Essence, Triviality, and Fundamentality

Bibliographic Data

ID21408992
AuthorsAustin Coates (0000-0001-8557-3163, University of the Witwatersrand, corresponding author)
Year2022
Volume52
Issue5
Pages502-516
Publication date2022-07-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueCanadian Journal of Philosophy (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0045-5091 • E-ISSN: 1911-0820
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/can.2022.40
OpenAlexW4311881235
LanguageEN
References cited40

I defend a new account of constitutive essence on which an entity’s constitutively essential properties are its most fundamental, nontrivial necessary properties. I argue that this account accommodates the Finean counterexamples to classic modalism about essence, provides an independently plausible account of constitutive essence, and does not run into clear counterexamples. I conclude that this theory provides a promising way forward for attempts to produce an adequate nonprimitivist, modalist account of essence. As both triviality and fundamentality in the account are understood in terms of grounding, the theory also potentially has important implications for the relation between essence and grounding

Counterexample · Discrete mathematics · Epistemology · Pure mathematics · Relation (database) · Triviality · Computer Science · Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics · Mathematics · Philosophy · Philosophy and Theoretical Science · Philosophy, Science, and History

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