Stanford - Essential Accidental
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What is it?
Stanford article on the debate over essential and accidental properies of objects.
Where can it be found?
Robertson, Teresa, “Essential vs. Accidental Properties”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2008 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2008/entries/essential-accidental/>.
How does it fit in?
Williamson uses the essentialist metaphysical project as an example of one that has not embraced the ocnceptual turn. I though it’d be a good idea to get more of an idea of what was involved in the project.
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Summary - general characterisation of essentialism: (at least some) objects have (at least some) essential properties Characterising the Essential/Accidental Distinction - modal characterisation: — essential: it is necessary that a particular object has a particular property — accidental: it is possible that a particular object could lack a particular property it has — in possible worlds talk: — essential property holds across all possible worlds, accidental does not — problem: seems many/all properties are contingent at least upon object’s existence - existence-conditioned modal characterisation: — add condition of “if object exists” (in some form) to the above — problem: seems to rule out theist’s claim where distinction to be captured should not - unresolved debate but not vital for central issues - concerned with metaphysical possibility/necessity — not epistemological (possibility given what someone knows) — not logical (negation not logical truth - e.g. tower red and green all over, extensionless, etc) — does include physical as that is subset of metaphysical — note: essential => could not lose but not <= (e.g. having experienced some past event) - definitional characterisation (Fine): — problem: essential seems to imply a necessaity, one which must hold even for unrelated things (e.g. infintely many primes essential to Socrates) — better to require essential to be tied to notion of what it is to be an object (by definition) — problem: do all objects have definitional properties? prolly not — requires clear answer to above problem in order to be well motivated - explanatory characterisation (Copi) — essential properties are those which are most explanatory — problem: most explanatory for what purpose? seems introduce subjectivity — needs to give answer to this in order to be well motivated Characterisations of Essentialism - key factors: - a. maximal essentialism := all an object’s properties are essential - b. minimal essentialism := only trivial properties are essential (e.g. self-ID) - 1. original, general characterisation (Mackie) — includes both a and b — most common understanding - 2. Quine: some properties may be essential and others accidenta (formally: exists(x)(necessarily(Fx)&Gx&~necessarily(Gx))) — includes a but not b - 3. Della Rocca: non-trivial essential property requirement — includes b but not a - 4. Yablo: non-trivial essentials and some accidentals — doesn’t include either a or b Varieties: - sortal essentialism: object could not have been of radically different kind (e.g. being human to me) - origin essentialism: object could nto have had radically different origin (e.g. particular sperm and egg to me) - natural kinds (Kripke, Putnam): it is essential to a particular object (e.g. species cat) that all its instances are also instances of some kind (e.g. animals) — note: a posteriori claim — also note: essentialism re: natural kinds does not imply sortal naturalism (akin to problem in claiming that man A, who happens to be a bachelor, could not be married based on a priori truth that all bachelors are unmarried (chicken and egg sort of thing innit)) Scepticism: - questions claim that essentiality is independent of how objects are referred to — e.g. is number 8 still necessarily greater than 7 when referred to as the number of planets? - response: — two intuitions re: “the number of planets has the property of being necessarily greater than 7” depending on whether taken de re or de dicto — but sceptic doesn’t say why the second one must be favoured Epistemology: - how is knowledge of essentialist claim obtained? — there are problems with a priori knowledge (e.g. Platonism) but no new problems introduced by essentialism in this regard — Kripke: knowledge partly a priori, partly empirical (e.g. a priori knowledge of essentiality of origins and empirical knowledge of particular origin instance) — this does seem to introduce new problems as a priori truth called upon is different in nature to the usual ones (e.g. logical/mathematical) Nonidentity: - essential claims often used, in combination with Leibniz’s Law, to argue for nonidentity (cf. problem of material construction)
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What do I think? - obviously I have a fairly fundamental disagreement with all this talk of objects - but even given this, there still seems to be a lot of value here, even if onyl by virtue of the isomorphisms that can (possibly) be drawn between this debate and those concerning induction, univerals/tropes and the prototype theory of the structure of concepts - isn’t minimal essentialism replacing metaphysical possibility/necessity with a logical notion? - couldn’t Price’s semantic ladder stuff be used in support of a de dicto interpretation of the statement in the scepticism section?
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) — includes a but not b - 3. Della Rocca: non-trivial essential property requirement — includes b but not a - 4. Yablo: non-trivial essentials and some accidentals — doesn’t include either a or b Varieties: - sortal essentialism: object could not have been of radically different kind (e.g. being human to me) - origin essentialism: object could nto have had radically different origin (e.g. particular sperm and egg to me) - natural kinds (Kripke, Putnam): it is essential to a particular object (e.g. species cat) that all its instances are also instances of some kind (e.g. animals) — note: a posteriori claim — also note: essentialism re: natural kinds does not imply sortal naturalism (akin to problem in claiming that man A, who happens to be a bachelor, could not be married based on a priori truth that all bachelors are unmarried (chicken and egg sort of thing innit)) Scepticism: - questions claim that essentiality is independent of how objects are referred to — e.g. is number 8 still necessarily greater than 7 when referred to as the number of planets? - response: — two intuitions re: “the number of planets has the property of being necessarily greater than 7” depending on whether taken de re or de dicto — but sceptic doesn’t say why the second one must be favoured Epistemology: - how is knowledge of essentialist claim obtained? — there are problems with a priori knowledge (e.g. Platonism) but no new problems introduced by essentialism in this regard — Kripke: knowledge partly a priori, partly empirical (e.g. a priori knowledge of essentiality of origins and empirical knowledge of particular origin instance) — this does seem to introduce new problems as a priori truth called upon is different in nature to the usual ones (e.g. logical/mathematical) Nonidentity: - essential claims often used, in combination with Leibniz’s Law, to argue for nonidentity (cf. problem of material construction)
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What do I think? - obviously I have a fairly fundamental disagreement with all this talk of objects - but even given this, there still seems to be a lot of value here, even if onyl by virtue of the isomorphisms that can (possibly) be drawn between this debate and those concerning induction, univerals/tropes and the prototype theory of the structure of concepts - isn’t minimal essentialism replacing metaphysical possibility/necessity with a logical notion? - couldn’t Price’s semantic ladder stuff be used in support of a de dicto interpretation of the statement in the scepticism section?
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Scepticism: - questions claim that essentiality is independent of how objects are referred to — e.g. is number 8 still necessarily greater than 7 when referred to as the number of planets? - response: — two intuitions re: “the number of planets has the property of being necessarily greater than 7” depending on whether taken de re or de dicto — but sceptic doesn’t say why the second one must be favoured Epistemology: - how is knowledge of essentialist claim obtained? — there are problems with a priori knowledge (e.g. Platonism) but no new problems introduced by essentialism in this regard — Kripke: knowledge partly a priori, partly empirical (e.g. a priori knowledge of essentiality of origins and empirical knowledge of particular origin instance) — this does seem to introduce new problems as a priori truth called upon is different in nature to the usual ones (e.g. logical/mathematical) Nonidentity: - essential claims often used, in combination with Leibniz’s Law, to argue for nonidentity (cf. problem of material construction)
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What do I think? - obviously I have a fairly fundamental disagreement with all this talk of objects - but even given this, there still seems to be a lot of value here, even if onyl by virtue of the isomorphisms that can (possibly) be drawn between this debate and those concerning induction, univerals/tropes and the prototype theory of the structure of concepts - isn’t minimal essentialism replacing metaphysical possibility/necessity with a logical notion? - couldn’t Price’s semantic ladder stuff be used in support of a de dicto interpretation of the statement in the scepticism section?
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