How Things Might Have Been Individuals, Kinds, and Essential Properties

by Mackie, Penelope

• ISBN13: 9780199272204
• ISBN10: 0199272204
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2006-06-29
• Publisher: Clarendon Press

Summary

Penelope Mackie's book is a novel treatment of an issue central to much current work in metaphysics: the distinction between the essential and accidental properties of individuals. Mackie challenges widely held views, and arrives at what she calls "minima

Table of Contents

Preface	v
Preliminaries	1	(17)
The Nature of Essentialism	1	(2)
The `Description-Independence' of Essential and --- Accidental Properties	3	(4)
The de re and the de dicto	7	(1)
Essentialism and Necessary a posteriori Truth	8	(2)
Essentialism without the Necessary a posteriori?	10	(2)
Essentialism about Natural Kinds: de re Essentialism and Predicate Essentialism	12	(2)
Identity `across Possible Worlds'	14	(1)
Appendix	15	(3)
Individual Essences and Bare Identities	18	(29)
Essential Properties and Individual Essences	18	(1)
What are Individual Essences?	19	(4)
Individual Essences and Knowledge of Identities	23	(1)
The Case for Individual Essences: Introduction	24	(1)
The Indiscernibility Argument	25	(3)
Clarifications	28	(2)
Forbes on Individual Essences	30	(2)
The Reduplication Argument and the Multiple Occupancy Argument	32	(4)
Distinctive Essential Properties	36	(1)
From Distinctive Essential Properties to Individual Essences	37	(2)
Consequences	39	(1)
A Sceptical Reaction	40	(1)
Appendix A: Bare Identities and Haecceitistic Differences	41	(4)
Appendix B: Adams's Indiscernibility Argument	45	(2)
Origin Properties and Individual Essences	47	(23)
Reduplication and Multiple Occupancy: the Case of the Oak Tree	47	(4)
Individual Essences for Biological Things and Artefacts	51	(4)
Weakly Unshareable Properties, Strongly Unshareable Properties, and the Logic of Individual Essences	55	(2)
The Recycling Problem	57	(2)
The Tolerance Problem and the `Four Worlds Paradox'	59	(6)
Chisholm's Paradox	65	(2)
Counterpart Theory and the Essences of Artefacts	67	(2)
Concluding Remarks	69	(1)
Extrinsically Determined Identity and `Best-candidate' Theories	70	(9)
Taking Stock	70	(1)
Extrinsically Determined Identity	71	(1)
Counterintuitive Consequences	72	(3)
Avoiding Incoherence	75	(1)
Identity Over Time and Identity Across Possible Worlds	76	(2)
Concluding Remarks	78	(1)
Counterpart Theory and the Puzzles of Transworld Identity	79	(14)
Counterpart Theory and Conceptions of Possible Worlds	79	(2)
Counterpart Theory and the Logic of Identity	81	(3)
Multiple Counterparts and Distinct Possibilities	84	(4)
Multiple Counterparts and Bare Identities	88	(2)
Multiple Counterparts and Distinct Counterpart Relations	90	(1)
Conclusion to Chapters 2-5	91	(2)
The Necessity of Origin	93	(25)
Necessity of Origin and Sufficiency of Origin	94	(1)
The Necessity of Origin and the Branching Model of de re Possibilities	95	(4)
McGinn's Account	99	(4)
The Appeal of the Branching Model	103	(5)
The Overlap Requirement	108	(2)
Forward Branching, Backward Branching, and the Overlap Requirement	110	(3)
Necessity and Sufficiency Again	113	(1)
Is the Overlap Requirement Indispensible?	114	(2)
Necessity of Origin and Tenacity of Origin	116	(2)
Sortal Concepts and Essential Properties I: Substance Sortals and Essential Sortals	118	(13)
Sortal Essentialism	118	(2)
Terminology	120	(1)
Substance Sortals, Essential Sortals, and the Overlap Requirement	121	(4)
Brody's Overlap Requirement Rejected	125	(2)
Overlap, Similarity, and Substance Sortals	127	(4)
Sortal Concepts and Essential Properties II: Sortal Concepts and Principles of Individuation	131	(19)
Principles of Individuation and Essential Sortals	131	(3)
Principles of Individuation as Principles of Distinction and Persistence	134	(1)
Distinguishing Principles of Individuation	135	(2)
Against EPI(I)	137	(4)
Principles of Individuation as Principles of Counterfactual Existence	141	(2)
The Case against Sortal Essentialism	143	(1)
Essential Kinds without Essential Sortals?	144	(6)
Essential Properties and Remote Contingencies	150	(19)
Essential Kinds and Intuitive Judgements	150	(1)
`Extreme Haecceitism'	151	(3)
Extreme Haecceitism and Quasi-essential Properties	154	(2)
The Defence of Extreme Haecceitism	156	(4)
Essential Properties and Philosophical Arguments	160	(3)
Quasi-essential Properties and Chisholm's Paradox	163	(2)
Extreme Haecceitism as Minimalist Essentialism	165	(1)
Is Extreme Haecceitism Believable?	166	(3)
Essentialism, Semantic Theory, and Natural Kinds	169	(32)
Varieties of Essentialism about Natural Kinds	169	(4)
Essentialism about Individuals and Essentialism about Natural Kinds	173	(1)
Semantic Theory and Natural Kinds	174	(4)
Putnam's Semantic Theory and Essentialism about Natural Kinds	178	(3)
Salmon on the Attempt to Derive Essentialism from the Theory of Reference	181	(3)
A Complication	184	(3)
Essentialism and the Concept of a Substance	187	(3)
Semantic Theory and Essentialist Commitment	190	(2)
Natural Kinds and Shared Properties	192	(4)
The Necessity of Identity and Essentialism about Natural Kinds	196	(4)
Conclusion to this Chapter	200	(1)
Bibliography	201	(6)
Index	207