ESSENCE AND LOWE’S REGRESS

• Authors: Spinelli Nicola
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

Some philosophers believe that entities have essences. What are we to make of the view that essences are themselves entities? E.J. Lowe has put forward an infinite regress argument against it. In this paper the author challenges that argument. First, drawing on work by J.W. Wieland, he gives a general condition for the obtaining of a vicious infinite regress. He then argues that in Lowe’s case the condition is not met. In making his case, the author mainly (but not exclusively) considers definitionalist accounts of essence. He makes a requirement to which definitionalists such as Lowe are committed and which, he ventures, should also be palatable to non-naïve modalists. The author calls it the Relevance Principle. The defence trades on it, as well as on the distinction, due to K. Fine, between mediate and immediate essence.

Keywords

EN

LOWE E. J.; ESSENCE; ESSENTIALISM; METAPHYSICS

• 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: 2018
• Volume: 25
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 410 - 428

Contributors

author

Spinelli Nicola

• Hertswood Academy, King’s College London Cowley Hill, Borehamwood, WD6 5LG, United Kingdom