Sortal Concepts and Essential Properties

Mackie, Penelope

doi:10.2307/2219612

Cited by 39 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 3 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…5. See, e.g., Bennett (1969), Mackie (1994), Gorman (2005), Robertson and Atkins (2013), or Roca-Royes (2011). Note that in Fine's works, this seems to be first and foremost a contrast in how claims about essence are expressed.…”

Section: The Linking Principle Explainedmentioning

confidence: 99%

Essential Truths and Their Truth-Grounds

Michels¹

2018

Ergo, an Open Access Journal of Philosophy

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This paper motivates and defends a principle which captures a systematic connection between essence, truth, and grounding. It says that if a proposition expresses an essential truth, i.e., if it is true in virtue of the nature of some objects, then there are grounds for its truth which involve these objects. Together with the assumption that a fact can only be grounded in facts which are relevant to it, this principle is then applied in an argument against the monotonicity of the Essentialist notion 'true in virtue of the nature of'.

show abstract

Section: The Linking Principle Explainedmentioning

confidence: 99%

Essential Truths and Their Truth-Grounds

Michels¹

2018

Ergo, an Open Access Journal of Philosophy

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…What is more, at t 2 it can exist as having properties belonging to the maximal set B or as having properties belonging to the maximal set C. However, if it has properties belonging to the maximal set A at t 1 , than at t 2 it can only has properties belonging to the maximal set C, and if at t 1 it has properties belonging to the maximal set B, then at t 2 it can only have properties belonging to the maximal set D. Again, it seems that there is no a priori reason to exclude objects with such modal histories and so histories composed of unconnected branches should be allowed (see [5, pp. 121-23] and the criticism in [11]).…”

Section: Modal Histories Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dynamic Essences: Absolute, Prospective, Retrospective, and Relative Modalities

Skrzypulec

Rojek

2018

Studia Humana

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Essential properties are usually thought as properties that things must always possess, whereas accidental properties are considered as changeable. In this paper, we challenge this traditional view. We argue that in some important cases, such as social or biological development, we face not only the change of accidents, but also the change of essences. To analyze this kind of change we propose an alternative view on the relations between the modalities and time. Some properties might be necessary or possible for a thing in a classical sense throughout its existence, whereas others might be necessary or possible only for some restricted periods. We distinguish therefore absolute, prospective, retrospective, and relative modalities. As we argue, these non-classical concepts of modality are useful in analysis of some puzzling case of seemingly changing essences.

show abstract

“…The thesis that they do has an impressive historical pedigree, but more recently has been criticized, for example by Mackie (1994Mackie ( , 2006. It is perhaps not all that obvious that Aristotle was essentially a human being, for example.…”

Section: Continuants and Sortalsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Continuants, identity and essentialism

Unwin

2018

Synthese

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The question of whether it is permissible to quantify into a modal context is reexamined from an empiricist perspective. Following Wiggins, it is argued that an ontology of continuants implies essentialism, but it is also argued, against Wiggins, that the only conception of necessity that we need to start out with is that of analyticity. Essentialism, of a limited kind, can then be actually generated from this. An exceptionally fine-grained identity criterion for continuants is defended in this context. The debate between Wiggins and Ayer over the legitimacy of de re modality is then examined in the light of these results, and it is argued that my position is consistent with Ayer's minimalist assumptions. It is also argued that non-continuants will not sustain the essential/accidental distinction, thus giving some concessions to the sceptics. It is also shown that there are close connections between these issues and the more modern two-dimensionalist way of disentangling the necessary from the a posteriori, and that the latter needs to learn from the former.

show abstract

Sortal Concepts and Essential Properties

Cited by 39 publications

References 3 publications

Essential Truths and Their Truth-Grounds

Essential Truths and Their Truth-Grounds

Dynamic Essences: Absolute, Prospective, Retrospective, and Relative Modalities

Continuants, identity and essentialism

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About