ESSENCE AND MODALITY: CONTINUED DEBATE

• Authors: Bassford Andrew Dennis
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

Here I offer a critical evaluation of modalism about essential properties. To that effect, I begin by rehearsing Fine’s now infamous counterexamples to pure modalism. I then consider two recent defences of it, offered by Livingstone-Banks and Cowling, respectively. I argue that both defences fail. Next I consider the most plausible variety of impure modalism – sparse modalism – which has recently been defended by Wildman and de Melo. Skiles has argued that sparse modalism fails too. I argue that Skiles’s counterexamples misfire; nonetheless, his conclusion that, like pure modalism, sparse modalism is too broad is on the right track. And so, I offer an original objection – the sparse modal propria counterexample – to show that this is so. I conclude by considering ways the modalist might once again modify her account to circumvent this new objection and improve the account’s extensional adequacy.

Keywords

EN

ESSENCE; ESSENTIALISM; MODAL LOGIC; PROPERTIES

• Publisher: Institute of Philosophy of the Slovak Academy of Sciences and Institute of Philosophy of Academy of Sciences of Czech Republic
• Journal: Organon F. medzinárodný časopis pre analytickú filozofiu
• Year: 2024
• Volume: 31
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 308 – 335

Contributors

author

Bassford Andrew Dennis

• University of Texas at Austin, 2210 Speedway, Stop C3500, Austin, Texas, USA 78712

• https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7118-4236

Identifiers

DOI

https://doi.org/10.31577/orgf.2024.31305