogue, as well. In the first part of the essay, I’ll offer my interpretation of the doctrine. Then, in the second part of the essay, I’ll examine two potential criticisms of the doctrine, including Socrates’s infamous linguistic paradox, and show how my interpretation of Heraclitean flux metaphysics is able to circumvent both.
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