How things might have been : individuals, kinds, and essential properties / Penelope Mackie.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Mackie, Penelope.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Essentialism (Philosophy).

Physical Description:

xii, 212 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

Oxford : Clarendon Press ; New York : Published in the United States by Oxford University Press, 2006.

Summary:

Following the revival of interest among analytic philosophers in essentialism and de re modality generated by the work of Kripke and others in the 1970s, these questions have been the subject of intense, yet still unresolved, debate. In this book, Penelope Mackie challenges most of the answers that have been given to these questions. Via a critical examination of rival theories, she arrives at what she calls 'minimalist essentialism', an unorthodox theory according to which ordinary individuals have relatively few interesting essential properties, and intuitions that appear to support stronger versions of essentialism are interpreted as consistent with the theory.

The topics discussed include the rivalry between the interpretation of de re modality in terms of 'identity across possible worlds' and its interpretation in terms of David Lewis's counterpart theory, some notorious modal puzzles generated by the theory that individuals exist with different properties in different possible worlds, the notion of an individual essence, Kripke's 'necessity of origin' thesis, and the widely held view that there are sortal properties that are essential properties of the things to which they belong. The book also includes a discussion of the relation between essentialism about individuals and essentialism about natural kinds, and a critical examination of the connection between semantics and natural kind essentialism.

Contents:

1.1 The Nature of Essentialism 1

1.2 The 'Description-Independence' of Essential and Accidental Properties 3

1.3 The de re and the de dicto 7

1.4 Essentialism and Necessary a posteriori Truth 8

1.5 Essentialism without the Necessary a posteriori? 10

1.6 Essentialism about Natural Kinds: de re Essentialism and Predicate Essentialism 12

1.7 Identity 'across Possible Worlds' 14

2 Individual Essences and Bare Identities 18

2.1 Essential Properties and Individual Essences 18

2.2 What are Individual Essences? 19

2.3 Individual Essences and Knowledge of Identities 23

2.4 The Case for Individual Essences: Introduction 24

2.5 The Indiscernibility Argument 25

2.6 Clarifications 28

2.7 Forbes on Individual Essences 30

2.8 The Reduplication Argument and the Multiple Occupancy Argument 32

2.9 Distinctive Essential Properties 36

2.10 From Distinctive Essential Properties to Individual Essences 37

2.11 Consequences 39

2.12 A Sceptical Reaction 40

2.13 Appendix A: Bare Identities and Haecceitistic Differences 41

2.14 Appendix B: Adams's Indiscernibility Argument 45

3 Origin Properties and Individual Essences 47

3.1 Reduplication and Multiple Occupancy: the Case of the Oak Tree 47

3.2 Individual Essences for Biological Things and Artefacts 51

3.3 Weakly Unshareable Properties, Strongly Unshareable Properties, and the Logic of Individual Essences 55

3.4 The Recycling Problem 57

3.5 The Tolerance Problem and the 'Four Worlds Paradox' 59

3.6 Chisholm's Paradox 65

3.7 Counterpart Theory and the Essences of Artefacts 67

4 Extrinsically Determined Identity and 'Best-candidate' Theories 70

4.1 Taking Stock 70

4.2 Extrinsically Determined Identity 71

4.3 Counterintuitive Consequences 72

4.4 Avoiding Incoherence 75

4.5 Identity Over Time and Identity Across Possible Worlds 76

5 Counterpart Theory and the Puzzles of Transworld Identity 79

5.1 Counterpart Theory and Conceptions of Possible Worlds 79

5.2 Counterpart Theory and the Logic of Identity 81

5.3 Multiple Counterparts and Distinct Possibilities 84

5.4 Multiple Counterparts and Bare Identities 88

5.5 Multiple Counterparts and Distinct Counterpart Relations 90

5.6 Conclusion to Chapters 2-5 91

6 The Necessity of Origin 93

6.1 Necessity of Origin and Sufficiency of Origin 94

6.2 The Necessity of Origin and the Branching Model of de re Possibilities 95

6.3 McGinn's Account 99

6.4 The Appeal of the Branching Model 103

6.5 The Overlap Requirement 108

6.6 Forward Branching, Backward Branching, and the Overlap Requirement 110

6.7 Necessity and Sufficiency Again 113

6.8 Is the Overlap Requirement Indispensible? 114

6.9 Necessity of Origin and Tenacity of Origin 116

7 Sortal Concepts and Essential Properties I: Substance Sortals and Essential Sortals 118

7.1 Sortal Essentialism 118

7.3 Substance Sortals, Essential Sortals, and the Overlap Requirement 121

7.4 Brody's Overlap Requirement Rejected 125

7.5 Overlap, Similarity, and Substance Sortals 127

8 Sortal Concepts and Essential Properties II: Sortal Concepts and Principles of Individuation 131

8.1 Principles of Individuation and Essential Sortals 131

8.2 Principles of Individuation as Principles of Distinction and Persistence 134

8.3 Distinguishing Principles of Individuation 135

8.4 Against EPI(1) 137

8.5 Principles of Individuation as Principles of Counterfactual Existence 141

8.6 The Case against Sortal Essentialism 143

8.7 Essential Kinds without Essential Sortals? 144

9 Essential Properties and Remote Contingencies 150

9.1 Essential Kinds and Intuitive Judgements 150

9.2 'Extreme Haecceitism' 151

9.3 Extreme Haecceitism and Quasi-essential Properties 154

9.4 The Defence of Extreme Haecceitism 156

9.5 Essential Properties and Philosophical Arguments 160

9.6 Quasi-essential Properties and Chisholm's Paradox 163

9.7 Extreme Haecceitism as Minimalist Essentialism 165

9.8 Is Extreme Haecceitism Believable? 166

10 Essentialism, Semantic Theory, and Natural Kinds 169

10.1 Varieties of Essentialism about Natural Kinds 169

10.2 Essentialism about Individuals and Essentialism about Natural Kinds 173

10.3 Semantic Theory and Natural Kinds 174

10.4 Putnam's Semantic Theory and Essentialism about Natural Kinds 178

10.5 Salmon on the Attempt to Derive Essentialism from the Theory of Reference 181

10.6 A Complication 184

10.7 Essentialism and the Concept of a Substance 187

10.8 Semantic Theory and Essentialist Commitment 190

10.9 Natural Kinds and Shared Properties 192

10.10 The Necessity of Identity and Essentialism about Natural Kinds 196

10.11 Conclusion to this Chapter 200.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [201]-205) and index.

ISBN:

0199272204

OCLC:

65406908

Publisher Number:

9780199272204 (alk. paper)

Online:

Publisher description