Real Essentialism

by Oderberg; David S

• ISBN13: 9780415323642
• ISBN10: 0415323649
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2008-01-28
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

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.

Table of Contents

List of illustrations	p. ix
Preface	p. x
Acknowledgements	p. xiii
Contemporary essentialism and real essentialism	p. 1
Against modalism: possible worlds	p. 1
Against modalism: Fine's critique	p. 7
Reductionism: the illusory search for inner constitution	p. 12
Why real essentialism?	p. 18
Some varieties of anti-essentialism	p. 21
Empiricist anti-essentialism	p. 21
Quinean animadversions	p. 25
Popper: avoiding 'what-is?' questions	p. 30
Wittgenstein: the shadow of grammar	p. 38
The reality and knowability of essence	p. 44
Why essences are real	p. 44
The 'problem' of the universal accidental	p. 47
An empirical test for essence?	p. 52
Coming to know essence	p. 54
'Paradigms', 'stereotypes', and classification	p. 57
The structure of essence	p. 62
Hylemorphism: act and potency	p. 62
Substantial form	p. 65
Prime matter	p. 71
Substance	p. 76
The immanence of essence	p. 81
Essence and identity	p. 86
Real definition and the true law of identity	p. 86
The Porphyrian Tree	p. 92
The Analogy of Being	p. 105
Individuation	p. 108
Identity over time	p. 117
Essence and existence	p. 121
The real distinction in contingent beings	p. 121
Everything is contingent... almost	p. 125
Powers	p. 130
Laws of nature	p. 143
Aspects of essence	p. 152
Kinds of accident	p. 152
The nature of properties	p. 156
Knowledge of essence via properties	p. 162
Artefacts	p. 166
Origin and constitution	p. 170
Life	p. 177
The essence of life	p. 177
Kinds of organism	p. 183
Against emergence	p. 193
Species, biological and metaphysical	p. 201
Is biological essentialism dead?	p. 201
Against the cladistic species concept	p. 214
Vagueness	p. 224
A plea for morphology	p. 234
The person	p. 241
The essence of personhood	p. 241
Hylemorphic dualism	p. 243
Consciousness, psychology, and the person	p. 245
Form, body, and soul	p. 248
Soul, intellect, and immateriality	p. 250
Soul, identity, and material dependence	p. 255
Conclusion	p. 259
Notes	p. 261
Bibliography	p. 295
Index	p. 309
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