The advent of contemporary evolutionary theory ushered in the eventual decline of Aristotelian Essentialism (Æ) – for it is widely assumed that essence does not, and cannot have any proper place in the age of evolution. This paper argues that this assumption is a mistake: if Æ can be suitably evolved, it need not face extinction. In it, I claim that if that theory’s fundamental ontology consists of dispositional properties, and if its characteristic metaphysical machinery is interpreted within (...) the framework of contemporary evolutionary developmental biology, an evolved essentialism is available. The reformulated theory of Æ offered in this paper not only fails to fall prey to the typical collection of criticisms, but is also independently both theoretically and empirically plausible. The paper contends that, properly understood, essence belongs in the age of evolution. (shrink)

David Lewis is usually thought to reject what Quine called “Aristotelian essentialism”. The starting point of this paper is to define and explain Aristotelian essentialism and locate it in the context of the criticism that Quine made of quantified modal logic. Indeed, according to Quine, Aristotelian essentialism would be one of the consequences of accepting quantified modal logic. After having explained Lewis’s stance in the Quinean debate against quantified modal logic, this paper will deal (...) with the question as to whether Lewis accepts or rejects Aristotelian essentialism. I think there are different plausible interpretations of the essentialist thesis, and I will distinguish between three such interpretations. This distinction between different interpretations of essentialism is both interesting per se and helpful in understanding the senses in which Lewis is or is not an antiessentialist. I will say, in fact, that while it is true that Lewis rejects Aristotelian essentialism under the first two understandings of the essentialist thesis, he endorses such a thesis according to a third understanding. I will then take this to show that there is a sense in which Aristotelian essentialism survives in Lewis’s metaphysical theory. (shrink)

In recent years largely due to the seminal work of Kit Fine and that of Jonathan Lowe there has been a resurgence of interest in the concept of essence and the project of explaining de re necessity in terms of it. Of course, Quine rejected what he called Aristotelian essentialism in his battle against quantified modal logic. But what he and Kripke debated was a notion of essence defined in terms of de re necessity. The new Aristotelian (...) essentialists regard essence as entailing but prior in the order of explanation to de re necessity. In what follows I argue that the concept of essence so understood has not been adequately explained and that any attempt to explain it, at least along the lines most familiar from the literature, must be flagrantly circular or make use of de re modal notions. (shrink)

Scholars agree that Aristotle held a view that has been called "Aristotelian Essentialism" , but disagree about what this thesis entails. I reconstruct as the view that there are certain individuals, namely substances, that have essences, and that essences are to be understood as "explanatorily basic" features of an individual--features of an individual substance that serve as part of a scientific explanation of the presence of other features of that individual, but are not themselves explained in this way. (...) When Aristotle's view is understood in this way, interesting differences and parallels between him and contemporary essentialists emerge. For one, so-called "properties of origin" such as "being born to George and Barbara Bush" are not essential to the individual that has them, on Aristotle's view. Furthermore, understanding Aristotle's view in this way explains why essences are not, as it has often been maintained, merely "career attributes"--properties that an individual has necessarily and at each moment at which it exists. I argue that for Aristotle, essences belong to an individual in virtue of the species to which it belongs, and that Aristotle subscribes to the "species-form" view of essence. I examine and respond to arguments to the contrary that, in both the Metaphysics and the Generation of Animals, Aristotle holds that the essence of an individual substance is an "individual form" unique to that thing, and not shared by any other individual. Aristotle's account of family resemblances, in particular, has been thought by many to present problems for understanding Aristotle's essentialism. In that text it looks like Aristotle gives up on the view that only certain features--the ones that define the species--are essential to an individual when he attempts to explain the phenomena of family resemblance. I conclude with a sketch of a reading of this text that shows Aristotle holding an account of family resemblances that is consistent with the view that only certain features--the explanatorily basic ones--are part of the essences of individual substances. (shrink)

It will be seen how in place of the wealth and poverty of political economy come the rich human being and rich human need. The rich human being is simultaneously the human being in need of totality of human life-activities — the man in whom his own realization exists as an inner necessity, as need. Marx, Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844 Svetaketu abstained from food for fifteen days. Then he came to his father and said, `What shall I say?' (...) The father said: `Repeat the Rik, Yagus, and Saman verses.' He replied, `They do not occur to me, Sir.' The father said to him... `Go and eat! Then wilt thou understand me.' Then Svetaketu ate, and afterwards approached his father. And whatever his father asked him, he knew it all by heart.... After that, he understood what his father meant when he said: `Mind, my son, comes from food, breath from water, speech from fire.' He understood what he said, yea, he understood it. Chandogya-Upanishad, VI Prapathaka, 7 Kanda When you love a man you want him to live and when you hate him you want him to die. If, having wanted him to live, you then want him to die, this is a misguided judgment. `If you did not do so for the sake of riches, you must have done so for the sake of novelty.' Confucius, Analects, Book 12. 10. (shrink)

Contemporary "essentialism", if we want to provide a succinct, yet sufficiently rigorous characterization, may be summarized in the thesis that some common terms are rigid designators. [1] By the quotation marks I intend to indicate that I regard this as a somewhat improper (though, of course, permitted) usage of the term (after all, nomina significant ad placitum [2]). In contrast to this, essentialism, properly so-called, is the Aristotelian doctrine summarizable in the thesis--as we shall see, no less (...) rigorous in its own theoretical context--that things have essences. (shrink)

Gyula begins with a contrast between contemporary scare-quotes essentialism and Aristotelian full-blooded essentialism. The former is a semantic thesis couched in the vocabulary of possible-worlds semantics, holding that some terms are rigid designators, while the latter is a metaphysical thesis, couched in a more ancient vocabulary, holding that things have essences. Gyula argues that the more traditional metaphysical framework deserves reconsideration, both because it can help us with problems arising from the contemporary approach, and because it possesses (...) greater expressive power than the contemporary approach. He presents a fragmentary formal semantics for the traditional approach, and argues that this semantics enables us to see how the problems of contemporary essentialism can be avoided while at the same time other properly metaphysical issues, which are unapproachable from within the contemporary model due to its expressive weakness, become available for investigation. The semantics that he presents seems intended to establish the intelligibility of the traditional vocabulary, and so of the thesis of Aristotelian essentialism which is couched in it. Gyula then argues that this thesis is in fact true, using the vocabulary which the semantics has rendered legitimate. (shrink)

_Posthuman Bliss? The Failed Promise of Transhumanism_ by Susan B. Levin presents a well-informed and structured critique to transhumanism. Not only transhumanist ethical and sociopo-litical applications are challenged: the theoretical assumptions and implications of transhumanism are made explicit and put into discussion, thereby confronting transhumanism as a worldview of its own, from metaphysics, to epistemology, to philosophy of mind, down to ethics and politics. This worldview is then constantly put to the test of Levin’s own Aristotelian essentialist framework, which (...) sees the human being as a holistic whole and our role in the world as the complex process of attaining human flourishing. First, I will spend a few words to frame the general aim of the book and to delineate the main contents of the seven chapters. After that, I will deal critically with four interesting focal points, where further research may be prompted or the standpoint of the author may be challenged: the attribution of (rational) essentialism to transhumanism, the definition of well-being underlying transhumanist positions, the apparent tension between the sociopolitical im-plications of transhumanism and its cultivation of radical personal autonomy, the critical evaluation of Levin’s American-centered adaptation of her Aristotelian virtue-ethics approach. (shrink)

It is usually maintained by biologists and philosophers alike that essentialism is incompatible with evolutionary biology, and that abandoning essentialism was a precondition of progress being made in the biological sciences. These claims pose a problem for anyone familiar with both evolutionary biology and current metaphysics. Very few current scientific theories enjoy the prestige of evolutionary biology. But essentialism – long in the bad books amongst both biologists and philosophers – has been enjoying a strong resurgence of (...) late amongst analytical philosophers with a taste for metaphysics. Indeed, to impartial observers it is likely to appear that both evolutionary biology and essentialism are as well supported in their respective domains as could reasonably be expected. There is thus at least a prima facie tension here between evolutionary biology, metaphysics and, as we shall see, pre-theoretical common sense. (shrink)

Modality is standardly thought to come in two varieties: de dicto and de re. De re modality concerns the attribution of modal features to things or individuals, and enshrines a commitment to Aristotelian essentialism. This chapter considers how David Lewis's conception of de re modality fits into his overall metaphysics. The hypothesis is that the driving force behind his metaphysics in general, and his adherence to counterpart theory in particular, is the distinctly Humean thought that necessary connections between (...) distinct existences are literally unintelligible. Lewis's appeal to counterpart theory in his account of truthmakers is explicitly aimed at delivering a truthmaker principle that eschews necessary connections. Lewis's attitude towards several well‐rehearsed debates in contemporary ontology and the reasons underlying that attitude closely mirror Hume's incendiary verdict on "divinity and school metaphysics." Finally, de re modality is connected with his adherence to the doctrine of "Humean supervenience". (shrink)

_Real Essentialism_ presents a comprehensive defence of neo-Aristotelian essentialism. Do objects have essences? Must they be the kinds of things they are in spite of the changes they undergo? Can we know what things are really like – can we define and classify reality? Many, if not most, philosophers doubt this, influenced by centuries of empiricism, and by the anti-essentialism of Wittgenstein, Quine, Popper, and other thinkers. _Real Essentialism_ reinvigorates the tradition of realist, essentialist metaphysics, defending the (...) reality and knowability of essence, the possibility of objective, immutable definition, and its relevance to contemporary scientific and metaphysical issues such as whether essence transcends physics and chemistry, the essence of life, the nature of biological species, and the nature of the person. (shrink)

Placeholder essentialism is the view that there is a causal essence that holds category members together, though we may not know what the essence is. Sometimes the placeholder can be filled in by scientific essences, such as when we acquire scientific knowledge that the atomic weight of gold is 79. We challenge the view that placeholders are elaborated by scientific essences. On our view, if placeholders are elaborated, they are elaborated Aristotelian essences, a telos. Utilizing the same kinds (...) of experiments used by traditional essentialists—involving superficial change (study 1), transformation of insides (study 2), acquired traits (study 3) and inferences about offspring (study 4)—we find support for the view that essences are elaborated by a telos. And we find evidence (study 5) that teleological essences may generate category judgments. (shrink)

According to Aristotelian essentialism, the nature of an organism is constituted of a particular goal-directed disposition to produce an organism typical of its kind. This paper argues—against the prevailing orthodoxy—that essentialism of this sort is indispensable to evolutionary biology. The most powerful anti-essentialist arguments purport to show that the natures of organisms play no explanatory role in modern synthesis biology. I argue that recent evolutionary developmental biology provides compelling evidence to the contrary. Developmental biology shows that one (...) must appeal to the capacities of organisms to explain what makes adaptive evolution adaptive. Moreover, the specific capacities in question are precisely those that, according to Aristotle, constitute the nature of an organism. Essentialism 1.1 Aristotelian biological kinds Evolutionary anti-essentialism 2.1 Taxonomic anti-essentialism 2.2 Explanatory anti-essentialism Adaptation 3.1 Stability 3.2 Mutability 3.3 Phenotypic plasticity and adaptive evolution The natures of organisms Conclusion. (shrink)

Frank Jackson; XIII*—Essentialism, Mental Properties and Causation1, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 95, Issue 1, 1 June 1995, Pages 253–268, ht.

Quine, in an influential passage, characterizes a certain kind of metaphysical view as "Aristotelian essentialism." Recent work on Aristotle suggests that he may not have been an essentialist in Quine's sense. This paper examines the question whether, and to what extent, Aristotle is committed to the kind of essentialism Quine discusses. Various promising areas of Aristotle's thought (alteration vs. coming-to-be and passing-away, kath' hauto predication) are examined and found wanting as sources of essentialism. Instead, Aristotle is (...) found to be committed to essentialism in the hylomorphic conception of substance featured in the late books of the Metaphysics, despite the superficially anti-essentialistic appearance of the conception of matter as the ultimate subject of predication. Essentialism is part and parcel of Aristotle's conception of substances as the basic individuals. (shrink)

This project is an investigation into the prospects for an antirealist theory of essence. Essentialism is the claim that at least some things have some of their properties essentially. Essentialist discourse includes claims such as “Socrates is essentially human”, and “Socrates is accidentally bearded”. Historically, there are two ways of interpreting essentialist discourse. I call these positions ‘modal essentialism’ and ‘neo-Aristotelian essentialism’. According to modal essentialism, for Socrates to be essentially human is for it to (...) be necessary that he be a human if he exists, and for Socrates to accidentally have a beard is for it to be contingent that Socrates has a beard if he exists. According to neo-Aristotelian essentialism, objects have definitions in something like the way words do. For Socrates to be essentially human but accidentally bearded is for it to be part of the definition of Socrates that he is human, but not part of that definition that he is bearded. I argue that both are susceptible to antirealist interpretation. This thesis sets about showing that this is the case. In Chapters One and Two I investigate neo-conventionalist theories of modality, in the hope of using such a position to develop an antirealist modal essentialism. In Chapter Three I discuss the debate between modal and neo-Aristotelian essentialism and conclude that it is by no means settled. In Chapter Four I develop an antirealist neo-Aristotelian essentialism based on the mechanism of one of the neo-conventionalist accounts of modality. In Chapter Five I argue that this account is in a better position to give an essentialist theory of necessity than its realist counterparts. I conclude that, regardless of whether one is a modal or neo-Aristotelian essentialist, antirealist essentialism is a viable theory of essence that is worthy of consideration in contemporary debate. (shrink)

This book presents vigorous and wide-ranging arguments in defense of an Aristotelian metaphysical scheme along fairly orthodox Thomistic lines. The central claim is that the items that populate the world have real essences – natures that mind-independently define what each such item is. This Aristotelian essentialism, Oderberg begins by telling us, is a different doctrine from what has recently been called ‘essentialism’, and a more powerful one . For recent essentialism has treated a thing's essence (...) as merely all those properties that the thing takes with it across all possible worlds – and here modality gets presupposed in order to explain essentialness, when the order should be reversed.We can observe essences, Oderberg holds, even though the observation is indirect, and even though knowing what to make of our observations requires applying metaphysical knowledge. Positivism-inspired worries that there is something unfactual about modal claims, and hence about essences, are unfounded . Claims about essences do have factual content, but not because they merely express our concepts or our grammar, and not because they simply report empirical findings . True reports of the essences of objects articulate a metaphysical insight from Aristotle: an object's essence is a compound of its substantial form and its prime matter . Its form actuates potentialities of its matter . The laws of nature derive from essences, and hence are necessary rather than contingent . Artifacts are ‘accidental unities’ of individual substances and …. (shrink)

In this book, Vasilis Politis argues that Plato's Forms are essences, not merely things that have an essence. Politis shows that understanding Plato's theory of Forms as a theory of essence presents a serious challenge to contemporary philosophers who regard essentialism as little more than an optional item on the philosophical menu. This approach, he suggests, also constitutes a sharp critique of those who view Aristotelian essentialism as the only sensible position: Plato's essentialism, Politis demonstrates, is (...) a well-argued, rigorous, and coherent theory, and a viable competitor to that of Aristotle. This book will appeal to students and scholars with an interest in the intersection between philosophy and the history of philosophy. (shrink)

The essentialism story is a version of the history of biological classification that was fabricated between 1953 and 1968 by Ernst Mayr, who combined contributions from Arthur Cain and David Hull with his own grudge against Plato. It portrays pre-Darwinian taxonomists as caught in the grip of an ancient philosophy called essentialism, from which they were not released until Charles Darwin's 1859 Origin of Species. Mayr's motive was to promote the Modern Synthesis in opposition to the typology of (...) idealist morphologists; demonizing Plato served this end. Arthur Cain's picture of Linnaeus as a follower of 'Aristotelian' (scholastic) logic was woven into the story, along with David Hull's application of Karl Popper's term, 'essentialism', which Mayr accepted in 1968 as a synonym for what he had called 'typological thinking'. Although Mayr also pointed out the importance of empiricism in the history of taxonomy, the essentialism story still dominates the secondary literature. The history of the first telling of the essentialism story exposes its scant basis in fact. (shrink)

Talk of “essences” has, since Saul Kripke and Hilary Putnam, gained significant currency in contemporary philosophy. It is no longer unfashionable to talk about the essence of this or that (natural) kind, and as such we now find a variety of brands of essentialism on the market including B.D. Ellis’s scientific essentialism, David Oderberg’s real Essentialism, Alexander Bird’s dispositional essentialism, and the contemporary essentialism of Kripke and Putnam. -/- Almost all these brands of essentialism (...) share a particular gloss on Locke’s famous objection to Aristotle that natural kinds are demarcated by nominal essences not real essences. Thus Oderberg claims that ‘Empiricists take [real] essences to be paradigmatically unobservable’ and that this ‘objection goes back at least to John Locke’ (Oderberg 2007: 21). Bird, presenting his dispositional essentialism, defines a notion of “being” as ‘the reverse of Locke’s definition of essence’ which he takes to be ‘the being of any thing, whereby it is what it is’ (Bird 2007: 100). Joseph LaPorte, discussing nominal and real essences, claims that ‘Kripke and Putnam seem to affirm something more substantive: that biological kinds have “real essences” in Locke’s terminology’ (LaPorte 2004: 49). Even avowed anti-essentialists such as John Dupré sanction the standard criticism of Locke that his scepticism about the knowability of real essences was ‘premature’, and claim that ‘genuine natural kinds provide the extensions of many terms of natural language, where these natural kinds are determined by true Lockean real essences’ (Dupré 1993: 22). -/- All of these essentialisms (even Dupré’s anti-essentialism) are wrong about Locke. Oderberg is wrong to claim that Locke thought that real essences were paradigmatically unobservable; Bird is wrong to think that Locke’s notion of essence is the being of anything whereby it is what it is; LaPorte is wrong to think that Kripke and Putnam are talking about Lockean real essences (although so are Kripke and Putnam); and Dupré is wrong to think that genuine natural kinds (if by genuine he means objective or mind-independent) are determined but true Lockean real essences . -/- The mistake stems from a standard, but ultimately incorrect, interpretation of Locke’s discussion of essences in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding . This mistaken interpretation (Lowe 1995, 2006, Von Leyden 1973, Wiggins 1974) takes Locke to mean, by “real essence”, the Aristotelian notion i.e. ‘the very being of anything, whereby it is what it is’ (Essay III.iii.15), and interprets his objection as epistemological: we cannot come to know what real essences are, and therefore they cannot figure in our classifications of things into kinds. -/- This paper will present and defend the following two claims: i) that Locke’s notion of “real essence” is not the Aristotelian notion, and ii) that Locke’s objection to the Aristotelian notion was not merely epistemological. The first claim can be defended by presenting and applying Vienne’s (1993) terminological revision. Vienne argues that Locke did not introduce a dichotomy between real and nominal essence, but a trichotomy between real essence, nominal essence and real constitution. This terminological revision will be employed to highlight where ambiguous uses of the phrase “real essence” have caused some serious misunderstandings of Locke’s philosophy. The second claim (steering Locke around what is the classic objection to his thesis) can be defended by presenting a novel way of splitting up Locke’s objections to the Aristotelian notion of essence. The analysis will show that Locke’s anti-essentialism is still in good shape, and of contemporary significance. (shrink)

Frank Jackson; XIII*—Essentialism, Mental Properties and Causation1, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 95, Issue 1, 1 June 1995, Pages 253–268, ht.

This guide accompanies the following articles: Sonia Roca‐Royes, ‘Essentialism vis‐à‐vis Possibilia, Modal Logic, and Necessitism.’Philosophy Compass 6/1 (2011): 54–64. doi: 10.1111/j.1747‐9991.2010.00363.x. Sonia Roca‐Royes, ‘Essential Properties and Individual Essences.’Philosophy Compass 6/1 (2011): 65–77. doi: 10.1111/j.1747‐9991.2010.00364.x. Author’s Introduction Intuitively, George Clooney could lose a finger and he would still be him. Also intuitively, he could not lose his humanity without ceasing to be altogether. So while he could have one less finger, he could not be other than human. These intuitions suggest (...) that there are two kinds of properties: on the one hand, there are essential properties and, on the other, there are accidental properties. Essentialism is the view that captures those intuitions and claims that some of an object’s properties are essential and some are accidental. Essential properties are often appealed to in metaphysical arguments. Consider the famous Goliath–Lumpl example. Goliath is a clay‐statue, and Lumpl is the piece of clay from which Goliath is made. Are Goliath and Lumpl the same entity, or are they distinct, despite coinciding in the same spatial region (at least for a period of time)? An argument in favour of their distinctness appeals to essential properties. Let s be Goliath’s shape. Lumpl’s current shape is therefore also s. It seems that Lumpl could lose its current shape and still exist. Yet, if Goliath – the statue – were melted, for instance, it would cease to exist. Behind this reasoning is the belief that having shape s is essential to Goliath but not to Lumpl. Goliath and Lumpl can therefore be distinguished by their essential properties. Consequently, and by Leibniz’s Indiscernibility of Identicals– according to which identicals cannot be distinguished – Goliath and Lumpl are distinct objects. The essentialist intuition appealed to in this argument is that shapes are essential to statues but not to pieces of clay. Of course, this particular argument – like any other – can be resisted. It is all the same a good illustration of how essentialism is put to work in metaphysics. A good understanding of the broad phenomenon of essentialism is therefore an unavoidable task, since the credit of a lot of metaphysical arguments partially depends on it. Although the topic has been studied for millenniums, the two papers that this guide accompanies are focused on contemporary issues in essentialism, and so will do this guide too. Author Recommends Fine, Kit. ‘Essence and Modality.’Philosophical Perspectives 8 (1994): 1–16. One of the most cited and influential papers against the modal account of the notion of essence and in favour of what has subsequently been referred to in the literature as ‘the Finean account of the notion of essence’. Forbes, Graeme. The Metaphysics of Modality. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985. A foundational work in modality and essentialism. The first two chapters provide a valuable introduction to propositional and first order modal logic. Chapters 5–8 constitute a comprehensive essentialist theory and contain some of the most cited arguments for individual essences. Kripke, Saul. Naming and Necessity, Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1972/1980. Another foundational work. With this book – which is, among other things, a defence of a Direct Theory of Reference – Kripke rescues, after Quine’s powerful attacks against it, and using the semantic rigidity of proper names, (Aristotelian) essentialism. Mackie, Penelope. How Things Might Have Been: Individuals, Kinds and Essential Properties. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2006. An extremely valuable recent contribution to the field. Here, Mackie defends that, although essentialism is a real phenomenon, there are much fewer essential properties than is standardly believed, and labels this view ‘Minimalist Essentialism’. Beyond the intrinsic interest of the defence of Minimalist Essentialism, the book is also highly recommended for its clear reconstructions – and discussions – of some of the most influential essentialist arguments. In addition, the book’s bibliography is very comprehensive and updated, and it might be a useful resource for students. Plantinga, Alvin. The Nature of Necessity. Oxford: OUP, 1974. Yet another foundational work. Here, Plantinga offers his essentialist theory which, like Forbes’, also incorporates individual essences although of a very different sort from Forbes’. Plantinga believes in purely non‐qualitative individual essences, whereas Forbes’ aims at purely qualitative ones. The book is also excellent to provide a solid background to those unfamiliar with the topic. Roca‐Royes. ‘Essentialism vis‐à‐vis Possibilia, Modal Logic and Necessitism.’Philosophy Compass, 6/1 (2011): 54–64, doi: 10.1111/j.1747‐9991.2010.00363.x. This is one of the two papers this guide accompanies. It contains a comparative examination of two opposed responses to the problem of possibilia. One solution crucially appeals to individual essences and another – compatible with them, but not dependent on them – makes existence a necessary‐whenever‐possible property. Salmon, Nathan. Reference and Essence. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1981. Against what Kripke’s Naming and Necessity might have induced us to believe, Salmon’s Reference and Essence argues that essentialism cannot be derived from the Direct Theory of Reference. Our commitments to essentialism should therefore come from somewhere else. It also contains one of the most cited and influential arguments against the transitivity of the accessibility relation between worlds, which relies on flexible essential properties. Online Materials The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy publishes extremely valuable entries on a vast variety of topics which are conveniently updated and revised. On essentialism, the following are to be highlighted: Teresa Robertson, ‘Essential vs. Accidental Properties’: Takashi Yagisawa, ‘Possible Objects’: Penelope Mackie, ‘Transworld Identity’: PhilPapers is an interactive directory of online philosophical publications to which one can subscribe, and which allows authors to submit their latest work. One might find it useful to check this on a regular basis, since contents are constantly updated. The following link is to the site’s resources on essentialism:. Sample Syllabus Because the phenomenon of essentialism is very broad, one can design an entire course on it, thereby having enough time to see some of the issues in considerable depth. The sample syllabus suggested here is of one such course, focusing exclusively on contemporary issues in essentialism. Less deeply, the topic of essentialism can also be introduced in a general course on metaphysics or on modality. To this effect, focusing on some of the topics suggested in weeks 1–6 below would perhaps be more appropriate than focusing on the more complex issues suggested for weeks 7–10. Week 1. Introduction to Essentialism. Two Notions of Essential Property: The Modal Account and the Finean Account Fine, Kit. ‘Essence and Modality.’Philosophical Perspectives 8 (1994): 1–16. Robertson, Teresa. ‘Essential vs. Accidental Properties.’Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosphy (Fall 2008 Edition). Ed. Edward N. Zalta. URL:. Roca‐Royes, Sonia. ‘Essential Properties and Individual Essences.’Philosophy Compass, 6/1 (2011): 65–77. Sections 1–2. Week 2. Essentialist Principles, I: Three Arguments for the Essentiality of Origin Kripke, Saul. Naming and Necessity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1972/1980. Lecture III. Mackie, Penelope. ‘Identity, Time and Necessity.’Proceedings for the Aristotelian Society 98 (1998): 59–78. Rohbraugh, Guy and deRosset, Louis. ‘A New Route to the Necessity of Origin.’Mind 133 (2004): 705–25. Week 3. Essentialist Principles, II: Essentiality of Kind Brody, Baruch. ‘Natural Kinds and Real Essences.’Journal of Philosophy 64 (1967): 431–46. Mackie, Penelope. How Things Might Have Been: Individuals, Kinds and Essential Properties. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2006. Chapters 7 and 8. Wiggins, David. Sameness and Substance Renewed. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2001. Chapter 3. Week 4. Essentialist Principles, III: Natural Kind Essentialism Kripke, Saul. ‘Identity and Necessity.’Identity and Individuation, Ed. M. K. Munitz. New York: New York University Press, 1971. 135–64. Kripke, Saul. Naming and Necessity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1972/1980. Lecture III. Putnam, Hilary. ‘The Meaning of “Meaning”.’Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science 7 (1975): 215–71. Week 5. Sufficient‐for‐Existence Properties (and Cross‐World Identification Principles) Chisholm, Roderick. ‘Identity through Possible Worlds: Some Questions.’Noûs 1.1 (1967): 1–8. Mackie, Penelope. How Things Might Have Been: Individuals, Kinds and Essential Properties. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2006. Chapter 3. Salmon, Nathan. Reference and Essence. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1981. Chapter 7. Week 6. Individual Essences Mackie, Penelope. ‘Transworld Identity.’The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2008 Edition). Ed. Edward N. Zalta. URL:. Section 4. Roca‐Royes, Sonia. ‘Essential Properties and Individual Essences.’Philosophy Compass 6/1 (2011): 65–77. Sections 3–4. Week 7. Flexible Essential Properties and S4 Roca‐Royes, Sonia. ‘Essentialism vis‐à‐vis Possibilia, Modal Logic, and Necessitism.’Philosophy Compass 6/1 (2011): 54–64. Section 3. Salmon, Nathan. Reference and Essence. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1981. Appendix 1. Week 8. Individual Essences and Possibilia Peacocke, Christopher. ‘Principles for Possibilia.’Noûs 36.3 (2002): 486–508. Roca‐Royes, Sonia. ‘Essentialism vis‐à‐vis Possibilia, Modal Logic, and Necessitism.’Philosophy Compass 6/1 (2011): 54–64. Section 2. Week 9. Necessitism and Essentialism: A Third Notion of Essential Property Linsky, Bernard and Zalta, Edward. ‘In Defense of the Contingently Nonconcrete.’Philosophical Studies 84 (1996): 283–94. Roca‐Royes, Sonia. ‘Essentialism vis‐à‐vis Possibilia, Modal Logic, and Necessitism.’Philosophy Compass 6/1 (2011): 54–64. Section 5. Williamson, Timothy. ‘Bare Possibilia.’Erkenntnis 48 (1998): 257–73. Week 10. Essentialism and Modal Logic: The Barcan Formula Menzel, Christopher. ‘Actualism.’The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2010 Edition). Ed. Edward N. Zalta. URL:. Section 2. Roca‐Royes, Sonia. ‘Essentialism vis‐à‐vis Possibilia, Modal Logic, and Necessitism.’Philosophy Compass 6/1 (2011): 54–64. Section 4. Focus Questions • There is a debate as to whether essential properties– as well as individual essences and sufficient‐for‐existence properties– should be specified in purely qualitative terms or whether, by contrast, non‐purely qualitative – or even purely non‐qualitative – specifications are allowed. What are the main arguments against the availability of purely qualitative specifications? • Flexible essential properties seem to be more plausible than non‐flexible ones. Yet, together with sufficient‐for‐existence properties, they imply flexible individual essences. How plausible are these? Should we revise our intuitions supporting flexible essential properties? • What are, ultimately, the ontological differences between a necessitist approach to possibilia and an individual‐essences‐based approach? • According to necessitism, essential properties do not impose necessary conditions for an object’s existence. Can the necessitist, nonetheless, capture this role of essential properties by saying that, when it comes to possibly concrete entities, essential properties provide necessary conditions for an object’s concreteness? Can they, on a similar vein, also offer sufficient‐for‐concreteness properties as a surrogate for the (non‐necessitist’s) sufficient‐for‐existence properties? • Even after the enormous amount of literature that essentialism has generated, we are far from reaching a general agreement as to which properties are essential and which are accidental. Should this be a reason to reflect, critically, on the methodology that is being used in the arguments for or against essential properties? Is reliance on intuitions inescapable? (shrink)

On what I call absolutist essentialism about modality (AE), the metaphysical necessities are the propositions that are true in virtue of the essence (i.e. Aristotelian, absolute essence) of some entities. Other kinds of necessity can then be defined by restriction – e.g. the conceptual necessities are the propositions that are true in virtue of the essence of conceptual entities specifically. As an account of metaphysical modality and some other kinds (e.g. logical, conceptual), AE may have important virtues. However, (...) when it comes to accounting for further important kinds, like natural or normative necessity, it faces a challenge. Three main options have been defended: treat those kinds as further restricted forms of metaphysical necessity; define them as conditional forms of metaphysical necessity; treat them as primitive kinds. -/- In this paper, I propose a new option, which combines the main idea of AE (reducing necessities to essences) with an idea which has been developed largely independently: that of relative essence. On the proposed view, those kinds (e.g. natural necessity) that cannot be grounded in the essences (i.e. absolute essences) of the relevant entities (e.g. natural entities) may be grounded in their relative essences instead. Thus, I propose a generalized, or extended, version of AE, which I call relativized essentialism about modality (RE). In particular, RE offers prospects for a general framework for kinds of modality which is flexible enough to cover a large range of kinds (both absolute and relative ones) while remaining parsimonious and unified. (shrink)

Since the publication of Kit Fine's “Essence and Modality”, there has been lively debate over how best to think of essence in relation to necessity. The present aim is to draw attention to a definition of essence in terms of modality that has not been given sufficient attention. This neglect is perhaps unsurprising, since it is not a proposal made in response to Fine's 1994 paper and ensuing discussion, but harks back to Ruth Barcan Marcus's earlier work in the 1960s (...) and 1970s on essentialist claims. At the core of Barcan Marcus's account is Minimal Essentialism, of which there are several extensions, in particular, for cases of referential predicates (such as “x is identical to Socrates”), Individuating Essentialism, and Aristotelian Essentialism. I argue that Minimal Essentialism fares favourably against a host of familiar examples. I close with some historical observations, that the distinction between essence and necessity was already commonplace in the early days of quantified modal logic and its philosophy. (shrink)

Kit Fine’s arguments in Essence and Modality are widely accepted as being a decisive blow against modal essentialism. A selection of replies exist that have done little to counter the general view that modally construed essence is out of touch with what we really mean when we make essentialist claims. I argue that Fine’s arguments fail to strike a decisive blow, and I suggest a new interpretation of the debate that shows why Fine’s arguments fall short of achieving their (...) goal. (shrink)

This paper shows that Nussbaum's Aristotelian essentialism effectively combines resources for constructive social criticism (even in “traditional” societies) with concern for the concrete particulars of realized ways of life. Many critics of Nussbaum’s views have failed to appreciate its many virtues in this regard. Yet Nussbaum's confidence in the broad possibilities of internal social criticism demands a better account of the moral openness of human cultures than anything Nussbaum has herself provided. Even Nussbaum's reading of Aristotle – as (...) well as the ethical antirelativism on which it depends – demands a richer account than Nussbaum has so far offered of the essential openness of human world interpretations. (shrink)

Introducing formal causation / Ludger Jansen and Petter Sandstad -- Form, intention, information : from scholastic logic to artificial intelligence / Gyula Klima -- Formal causation : accidental and substantial / David S. Oderberg -- A non-hylomorphic account of formal causation / Petter Sandstad and Ludger Jansen -- Formal causes for powers theorists / Giacomo Giannini and Stephen Mumford -- Away with dispositional essences in trope theory / Jani Hakkarainen and Markku Keinänen -- Functional powers / Michele Paolini Paoletti -- (...) An Aristotelian approach to existential dependence / Benjamin Schnieder and Jonas Werner -- Finean feature dependence and the Aristotelian alternative / Wolfgang Sattler -- A problem for natural-kind essentialism and formal causes / José Tomás Alvarado and Matthew Tugby -- Form as cause and the formal cause : Aristotle's answer / James G. Lennox -- Form, cause, and explanation in biology : a neo-Aristotelian perspective / Christopher J. Austin -- Formal explanation and mechanisms of conceptual representation / Sandeep Prasada. (shrink)

Despite recent essentialist approaches to Kant’s laws of nature, it is unclear whether Kant’s critical philosophy is compatible with core tenets of essentialism. In this paper, I first reconstruct Kant’s position by identifying the key metaphysical and epistemological features of his notion of ‘nature’ or ‘essence’. Two theses about natures can be found in the literature, namely that they are noumenal in character (noumenal thesis) and that they guide scientific investigation as regulative ideas of reason (regulative thesis). I argue (...) that Kant’s notion of nature does not entail the noumenal thesis and, based on his model of causal explanation, I propose a novel, phenomenal thesis, that allows for a better understanding of the function of natures as regulative ideas. In the last part of the paper, I show that Kant’s ‘essentialism’ is a genuine form of essentialism committed to de re modality, although it differs in several respects from major contemporary essentialist accounts. I conclude by suggesting that Kant’s essentialism (if appropriately updated) can be relevant to the contemporary debate, which has so far been dominated by Humean and Aristotelian proposals. (shrink)

Neo‐Aristotelian Plenitude is the thesis that, necessarily, any property that could be had essentially by something or other is had essentially by something or other if and only if and because it is instantiated; any essentializable property is essentialized iff and because it is instantiated. In this paper, I develop a partial nonmodal characterization of ‘essentializable' and show it cannot be transformed into a full characterization. There are several seemingly insurmountable obstacles that any full characterization of essentializability must overcome. (...) Moreover, these obstacles threaten other views in the conceptual neighborhood such as Counterpart Theoretic Plenitude and Conceptualist Plenitude. (shrink)

Spinoza is most often seen as a stern advocate of mechanistic efficient causation, but examining his philosophy in relation to the Aristotelian tradition reveals this view to be misleading: some key passages of the Ethics resemble so much what Surez writes about emanation that it is most natural to situate Spinoza's theory of causation not in the context of the mechanical sciences but in that of a late scholastic doctrine of the emanative causality of the formal cause; as taking (...) a look at the seventeenth-century philosophy of mathematics reveals, this is in consonance also with Spinoza's geometrical cast of mind. Against this background, I examine Spinoza's essentialist model of causation according to which each thing has a formal character determined by the thing's essence and what follows from that essence. In the case of real things this essential causal architecture results in efficacy, i.e. in bringing about real effects, the key idea being that without the essential, formally structured causal thrust there would be no efficacy in the first place. I also explain how this model accounts for efficient causation taking place between finite things. (shrink)

The anti-reductionist character of the recent philosophy of biology and the dynamic development of the science of emergent properties prove that the time is ripe to reintroduce the thought of Aristotle, the first advocate of a “top-down” approach in life-sciences, back into the science/philosophy debate. His philosophy of nature provides profound insights particularly in the context of the contemporary science of evolution, which is still struggling with the questions of form, teleology, and the role of chance in evolutionary processes. However, (...) although Aristotle is referenced in the evolutionary debate, a thorough analysis of his theory of hylomorphism and the classical principle of causality which he proposes is still needed in this exchange. Such is the main concern of the first part of the present article which shows Aristotle’s metaphysics of substance as an open system, ready to incorporate new hypothesis of modern and contemporary science. The second part begins with the historical exploration of the trajectory from Darwin to Darwinism regarded as a metaphysical position. This exploration leads to an inquiry into the central topics of the present debate in the philosophy of evolutionary biology. It shows that Aristotle’s understanding of species, teleology, and chance – in the context of his fourfold notion of causality – has a considerable explanatory power which may enhance our understanding of the nature of evolutionary processes. This fact may inspire, in turn, a retrieval of the classical theology of divine action, based on Aristotelian metaphysics, in the science/theology dialogue. The aim of the present article is to prepare a philosophical ground for such project. (shrink)

Whereas Mereological Essentialism is the thesis that the parts of an object are essential to it, Reverse Mereological Essentialism is the thesis that the whole is essential to its parts. Specifically – since RME is an Aristotelian doctrine – it is a claim not about objects in general but about substances. Here I set out and explain RME as it should be understood from the perspective of the Aristotelian-Scholastic tradition, as well as proposing a kind of (...) master argument for believing it. A number of objections (many of which have been raised by Kathrin Koslicki or Robert Koons) are then considered, the replies to which help further to clarify and motivate RME. The final section considers some important questions concerning parts and matter in light of Ross Inman’s recent defence of RME under the guise of what he calls Substantial Priority. Considering these questions further illustrates right and wrong ways of understanding RME. Overall, the case for RME is strong albeit with a number of difficulties that need to be resolved through further investigation. (shrink)

Nowadays, essentialism has obtained various senses and its extension reaches out over many branches of study who have some immediate connection with it. Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Saul Kripke, Hilary Putnam and David Wiggins are the notable upholders of essentialism. The Essentialist movement which stemmed from the view that philosophy is a speculative study of Reality was temporarily suspended or stagnated by the spirited movement of the logical positivists like Moritz Schlick, Hans Reichenbach, Rudolf Carnap and A. J. Ayer. (...) According to these philosophers, philosophy is simply an activity of analysis of the fundamental concepts of ordinary language or of science or of any other discipline. Such concept—analysis—philosophers are called anti-essentialist. Here, I shall concentrate on the views of Aristotle. I shall discuss the doctrine of essence, natural kinds, real essence in favour of essentialism and also discuss W. V. O. Quine’s view as an anti-essentialist trend. At last I shall try to examine whether and to what extent an attack of essences reflects back certain essentialist commitments, which is to see what reasonable theory of essences can be eked out from the entire exercise. (shrink)

To borrow a phrase from Galileo: What does it mean that the story of the creation is "written in the language of mathematics?" This book is an attempt to understand the natural world, its consistency, and the ontology of what we call laws of nature, with a special focus on their mathematical expression. It does this by arguing in favor of the Essentialist interpretation over that of the Humean and Anti-Humean accounts. It re-examines and critiques Descartes' notion of laws of (...) nature following from God's activity in the world as mover of extended bodies, as well as Hume's arguments against causality and induction. It then presents an Aristotelian-Thomistic account of laws of nature based on mathematical abstraction, necessity, and teleology, finally offering a definition for laws of nature within this framework. (shrink)

Aristotle's modal syllogistic has been an object of study ever since the time of Theophrastus; but these studies have been somewhat desultory. Remarkably, in the 1990s several new lines of research have appeared, with series of original publications by Fred Johnson, Richard Patterson and Ulrich Nortmann. Johnson presented for the first time a formal semantics adequate to a de re reading of the apodeictic syllogistic; this was based on a simple intuition linking the modal syllogistic to Aristotelian metaphysics. Nortmann (...) developed an ingenious de dicto analysis. Patterson articulated the links between the modal syllogistic and the metaphysics, using an analysis which strictly speaking is neither de re nor de dicto. My own studies in this field date from 1976, when my colleague Peter Roeper and I jointly wrote a paper "Aristotle's apodeictic syllogisms" for the XXIInd History of Logic Conference in Krakow. This paper contained the disjunctive reading of particular affirmative apodeictic propositions, which I still favour. Nonetheless, I did not consider that paper's results decisive or comprehensive enough to publish, and my 1981 book The Syllogism contained no treatment of the modal syllogism. The paper's ideas lay dormant till 1989, when I read Johnson's and Patterson's initial articles. I began publishing on the topic in 1991. Gradually my thoughts acquired a certain comprehensiveness and systematicity, till in 1993 I was able to take a semester's sabbatical to write up a draft of this book. (shrink)

The central idea of Philippa Foot’s Natural Goodness is that moral judgments belong to the same logical kind of judgments as those that attribute natural goodness and defect to plants and animals. But moral judgments focus on a subset of human powers that play a special role in our lives as rational animals, namely, reason, will, and desire. These powers play a central role in properly human actions: those actions in which we go for something that we see and understand (...) as good. Many readers of Foot resolutely ignore what she says about the human good being sui generis and obstinately continue to read her as advocating a version of naturalism grounded in empirical study of human nature. One might wonder how else it could count as a naturalistic view unless we could square the view with nature as studied by the empirical sciences. In this paper, I propose a metaphysical response to this question: help can come from turning to recent defenses of Aristotelian essentialism. Foot’s naturalism can square with nature as interpreted through the lens of Aristotelian essentialism. On such a view, the virtues are perfections of human powers including reason, will, and desire. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Matter and Mathematics: An Essentialist Account of the Laws of Nature by Andrew YOUNANDominic V. CassellaYOUNAN, Andrew. Matter and Mathematics: An Essentialist Account of the Laws of Nature. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2023. xii + 228 pp. Cloth, $75.00Andrew Younan’s work situates itself between two opposing philosophical accounts of the laws of nature. In one corner, there are the Humeans (or Nominalists); in the (...) other, the Anti-Humeans (or Platonists). The goal of the book is to find an explanation for the orderliness of the natural world that avoids falling into the difficulties of the two opposing philosophies. For example, the Humeans treat “events” as fundamental, and the laws of nature follow from these “events.” For the Humeans, reality is essentially random, with any order being something of our own contrivance. Whereas for the Anti-Humeans, the laws of nature are fundamental and are treated as causing events, turning the effect of necessity into the cause of material [End Page 166] characteristics. Looking to Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas, Younan proposes the recovery of a third option, the Essentialist position. This Essentialist position understands substances, that is, individual beings, as fundamental and all else (for example, events and laws of nature) follow from these individual beings. The thesis of the book, generally understood, is that Essentialism evades the critiques that the Humeans and Anti-Humeans put against one another while retaining what is right in each approach.The book is divided into two parts. The book’s first part deals with general objections and replies and is divided into three chapters. Chapters 1 and 2 address the two opposing accounts of nature mentioned, while chapter 3 argues for the benefits of recovering an Essentialist position. Chapter 1 examines the objection that Aristotelian natural philosophy is incompatible with modern science, an objection raised by Descartes. Chapter 2 addresses the objections of the Humeans, namely, that natural philosophy and, with it, causality and induction have been debunked. Chapter 3 looks at the fathers of quantum theory, specifically Heisenberg, and argues that a return to Aristotle’s understanding of nature would benefit the modern scientific project. The book’s second part is an argument for the Essentialist position and is divided into three chapters. Chapters 4 and 5 are the foundation for chapter 6. Chapter 4 is an abstractive account of mathematics, differing from Descartes and his conceptions, which draws on the texts of Aristotle and Aquinas’s Division and Methods. Chapter 5 situates necessity and its role in Aristotelian natural philosophy. Chapter 6 is the author’s attempt at defining what it is to be a law of nature.Younan argues that adopting an essentialist understanding of nature in a system where all knowledge begins in the senses has three significant “payoffs.” The first is that it avoids governance language, that is, it avoids making laws themselves causes of necessity; the second is that it avoids the assertion of a priori knowledge; the third is that it understands individual things as the fundamental primitives in nature, restoring the substance to its proper place as the thing that “stands under” accidental being.The book is concluded with an appendix that explores and rearticulates Thomas Aquinas’s fifth way under the consideration of everything the author had argued for in the book’s main text. Taking as established by the rest of the book that necessity and teleology go hand in hand, Younan argues for a creator God who establishes a universe freely but within certain parameters that follow upon being itself. Younan concludes, with Thomas Aquinas, that laws of nature are “ordinances of reason” that must come from a rational mind. To be as consistent as they are, the laws of nature must be promulgated by God, and they are discoverable within the nature of matter itself.Younan’s book often engages its interlocutors on the big-picture scale, frequently giving generalizations and not going into details to avoid getting bogged down in the weeds. The author is very aware of what he is doing. [End Page 167] It is appropriate since engaging the multiheaded hydra of the schools of thought that Younan... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Plato's Essentialism: Reinterpreting the Theory of Forms by Vasilis PolitisTravis ButlerPOLITIS, Vasilis. Plato's Essentialism: Reinterpreting the Theory of Forms. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2021. x + 251 pp. Cloth, $99.99The reinterpretation of the theory of forms to which Politis refers in this book's subtitle is accomplished by foregrounding the conception of forms as essences—the kinds of beings we must countenance if we pose, pursue, and (...) believe we can answer the "What is F?" question. Politis argues that some of Plato's arguments for introducing forms have been distorted by the assumption that he is primarily interested in the Aristotelian question about substance or a Parmenidean quest for stable objects of thought and knowledge. By focusing on forms as the targets of the "What is F?" [End Page 154] question, we can dispel these misconceptions and bring the Platonic theory more clearly into view.Chapter 1 includes the cornerstone of Politis' interpretation—an original reading of a brief passage in the Hippias Major. Hippias is an important interlocutor for the project because he holds that the "What is F?" question can be answered by asking instead, "Which things exemplify F?" Let's call the claim that "What is F?" can be answered by examples "The Exemplar Doctrine" (ED). Politis argues that Hippias' commitment to ED leads him to deny the existence of a single exemplar for all cases—a denial he is forced subsequently to rescind. Thus, by endorsing the search for exemplars over the search for essence, Hippias sows the seeds of his own refutation.Readers might wonder how an account of a brief passage in the Hippias Major, apparently innocent of transcendent metaphysics, could serve as the cornerstone of a reinterpretation of the theory of forms. The initial answer in chapter 2 is that the rejection of ED is taken to imply that forms are imperceptible. The implication follows because Politis takes the supposition that F is definable by example to be biconditionally related to the claim that the essence of F is perceivable by the senses. When Socrates gets Hippias to reject ED, then, he gets him (tacitly) to accept that the essence of F is not perceivable by the senses. A central tenet of Platonism, the imperceptibility of forms, thus follows from an initial point about the proper way to answer the "What is F?" question.Chapter 3 continues in a similar vein, arguing that many special features attributed to forms in the Phaedo and Republic, such as their unity, uniformity, and incompositeness, follow from facts about inquiry into essences. Politis argues that these features belong, in the first instance, to defining accounts of forms and only secondarily to the forms themselves. Skeptical readers might observe that the focus in the Phaedo is much more on the forms than on defining accounts of them. In addition, it should be noted that the list of special features on which Politis focuses is somewhat selective. Chapters 2 and 3 include no discussion of the divinity and purity of forms or their status as alone by themselves. The divinity of forms is crucial for their role in Plato's ethics, but it seems unlikely to be explained by anything related to the "What is F?" question.In chapter 4, Politis defends a novel account of the epistemology of the Phaedo. He argues that it should be viewed through the lens of the account of inquiry in that dialogue, though not the central notion of inquiring with the soul by itself. Instead, we should focus on the passage in which Socrates claims that sense perception of deficiently equal sticks puts us in mind (ennoēsai) of the equal itself (74c–75b). Politis takes this claim to imply that sense perception plays a justificatory and not merely causal role in acquiring knowledge, though the textual arguments of this chapter fall short of establishing that striking claim.Chapter 5 takes on arguments in the Phaedo and Republic that appear to distinguish forms from sensibles on the grounds that the latter but not the former suffer the compresence of opposites (for example, appearing [End Page 155] both equal and unequal). Politis argues that scholars... (shrink)

THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN ESSENCE AND EXISTENCE has been taken to be central to Avicenna’s metaphysics and ontology of being. Due to the influence that this distinction had on Thomism, and to a lesser extent on Maimonides’s work, some Medievalists and Orientalists took Avicenna’s distinction between essence and existence to be characterized by essentialism. A.-M. Goichon’s books Léxique de la Langue Philosophique d’Ibn Sina, Vocabulaires Comparés d’Aristote et d’Ibn Sina, and La Philosophie d’Avicenne et son Influence en Europe all offer (...) a great contribution to the translation and understanding of Avicenna’s works. However the interpretive reception of Goichon’s works has had a strong influence on subsequent Medievalists as well as Orientalist scholars. This impact on scholars, along with the stress on Avicenna’s influence on Thomism, has led in some instances to an exaggerated stress on the centrality of the essence/ existence distinction in Avicenna’s metaphysics. This state of affairs has eventually overshadowed other important aspects of Avicenna’s ontology of being and of his metaphysical and logical analysis of being in terms of the modalities of necessity, contingency, and impossibility. The examination of Avicenna’s metaphysics under the spell of all of these factors leads to an intellectually discomforting position that construes his ontology as essentialism. Consequently this leads to the interpretation of his work as being that of a metaphysician who subordinates existence to essence. Such interpretation has been even adopted by experts on Avicenna’s work within the Western scholarship as well as among some Arabists. For instance, some scholars stress that Averroes and Mulla Sadra are the metaphysicians of existence, while taking Avicenna to be the metaphysician of essence. John Caputo, a leading interpreter of Heidegger’s thought, makes extensive references to the work of the Thomist scholar Étienne Gilson in the context of examining Aquinas’s adoption of the Avicennian distinction between essence and existence. Caputo’s discussion of the essence/existence distinction adopts the standpoint that Gilson reflects in the reading of Avicenna’s metaphysics as being the starting point of a longstanding essentialist tradition that culminates with Hegel’s Science of Logic. This line of argumentation already supplies Caputo with sufficient arguments that enable him readily to stamp Avicenna’s metaphysics with Heidegger’s critique of the metaphysical tradition. Caputo based himself on what the Thomist scholar Gilson offers in this regard, particularly in taking Aquinas’s metaphysics to be the metaphysics of esse. Gilson’s position may itself be questioned on the ground that its interpretation of Avicenna has been pervaded by Thomist inclinations; this is the case, given that Gilson and other scholars construe Avicenna’s metaphysics as being essentially the metaphysics of essence. Based on this, Caputo accepts the claim that Avicenna’s ontology is essentialist. Such readings lead to the conclusion that Avicenna subordinates existence to essence and consequently that his ontology is characterized by what Heidegger takes to be a mark of the oblivion of being. The question that ought to be raised in this regard is whether the position of secondary scholarly sources is accurate. This is the case, given that some of the scholars, who propagate the claim that Avicenna is an essentialist, are after all scholars who have not consulted or studied the primary sources. Rather, they primarily rely on secondary sources that mediate Avicenna’s metaphysics through the Thomist scholarship and Latin translations. This is clearly the case with Gilson’s consideration of Avicenna’s corpus, which is addressed from the standpoint of Latin renderings of Avicenna’s texts rather than consulting the original Arabic or Persian texts. Having said that, the issue becomes more complicated in the light of considering Arabist or Medievalist scholars who do consult the primary Arabic sources, yet still hold that Avicenna is an essentialist. Such scholars remain under the influence of earlier translations and interpretations that were offered by prominent Orientalist scholars, who addressed the essence/ existence distinction in the light of broad philosophical concerns with Medieval Latin and Jewish philosophy, or by tracing the Aristotelian and Peripatetic influences on Islamic and Arabic philosophy. Some scholars like Gilson might even go further in terms of considering the works of Avicenna and Averroes from the standpoint of mapping out the doctrinal quarrels between Scotism and Thomism. The Medievalists who consult primary sources, yet who are still under the spell of earlier Orientalist views, do not attempt to review some of their positions by going back to a closer examination of the texts and to a questioning reception of dominant translations and interpretations. There is a hermeneutic need to return to the primary texts and to reexamine them in the light of new philosophical concerns. This return and reexamination are also needed in the light of questioning and adopting new methodological inclinations in translation and interpretation. This becomes a pressing issue given the seriousness of the philosophical consequences that might arise if we readily take Avicenna’s metaphysics to be characterized by essentialism. The examination of Avicenna’s ontology must account for the renderings of the terms mahiya, dhat, and wujud, be it in Latin, English, or French, or in terms of the Arabic/persian semantic, syntactic, and grammatical structure and derivation. The nuances of translation are determined by how these terms are philosophically used within the text and in the course of the development of Avicenna’s arguments. Such linguistic investigations would elucidate the philosophical interpretation of the essence/existence distinction in the light of addressing contemporary philosophical concerns, as these are attested with the consideration of Heidegger’s critique of classical ontology. (shrink)