The essential and the accidental

Ratio 18 (3):276–289 (2005)
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Abstract

The distinction between the essential and the accidental characteristics of a thing should be understood not in modal terms (the received view) nor in definitional terms (Fine’s recent proposal) but as follows:  an essential characteristic of a thing is one that is not explained by any other of that thing’s characteristics, and an accidental characteristic of a thing is one that is so explained.  Various versions of this proposal can be formulated.

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10.1111/j.1467-9329.2005.00290.x

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Michael Gorman
Catholic University of America

Citations of this work

The Epistemology of Essence.Antonella Mallozzi - 2024 - In Kathrin Koslicki & Michael J. Raven (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Essence in Philosophy. Routledge.
The Epistemology of Essence.Tuomas Tahko - 2018 - In Alexander Carruth, S. C. Gibb & John Heil (eds.), Ontology, Modality, Mind: Themes from the Metaphysics of E. J. Lowe. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. pp. 93-110.
On the Reduction of Necessity to Essence.Fabrice Correia - 2012 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 84 (3):639-653.
Essence and Properties.David S. Oderberg - 2011 - Erkenntnis 75 (1):85-111.
Essence in abundance.Alexander Skiles - 2015 - Canadian Journal of Philosophy 45 (1):100-112.

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References found in this work

Essence and modality.Kit Fine - 1994 - Philosophical Perspectives 8 (Logic and Language):1-16.
Senses of Essence.Kit Fine - 1995 - In Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, Diana Raffman & Nicholas Asher (eds.), Modality, Morality and Belief. Essays in Honor of Ruth Barcan Marcus. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 53-73.
Aristotelian essentialism.Gareth B. Matthews - 1990 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 50:251-262.
Essential properties: Some problems and conjectures.Paul Teller - 1975 - Journal of Philosophy 72 (9):233-248.

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