There is an essentialist view that requires one to specify the set of necessary and sufficient properties of the things that exist when establishing definitions. The endorsement of essentialism for definitions in economics has been largely motivated by the Taxonomic Tower of Babel (TTB), which encompasses two intellectual fears. The fear of scientific aphasia is the fear that scientific progress is hampered because economists do not agree on the definitions they use. The fear of nihilism refers to the fear (...) of the advent of an unmanageable proliferation of definitions of the same term. We advocate the abandonment of essentialism by offering three arguments. First, essentialism seems impracticable in economics because essences are either mostly unavailable or useless. Second, the TTB, rather than a bug, is a feature of economics. Third, the TTB does not necessarily display the negative implications presumably associated with its existence. (shrink)

This article counters the widespread view within the study of religion that a real definition of religion should be avoided. It argues that an essentialist approach is not necessarily as contentious as is often assumed and that alternatives to essentialist definitions are less well-founded than they may appear. The article opens with an outline of different types of definitions and a discussion of common concerns. It goes on to present a starting point for providing a real definition and ends with (...) the suggestion that a real definition would be a valuable tool both academically and practically. (shrink)

In this paper, we argue that, in order to account for the apparently substantive nature of definitional disputes, a commitment to what we call ‘Socratic essentialism’ is needed. We defend Socratic essentialism against a prominent neo-Carnapian challenge according to which apparently substantive definitional disputes always in some way trace back to disagreements over how expressions belonging to a particular language or concepts belonging to a certain conceptual scheme are properly used. Socratic essentialism, we argue, is (...) not threatened by the possibility that some apparently substantive definitional disputes may turn out to be verbal or conceptual, since this pluralist strategy, in our view, requires a commitment to more, rather than fewer, essences. What is more, a deflationary, metaphysically ‘light-weight’ construal of the essence-ascriptions in question leads to a peculiar conception of the pursuit of metaphysicians as behaving like deceptive (or self-deceived) grammarians pretending to be scientists. Moreover, this deflationary attitude, we argue, spreads beyond metaphysics and philosophy more broadly to apparently substantive definitional disputes in the sciences as well as other in other disciplines, such as art criticism. (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)

The current widespread belief that taxonomic methods used before Darwin were essentialist is ill-founded. The essentialist method developed by followers of Plato and Aristotle required definitions to state properties that are always present. Polythetic groups do not obey that requirement, whatever may have been the ontological beliefs of the taxonomist recognizing such groups. Two distinct methods of forming higher taxa, by chaining and by examplar, were widely used in the period between Linnaeus and Darwin, and both generated polythetic groups. Philosopher (...) William Whewell congratulated pre-Darwinian taxonomists for not adhering to the rigid ideal of definition used in the mathematical sciences. What he called the method of types is here called the method of exemplars because typology has been equated with essentialism, whereas the use of a type species as the reference point or prototype for a higher category was a practice inconsistent with essentialism. The story that the essentialism of philosophers dominated the development of systematics may prove to be a myth. (shrink)

It is often claimed that principles of individuation imply essential properties of the things individuated. For example, sets are individuated by their members, hence sets have their members essentially. But how does this inference work? First I discuss the form of such inferences, and conclude that the essentialist inference is not a purely formal matter: although there is a form which all principles of individuation have in common, it is not true that any statement of that form is a principle (...) of individuation, and hence there is no valid inference based purely on that form. However, I argue that there is a viable version of the essentialist inference nonetheless. The resources for a proper reconstruction of this type of inference can be gathered from reflections upon the role principles of individuation play in the project of the ontologist: such principles turn out to carry a modal weight similar to that of definitions or conceptual truths. It follows that, no matter how austere the ontology, some portion of essentialist modality is inevitable. (shrink)

The term 'essentialism' in its popular usage is usually qualified in some way, as in 'biological essentialism', 'gender essentialism' and 'social essentialism'. The essentialist theses were defended on the grounds that denying them leads, under plausible assumptions, to pairs of worlds containing objects which are intrinsic and spatio‐temporal duplicates and yet which are numerically distinct. This chapter outlines some technical difficulties in getting the definitions of 'essential property' and 'individual essence' exactly right. It explains the idea (...) of a metaphysically essential property in terms of Aristotle's 'essential/accidental' contrast. A popular idea is to invoke the notion, which has its roots in Aristotle's theory of essence and accident, of a substance sortal. A different way of developing a sortal‐based account of essential kinds is suggested by David Wiggins, who argues that it is only ultimate sortals that represent essential properties, where an ultimate sortal is the most general sortal corresponding to a given principle of individuation. (shrink)

Arthur C. Danto has long defended essentialism in the philosophy of art, yet he has been interpreted by many as a historicist. This essentialism/historicism conflict in the interpretation of his work reflects the same conflict both within his thought and, more importantly, within modern art itself. Danto's strategy for resolving this conflict involves, among other things, a Bildungsroman of modern art failing to discover its essence, an essentialist definition of art provided by philosophy which is indemnified against history, (...) and a thesis about the end of art once it has been defined. Is this strategy successful, or does it result, as I argue, in a philosophical disenfranchisement of art of precisely the type that Danto himself has criticized? (shrink)

An examination of the post-Darwinian history of biological taxonomy reveals an implicit assumption that the definitions of taxon names consist of lists of organismal traits. That assumption represents a failure to grant the concept of evolution a central role in taxonomy, and it causes conflicts between traditional methods of defining taxon names and evolutionary concepts of taxa. Phylogenetic definitions of taxon names (de Queiroz and Gauthier 1990) grant the concept of common ancestry a central role in the definitions of taxon (...) names and thus constitute an important step in the development of phylogenetic taxonomy. By treating phylogenetic relationships rather than organismal traits as necessary and sufficient properties, phylogenetic definitions remove conflicts between the definitions of taxon names and evolutionary concepts of taxa. The general method of definition represented by phylogenetic definitions of clade names can be applied to the names of other kinds of composite wholes, including populations and biological species. That the names of individuals (composite wholes) can be defined in terms of necessary and sufficient properties provides the foundation for a synthesis of seemingly incompatible positions held by contemporary individualists and essentialists concerning the nature of taxa and the definitions of taxon names. (shrink)

The successful specification of the definition of art has so far proven elusive. Discouraged by repeated failed attempts at the definition of art, numerous anti-essentialist philosophers have suggested alternative accounts. In this paper I defend the project of the definition of art by arguing that the strongest anti-essentialist arguments are unsuccessful in ruling out either the possibility or the value of a definition of art. Based on my observations regarding a blind spot in Wittgenstein’s anti-essentialist “look and see” approach, I (...) conclude by suggesting a new avenue of investigation for essentialism regarding art. (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)

Ernst Mayr has argued that Darwinian theory discredited essentialist modes of thought and replaced them with what he has called "population thinking". In this paper, I characterize essentialism as embodying a certain conception of how variation in nature is to be explained, and show how this conception was undermined by evolutionary theory. The Darwinian doctrine of evolutionary gradualism makes it impossible to say exactly where one species ends and another begins; such line-drawing problems are often taken to be the (...) decisive reason for thinking that essentialism is untenable. However, according to the view of essentialism I suggest, this familiar objection is not fatal to essentialism. It is rather the essentialist's use of what I call the natural state model for explaining variation which clashes with evolutionary theory. This model implemented the essentialist's requirement that properties of populations be defined in terms of properties of member organisms. Requiring such constituent definitions is reductionistic in spirit; additionally, evolutionary theory shows that such definitions are not available, and, moreover, that they are not needed to legitimize population-level concepts. Population thinking involves the thesis that population concepts may be legitimized by showing their connections with each other, even when they are not reducible to concepts applying at lower levels of organization. In the paper, I develop these points by describing Aristotle's ideas on the origins of biological variation; they are a classic formulation of the natural state model. I also describe how the development of statistical ideas in the 19th century involved an abandoning of the natural state model. (shrink)

“Is every definition persuasive?” If essentialist views on definition are rejected and a pragmatic account adopted, where defining is a speech act which fixes the meaning of a term, then a problem arises: if meanings are not fixed by the essence of being itself, is not every definition persuasive? To address the problem, we refer to Douglas Walton’s impressive intellectual heritage—specifically on the argumentative potential of definition. In finding some non-persuasive definitions, we show not every definition is persuasive. The persuasiveness (...) lies not in syntactic or semantic properties, but the context. We present this pragmatic account and provide rules for analysing and evaluating persuasive definition—a promising direction for further research. (shrink)

An examination of the post-Darwinian history of biological taxonomy reveals an implicit assumption that the definitions of taxon names consist of lists of organismal traits. That assumption represents a failure to grant the concept of evolution a central role in taxonomy, and it causes conflicts between traditional methods of defining taxon names and evolutionary concepts of taxa. Phylogenetic definitions of taxon names (de Queiroz and Gauthier 1990) grant the concept of common ancestry a central role in the definitions of taxon (...) names and thus constitute an important step in the development of phylogenetic taxonomy. By treating phylogenetic relationships rather than organismal traits as necessary and sufficient properties, phylogenetic definitions remove conflicts between the definitions of taxon names and evolutionary concepts of taxa. The general method of definition represented by phylogenetic definitions of clade names can be applied to the names of other kinds of composite wholes, including populations and biological species. That the names of individuals (composite wholes) can be defined in terms of necessary and sufficient properties provides the foundation for a synthesis of seemingly incompatible positions held by contemporary individualists and essentialists concerning the nature of taxa and the definitions of taxon names. (shrink)

The paper tries to develop Bartels’s modern essentialism as a structural-role theory of identity for spacetime points. I adopt Hoefer’s idea of denying primitive identity for this theory and apply it to GTR and prerelativistic physics to find different versions of essentialism and different definitions of determinism which are coherent with them. I also try to argue that modified essentialism helps us to refute objections raised against essentialism and offers us the best understanding of prerelativistic and (...) relativistic theories. (shrink)

Kripke, Putnam and others have proposed what is often called The New Theory of Reference. Professor Matthen thinks that this theory needs to be modified in various ways: so as to avert misunderstandings about the New Theory's commitment to essentialism; so as to clarify the semantic function of what he calls “nonconnoting terms”; so as to answer Quinean doubts about the determinacy of ostension; so as to correct Putnam's “simplistic” account of ostension; so as to solve Kripke's puzzle about (...) the seemingly inconsistent beliefs of the bilingual Pierre; and so as to show how many ordinary names, contra Kripke and Putnam, can be treated as “equivalent” to definite descriptions. No doubt many of the other things he says in his paper are clever, and perhaps even true. But as to the six modifications I have listed, I have run into difficulties. To the extent that I am able to understand them, I have been forced to conclude that they are neither needed nor helpful. (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 essay argues that aristotle's doctrine of nominal definition is his semantic theory for natural-Kind terms. It offers a new interpretation of that doctrine. On this interpretation nominal definitions are initial working theoretical accounts of natural kinds which serve as starting points for scientific inquiry. As such, Nominal definitions have existential import. They make an implicit reference to the most familiar actual instances of the kinds they define and they define the essences of those kinds by reference to those instances. (...) Nominal definitions are, Thus, Accounts of real essences as much as real definitions. They are initial incomplete accounts of such essences and it is as such that they explicate the meanings of (natural-Kind) terms. (shrink)

Ott (2009) identifies two kinds of philosophical theories about laws: top-down, and bottom-up. An influential top-down reading, exemplified by Ernst Cassirer, emphasized the ‘mere form of law’. Recent bottom-up accounts emphasize the mind-independent natures of objects as the basis of laws of nature. Stang and Pollok in turn focus on the transcendental idealist elements of Kant’s theory of matter, which leads to the question: is the essence of Kantian matter that it obeys the form of law? I argue that Kant (...) has an independent theory of matter in the Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science, one that gives what Kant himself calls a ‘real definition’ of matter as a theory-independent (if not mind-independent) entity. I argue that this matter theory underpins physical arguments about inertia and impenetrability, which resemble Einstein’s arguments about the unification of fields in general relativity. (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)

In this paper, I show that, in a number of publications in the early 1950s, Margaret Macdonald argues that art does not admit of definition, that art is—in the sense associated with Wittgenstein—a family resemblance concept, and that definitions of art are best understood as confused or poorly expressed contributions to art criticism. This package of views is most typically associated with a famous paper by Morris Weitz from 1956. I demonstrate that Macdonald advanced that package prior to Weitz, indeed, (...) prior to any other philosopher of art of the period. Despite this, Macdonald’s contribution is nowhere to be found in the subsequent literature on the definition of art. In closing, I raise the prospect that Macdonald was in fact the primary influence on the development of Weitz’s critique of the definitional project. (shrink)

The current picture of the history of taxonomy incorporates A. J. Cain's claim that Linnaeus strove to apply the logical method of definition taught by medieval followers of Aristotle. Cain's argument does not stand up to critical examination. Contrary to some published statements, there is no evidence that Linnaeus ever studied logic. His use of the words “genus” and “species” ruined the meaning they had in logic, and “essential” meant to him merely “taxonomically useful.” The essentialism story, a narrative (...) that has most pre-Darwinian biologists steeped in the world view of Plato and Aristotle, is ill-founded and improbable. (shrink)

We have reason to think that a fundamental goal of natural science, on Aristotle’s view, is to discover the essence-specifying definitions of natural kinds—with biological species as perhaps the most obvious case. However, we have in the end precious little evidence regarding what an Aristotelian definition of the form of a natural kind would look like, and so Aristotle’s view remains especially obscure precisely where it seems to be most applicable. I argue that if we can get a better understanding (...) of how the forms of natural kinds are or come to be known, and how they make things intelligible, we can get a better appreciation of the nature of form in general, as well as solve certain puzzles about form and definition. (shrink)

A definition of art attempts to spell out what the word “art” means. In everyday life, we sometimes debate whether something qualifies as art: Can video games be considered artworks? Should my 6-year-old painting belong to the same category as Wallis’ Hold House Port Mear Square Island (see picture)? Is the flamboyant Christmas tree at the mall fundamentally different from a Louvre sculpture? Is a banana taped to a wall really art? Definitions of art in analytic philosophy typically answer these (...) questions by proposing necessary and sufficient conditions for an entity x to fall under the category of art. -/- Defining art is distinct from the ontological question of what kind of entities artworks are (for example, material objects, mental entities, abstractions, universals…). We do not, for example, need to know whether a novel and a sculpture have a distinct ontological status to decide whether they can be called “artworks.” -/- Definitions of art can be classified into six families. (1) classical views hold that all artworks share certain characteristics that are recognizable within the works themselves (that is, internal properties), such as imitating nature (mimesis), representing and arousing emotions (expressivism), or having a notable form (formalism). A modified version of this last option is enjoying a revival in 21st century philosophy, where art is said (2) to have been produced with the aim of instantiating aesthetic properties (functionalism). Classical definitions initially met with negative reactions, so much so that in the mid-twentieth century, some philosophers advocated (3) skepticism about the possibility of defining art while others critiqued the bias of the current definitions. Taking up the challenge laid out by theses critics, (4) a fourth family of approaches defines art in terms of the relations that artworks enjoy with certain institutions (institutionalism) or historical practices (historicism). (5) A fifth family of approaches proposes to analyze art by focusing on the specific art forms—music, cinema, painting, and so one—rather than on art in general (determinable-determinate definitions). (6) A last family claims that “art” requires to be defined by a disjunctive list of traits, with a few borrowed from classical and relational approaches (disjunctivism). (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)

This article is about the problem of essentialism of natural and biological kinds, especially species. We will primarily focus on Michael Devitt’s work “Resurrecting Biological Essentialism” (2008). We will try to prove what a good candidate for the essence of the species could be. This article puts the problem of essentialism into the context of biology and, through the usage of examples, attempts to answer that problem. We are going to try to define essentialism and determine (...) what meaning essentialism holds in biology. We will cross-check the definitions of essentialism and compare the essence of various sciences with the suggestions of essences of species. We are going to analyse what Hilary Putnam states about natural kinds, about the so-called ‘hidden structures’, and what the essence of species could be. Using examples from biology, we are going to create a difference between ‘underlying’ and ‘exterior’ characteristics of organisms. We are going to analyse Devitt’s ‘Intrinsic Biological Essentialism’ (2008) and check its advantages and disadvantages. Using examples from biology and using the analogy of examples from chemistry and biology, we will show whether Devitt’s ‘intrinsic biological essentialism’ is valid or not. (shrink)

Aristotle's account of essences is distinct from that offered by Platonists and by scientific realists. Further, while Aristotle's essences are part of the fabric of reality, they can be grasped only by those with certain definitional and explanatory practices. Thus, his account differs from that of the Platonist. Standard criticisms of Aristotle's essentialism are, I argue, misdirected against a Platonist Aristotle of legend and do not successfully engage with Aristotle's own account.

In modern philosophy, essentialism is in most cases regarded as an outdated and, in fact, incorrect philosophical trend. And one of the scientists who created such a reputation of essentialism was the famous English philosopher of Austrian origin Karl Popper. The success of his book “The Open Society and its Enemies” led to the fact that in the West essentialism began to be considered not only cognitively untenable, but also suspicious as the theoretical basis of fascism, communism (...) and totalitarianism. In the article, K. Popper’s arguments against essentialism are reviewed all over again, and it is shown that K. Popper’s criticism of essentialism as an anti-scientific and outdated doctrine is not the point of view of the philosophy as a whole, but it is just the position of empirical positivism. Essentialism deals with the reality that lies on the other side of phenomena. And this, according to K. Popper, necessarily leads to “ultimate” definitions. However, in accordance with the doctrine of falsification by K. Popper himself, every scientific conclusion within its expiration date is “ultimate”. The article shows that in reality essentialism did not only play an extraordinary role in the classical metaphysical theory of knowledge, but also continues to do so within the framework of modern ontology. Moreover, in the latter case, he does it with the help of abduction which is a specific form of logical inference generating scientific hypotheses. The existence of abduction in science, which generates new knowledge, suggests that essentialism is not something, at best, tolerable and excusable. This is the main way to development of sciences in general. In all cases, the author of the article considers only logical entities, but not legal, theological or any other. (shrink)

This article is about the problem of essentialism of natural and biological kinds, especially species. We will primarily focus on Michael Devitt’s work “Resurrecting Biological Essentialism” (2008). We will try to prove what a good candidate for the essence of the species could be. This article puts the problem of essentialism into the context of biology and, through the usage of examples, attempts to answer that problem. We are going to try to define essentialism and determine (...) what meaning essentialism holds in biology. We will cross-check the definitions of essentialism and compare the essence of various sciences with the suggestions of essences of species. We are going to analyse what Hilary Putnam states about natural kinds, about the so-called ‘hidden structures’, and what the essence of species could be. Using examples from biology, we are going to create a difference between ‘underlying’ and ‘exterior’ characteristics of organisms. We are going to analyse Devitt’s ‘Intrinsic Biological Essentialism’ (2008) and check its advantages and disadvantages. Using examples from biology and using the analogy of examples from chemistry and biology, we will show whether Devitt’s ‘intrinsic biological essentialism’ is valid or not. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to provide a complete Natural Kind Semantics for an Essentialist Theory of Kinds. The theory is formulated in two-sorted first order monadic modal logic with identity. The natural kind semantics is based on Rudolf Willes Theory of Concept Lattices. The semantics is then used to explain several consequences of the theory, including results about the specificity (species–genus) relations between kinds, the definitions of kinds in terms of genera and specific differences and the existence of (...) negative kinds. First, I show under which conditions the Hierarchy principle, which has been subjected to counterexamples in the literature, holds. I also show that a different principle about the species–genus relations between kinds, namely Kant’s Law, follows from the essentialist theory. Second, I introduce two new operations for kinds and show that they can be used to provide traditional definitions of kinds in terms of genera and specific differences. Finally, I show that these operations of specific difference induce, for each kind, a uniquely specified contrary kind and a uniquely specified subcontrary kind, which can be used as semantic values for non-classical predicate negations of kind terms. (shrink)

This volume brings together twelve essays exploring the history of theories of definition and essence in Western philosophy from Aristotle to Kant. Definition and essence have been central to philosophical theorising since antiquity and remain so to this day. This volume presents a series of explorations of key authors and themes connected by a common set of questions: What are definitions and essences? What are the connections between them? What are their logical and metaphysical properties? What sorts of things have (...) definitions and essences and what sorts of things do not? What functions do definitions and essences serve in the physical, mathematical, and human sciences? How, if at all, can we come to know them? This volume shows that answering these questions allows us to see in a new light key figures and movements in the history of Western thought. The volume's broad historical sweep also facilitates comparisons between different figures. And it reveals important connections between different subfields of philosophy as these were developed over the centuries - logic, metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of language, and natural philosophy among them. Definition and Essence from Aristotle to Kant will be of interest to scholars and graduate students working in the history of philosophy, history of logic, history of mathematics, epistemology, and metaphysics. (shrink)

In many of his publications, Karl Popper was highly critical of essentialism. In recent decades there has been a revival of essentialism in philosophy. However, modern essentialism, unlike its traditional version, is not undermined by Popper’s arguments against essentialism. To some extent Popper recognised that, in that he proposed an essentialist theory.

ArgumentEvolutionary psychologists argue that because humans are biological creatures, cultural explanationsmustinclude biology. They thus offer to unify the natural and social sciences. Evolutionary psychologists rely on a specific history of cultural anthropology, particularly the work of Alfred Kroeber to make this point. A close examination of the history of cultural anthropology reveals that Kroeber acknowledged that humans were biological and culture had a biological foundation; however, he argued that we should treat culture as autonomous because that would bring benefits to (...) the biological sciences as well as the human sciences. Hence, the historical caricature of his work by evolutionary psychology fails. The paper concludes that cultural anthropologists were successful in creating their discipline, at least in part, because they argued by pragmatic definition. Evolutionary psychology, on the other hand, offers an essentialist definition of “culture” and thus offers a much less promising vision of interdisciplinary collaboration. (shrink)

Within recent feminist philosophy, controversy has developed over the desirability, and indeed, the possibility of defining the central terms of its analysis—“woman,” “femininity,” etc. The controversy results largely from the undertheorization of the notion of definition; feminists have uncritically adopted an Aristotelian treatment of definition as entailing metaphysical, rather than merely linguistic, commitments. A “discursive” approach to definition, by contrast, allows us to define our terms, while avoiding the dangers of essentialism and universalism.

Re-activating the philosophical quest for real definitions, I dare propose that its fulfillment is most convincingly represented, close to home, where one probably least expects it, notably in the first half of Section 36 of Word and Object, in the pages of Quine. Aristotle must inevitably remain our guide even as we insist on respecting Quine's anti-essentialism, and I must then explain how Aristotle, truncated, can be put here to use. Well, we may begin, appropriately, with a definition or (...) with what, nearly enough, smacks of being one, namely the Aristotelian slogan, definitio fit per genus proximum et differentiam specificam. Although that may be itself a real definition (of real definition), I shall not pursue this scholastic point, preferring to concentrate on my principal task which I take to be to vindicate the feasibility of formulating a real definition of some mind-independent reality. Such a vindication can scarcely succeed today unless it is recognized from the outset that we have here at hand one of those cases where the very (logical) possibility of a problematic thing can be established only by having recourse to the modal principle that actuality entails possibility. Nothing less than a concrete instance of a real definition will then suffice, and I thus expect my sceptical reader (I count on her scepticism) to be in doubt whether the scholastic bit of jargon 'real definition' picks out one of the concepts in her repertoire. (shrink)

It is argued that consciousness studies suffer from a Problem of Essentialism. In response, it is proposed that definitions of consciousness be treated as stipulative definitions. Some example definitions and their relevance for scientific inquiry are discussed.

Numerous definitions of literacy have been advanced by policy‐makers, politicians, academics, teachers and others over the years. It is not always easy, however, to know how one definition might relate to another or differ from it. This paper offers a framework, based on the work of the educational philosopher Israel Scheffler, for identifying and distinguishing between different types of definition. Modified to have particular relevance to statements about literacy, the three types of definition are: stipulative, essentialist and prescriptive. The paper (...) shows how this modified framework can be helpful in understanding and addressing apparent tensions in statements about literacy by the influential Brazilian educationist, Paulo Freire. Brief suggestions for further study are included in the author's final remarks. (shrink)

What are the implications of taking seriously Chaïm Perelman's proposition that “definitions are rhetorical”? Efforts to find Real Definitions are dysfunctional to the extent they direct argumentation toward pseudo “is” claims and away from explicit “ought” claims about how words are to be used. Addressing definitional disputes explicitly as propositions ofought rather thanis could put on the agenda the pragmatic concerns of definitional choice that might otherwise remain tacit.

In this paper I argue, controversially, that Plato's Meno anticipates Wittgenstein's critique of essentialism. Plato is usually read as an essentialist of the very kind that Wittgenstein was challenging, and the Meno in particular is usually taken as evidence that Plato thought that to know something you must be able to define it, and that if you can't define it you can't investigate any other questions on the topic. I suggest instead that Plato shows Socrates proposing such a position (...) (much as Wittgenstein's imaginary interlocutor might do), only to have it knocked down by what happens in the dialogue. Plato shows that one knows a concept when one can apply it in practice, or, for virtue, when one typically chooses to act in certain ways, passes certain judgements and so on. It turns out, then, that one who claims to "know what virtue is" need not give necessary and sufficient conditions for it. (shrink)

In the present paper I shall first summarize Popper's criticism of the traditional method of definition, and then go on to comment critically on his own views on the form and function of so-called nominalist definitions.

In his book The Philosophy of Nature, Ellis presents "the new essentialism" as resting on the notions of a property, an intrinsic property, an essential property, natural necessity and possibility, a natural kind, a fixed natural kind, and a natural law. The present paper argues that the central notions in this group are susceptible of a logical analysis, Ellis's notion of natural possibility has a historical precedent in the work of Abéelard, the notion of natural possibility contains both de (...) re and de dicto elements, and Ellis's essentialist claims, when joined to any plausible definition of natural possibility, lead to inconsistency. (shrink)

Le présent article propose de faire le point sur la façon dont le législateur français appréhende le conflit d’intérêts dans le milieu sanitaire, partagé entre droit commun et déontologie, au moment même où des scandales médiatiques l’obligent à encadrer la profession médicale. Le problème du débat juridique français est de se concentrer sur la définition essentialiste du conflit d’intérêts, alors qu’une approche pragmatique semblerait plus appropriée pour le qualifier pénalement. L’expérience française que nous relatons ici est riche d’enseignement pour d’autres (...) États. Entre déontologie et droit normatif, ce débat montre les limites du langage juridique et nous éclaire sur la bonne méthode à appliquer pour traiter les conflits d’intérêts. (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)

This study discusses the treatise of Jalāl al-Dīn Davvānī (d. 908/1502) named Risāla fī taʻrīf ʻilm. This treatise criticizes a definition of knowledge adopted by some theologians in the late period (mutaʾakhkhirīn). The definition of knowledge at issue consists of three components: Attribution, discernment, no possibility of contradiction. Knowledge is an attribute as a category and with this attribution, a discernment is obtained. As a result of this process knowledge is acquired and there should be no possibility of this knowledge (...) to be inconsistent. Davvānī examines eight possibilities of the definition on knowledge. In each of these eight possibilities a different problems arises. According to Davvānī, the definition mentioned is problematic in all probability. Nonetheless, Davvānī does not propose another definition of knowledge that can replace the definition of knowledge that he criticizes. This article represents the process of reaching the definition of knowledge stated in the history of theological thought. The definitions on knowledge made from the first period (al-mutaqaddimīn) are summarized and the strengths and weaknesses of these definitions are explained. There are two main approaches regarding the nature of knowledge in Islamic thought: According to the first approach pioneered by Fakhr al-Dīn Rāzī (d. 606/1202), absolute knowledge is a priory (badīhī) and undefinable. According to the second one, the nature of absolute knowledge is a posteriori (naẓarī) and definable. The first part of this article includes the definitions and criticisms of knowledge in Islamic thought. The second part discusses the claim of originality. In the second part, Davvānī’s treatise will be evaluated for the first time. According to the conclusion of the treatise, the definition made to find the essence of knowledge is unfounded in all respect. It is important to evaluate the treatise as a reflection of anti-essentialism in the history of Islamic thought. Most contemporary studies do not count this treatise among Davvānī’s works. In the biography book al-Aʿlām written by Khayr al-Dīn al-Ziriklī (d. 1976), Risāla fī taʻrīf ʻilm is counted among the works of Davvānī. In the introduction of more than one manuscript, the work is clearly attributed to Davvānī. As a result of the double-sided research, it has been ensured that the work belongs to Davvānī. However, in other two manuscripts containing the same treatise, the work is shown as belonging to an unknown person named Şāirzāda. But there is no information found about this person. This name seems more like a copyist (mustansıh) than an author. Possibly, such a mistake occurred as a result of confusing the two names. Davvānī’s small volume treatise sheds light on the intellectual atmosphere and level of its period. The definition of knowledge mentioned in the classical theology book of ‘Aḍud al-Dīn al-Ījī (d. 756/1355) called al-Mawāqif is superior to other definitions of knowledge. Instead of this definition of knowledge, which is presented as perfect, Jurjānī (d. 816/1413) preferred the definition of knowledge attributed to al-Māturīdī (d. 333/944) in the Sharḥ al-Mawāqif. This preference has been accepted as an implicit criticism for future generations, including Davvānī. Those who claimed that Jurjānī did not taken a random choice, carried on their criticism by going over the definition. The fine craftsmanship revealed in the treatise reveals that critical thinking is used intensively. The properly understanding of the treatise depends on knowing the science of logic and following it with intense attention. The definition of knowledge is examined from various angles with the help of concepts such as conception, ratification, judgment and contradiction (nakz) of the science of logic. In the science of logic, every layer of knowledge such as certainty, conjecture, imitation, doubt is investigated one by one. In the science of kalām, attention is paid that the ideal level of knowledge is precise. An uncertain knowledge is not considered knowledge according to kalām. Because the main goal of theologians is to build religious beliefs on the obtained certain knowledge. It is not accepted to base knowledge to a probable information on imprecise knowledge. For a knowledge among the knowns to reach the level of certainty, it must be correct and exclude other possibilities. Another condition is required for certainty in the definition of knowledge that Davvānī examines in his treatise is that the opposite is wrong. The fact that a piece of information is considered true depends on the fact that its reverse is false. In this treatise, it is discussed how to look for the contradictions or discrepancy that are wanted to be excluded. Knowledge is inseparable from the human mind, from outside of the world, or from the relationship between the two. (shrink)

A rejection of the notion of substance, an emphasis on intraworldly experience and an incorporation of ideas from modern biology are just three of the distinctive features of Alfred North Whitehead’s process metaphysics or philosophy of organism. The last two features give his scheme a heavily naturalistic tinge, despite his positing of eternal objects or universal forms of definiteness, which - together with subjective aims or final causes - are instantiated in a divinity prior to worldly realization.1 Such a naturalism (...) might seem to preclude largely a comparison with the work of Jacques Derrida, with other differences between the two being left aside. Derrida began his career as a student of phenomenology and structuralism, and by far the greater number of his philosophical writings has been devoted to thinkers who are explicitly post-Kantian. Yet this does not mean that he is a transcendental philosopher who abandons experience and the empirical world in favour of language and consciousness. In this paper I argue that Derrida’s work - which has been shown to be heavily informed by systems theory and evolutionary biology - is not in fact shut off from the extra-conscious and extra-linguistic dimensions of actuality. I also suggest that his deconstructive approach is strikingly similar to Whitehead’s in rejecting essentialism, namely, the idea of fixed and determined essences that underlie accidental properties and changes. From a Derridean perspective, one might even see Whitehead’s alternative as insufficiently radical, since it seems to posit not just eternal objects and God, but a cosmology in which the most fundamental beings or “actual entities” undergo no essential changes or mutations in their respective histories. It is arguable, however, that the latter conclusion would only be consequent on a restrictive interpretation of the pathways of process possible in Whitehead’s metaphysics.. (shrink)