Essential Properties are Super-Explanatory: Taming Metaphysical Modality

Journal of the American Philosophical Association (3):1-19 (2020)
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Abstract

This paper aims to build a bridge between two areas of philosophical research, the structure of kinds and metaphysical modality. Our central thesis is that kinds typically involve super-explanatory properties, and that these properties are therefore metaphysically essential to natural kinds. Philosophers of science who work on kinds tend to emphasize their complexity, and are generally resistant to any suggestion that they have “essences”. The complexities are real enough, but they should not be allowed to obscure the way that kinds are typically unified by certain core properties. We shall show how this unifying role offers a natural account of why certain properties are metaphysically essential to kinds.

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Author Profiles

Antonella Mallozzi
Providence College
Marion Godman
Cambridge University
David Papineau
King's College London

Citations of this work

Natural kinds.Emma Tobin & Alexander Bird - 2009 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
Superexplanations for counterfactual knowledge.Antonella Mallozzi - 2020 - Philosophical Studies 178 (4):1315-1337.
What Is Absolute Modality?Antonella Mallozzi - 2023 - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy.
The Epistemology of Modality.Antonella Mallozzi, Michael Wallner & Anand Vaidya - 2021 - The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

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References found in this work

Naming and Necessity.Saul Kripke - 1980 - Philosophy 56 (217):431-433.
To Be F Is To Be G.Cian Dorr - 2016 - Philosophical Perspectives 30 (1):39-134.
Naming and Necessity.Saul Kripke - 1980 - Critica 17 (49):69-71.
Grounding, Essence, And Identity.Fabrice Correia & Alexander Skiles - 2019 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 98 (3):642-670.

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