ROCCA- Essentialism Part 1

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RE ENT

W O R K

ESSENTIALISM: PART 1

Quine once characterised essentialism as the doctrine that some of the

attributes of a thing quite independently of the language in which the thing

is referred to, if at all) may be essential to the thing, and others accidental.

This view is now widely held. But this was not always the case. Quines

multifarious objections to quantified modal logic and essentialism were very

influential and it took the pioneering work of Marcus, Kripke

et

al. to bring

essentialism back into the realm of respectability. Despite these genuine

advances in easing Quinean queasiness about essentialism,

I

believe that at

least one of Quines objections does have considerable force and that, even

where his objections do not succeed, a consideration of them sheds much

light on the character and resources of various essentialist systems. In this

paper,

I

will explain and evaluate some recent work on essentialism by taking

up

two

of the Quinean objections.

The Quinean objection with the most force is his claim that there is no

principled way to assign, as essentialism requires, certain properties as essential

to a given thing and other properties as non-essential.

As

Quine indicates,

an essentialist foregoes an appeal to the meanings of the terms in which a

thing is referred to as accounting for the truth or falsity of sentences that

attribute essential properties to that thing. Once this step is taken, Quine

says, there is no legitimate basis on which to divide a things properties into

the essential and the non-essential. It is for this reason that Quine speaks of

the metaphysical jungle of Aristotelian e~sent ialism~nd of the distinction

between essential and non-essential properties as invidi~us~nd

baffling.

Quine has not, I believe, actually made good on this charge. He has not

shown that there is anything troubling about the way in which typical

essentialists want to divide properties into the essential and the non-

essential. Some of the reasons for this failure will become clear in what

1

7he

Wqs ofparadox

and Other

Essajs Harvard University Press, 1 976), p. 175f.

2. I should note that although

I

will cover a broad range of recent essentialist literature, I

cannot hope to do justice in this short paper to all the important contributions to the

current debate over essentialism.

I n

particular,

I

regret not having space to discuss Alan

Sidelles provocative work NecessiQ, Essence,

and Indiuiduation:

A

Defense

ofConventionalim Cornell

University Press, 1989).

3. Op. cit. p. 176.

4. Op.

cit.

p. 184.

5. Word and Object

MIT

Press, 19 60), p. 199.

For

a more recent version of this type

of

criticism,

see Alan M cM ichael, The Epistemology of Essentialist Claims, in Peter French, The odore

Ueh ling and Howard Wettstein eds.)Midwest Studies in Phihsop/p, vol. xi 198 6), pp. 33-52.

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follows.6 However, despite the fact that Quine himself has failed here,

essentialists must take this Quinean objection seriously. It is incumbent on

an essentialist not to make essentialist claims without a principled reason. Yet

there is, as I will argue, at least the appearance that some recent work on

essentialism is guilty of precisely this mistake. These difficulties facing

essentialists do not,

I

believe, justify Quines wholesale rejection of essentialist

talk, but they do show that essentialists have not yet fully dealt with what I

regard as Quines most important challenge.

To prepare the way for my analysis and critique, I need to offer a general

characterisation of essentialism and to discuss a different kind of Quinean

objection to essentialism. This objection turns on certain purported counterex-

amples to the essentialist view that a thing can have essential properties

independently of the particular way in which it is picked out. Despite the

fact that this objection was rightly discredited many years ago, it has recently

resurfaced

in

a different guise. Significantly, in responding to this new version

of the objection, recent essentialists have made their systems vulnerable to a

Quinean charge of arbitrariness.

To

see how all this is SO lets begin with a

general characterisation of essentialism.

I . Essmtialivn

Charachised

From the Quinean definition quoted at the beginning, we can extract two

claims required by essentialism:

1)

The fact that it is true

or

false)

to

say that a thing has a property such

as

being necessarily F does not depend on the way in which the thing

is referred to.

1)

is tantamount to the claim that the principle of substitutivity does not

break down in modal contexts. Such contexts would thus be referentially

transparent.)

2) At least some things have some properties such as being necessarily F

where this property is a non-trivial necessary property).

Some clarifications are in order. On Quines definition, essentialism would

require not only that some things have properties such as being necessarily

F, but that those things also have certain other properties contingently. I omit

the requirement that there be some contingent properties because otherwise

a view which held that each property

of

each thing is essential to it would

not count as essentialist. Yet this would be infelicitous, for such a view is

clearly an extreme version of essentialism, not a form

of

anti-es~entidism.~

6. See also Ru th B arcan M arc us, Essentialism in Mo dal Logic,

Now,

vol.

i

1967), pp. 91-96;

A Backw ard Glan ce at Quines Anima dversions on Modalities, in Rob ert Barrett an d

Roge r Gibson eds.), Perspectives

on

Quine Basil Blackwell, 1990), pp. 230 243; and Richard

Cartwright, Some Remarks on Essentialism,Journd

ofPhiho ,

vol. Luv I 968),pp. 6 15-626.

7. Leibniz is such an extreme essentialist. For discussion, see Benson Mates,

7he

Philosophy

of

Labnzr Oxford University Press, 1986).

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In

2), I

specified that essentialism requires that the necessary properties in

question be non-trivial.

I

will explain. Essentialists attempt to discover what

properties are required to be a particular thing

A.

Typically the aim in

so

doing is to offer an account of what is required to be

A

that goes beyond

the kinds of facts we can learn about A simply from the general fact that A

is a thing. What we can learn from this general fact does not reveal the

specific character of A and is, for that reason, trivial. Properties that are

necessary

to A

but which stem merely from the general fact that

A

is

a

thing

are thus called trivial necessary properties. Forbes puts the point this way:

It is characteristic of P s being trivially essential to x that

xs

possession of P

is not grounded in the specific nature

of

x .

There are two kinds of trivial necessary properties. The first kind consists

of properties that are necessary not only to

A

but also to each thing. Examples

are: being male if a bachelor and being self-identical. However, a propertys

being universally necessary is not required for its being trivial. Consider a

property

F

which

A

has necesssarily but which is not universally necessary.

As possession of F fails to be grounded in

As

specific nature if

As

possession

of F logically follows from

As

possession of G , where G s universally

necessary. An example can be developed in the following way.

As

I have just

mentioned, being self-identical is a necessary property of

A

and of every

other thing. From the fact that

A

has this property, it follows that A is

necessarily identical with A. The property of being identical with

A

is not

universally necessary; in fact, this property is necessary only to

A

and, further,

necessarily, only A has this property at all. However, since we can derive the

fact that A has the property of being necessarily identical with A without

having any information about

As

qualities other than the trivial fact that

A

is self-identical, the property of being identical with A is, though necessary,

trivially

SO ^

In light of claims

1)

and

2)

which essentialism requires, we can see that

there are two ways to reject essentialism. First, one can reject l ) , i.e. one

can hold

a) the fact that it is true or false) to say that a thing has a property such

as being necessarily F

does

depend on the way in which the thing is

referred to.

To accept a)

is

to regard modal contexts as referentially opaque, rather than

transparent; in modal contexts the principle of substitutivity breaks down. I

8. Graeme Forbes, In Defense

of

Absolute Essentialism,

in

Midwest Studies in Phzlompb, vol.

xi, pp. 3-31.

9. For more detailed treatmen t of some of the above issues, see Dagfinn Fellesdal, Essentialism

and Reference, in L. E. Hahn and P. A . Schilpp eds.), 7 h e Philosophy of W K Quine Open

Cou rt, 1986), pp. 97-1 13; Graem e Forbes,

7 h e

Mekzp/ysicr ofModali4 Oxford University

Press, 1985), p. 9 9 an d In Defense of Absolute Essentialism, pp. 4-6; David K apla n,

Opacity, in 77ze Philosophy of W c @zm pp. 229-289, part C; Marcus, Essentialism in

Mo dal Logic, and A Backward G lance a t Quines Animadversions on M odalities pp. 238

239; McMichael, The Epistemology

of

Essentialist Claims, p. 33; and Terence Parsons,

Essentialism and Quantified M oda l Logic, Philosophical Reuim,vol. lxxviii

1

969), pp. 35-52.

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will call the version of anti-essentialism that affirms

1)

anti-essentialism of

type a).O

Another way to be an anti-essentialist is to reject

2).

Such an anti-

essentialist would hold

b) Nothing has any non-trivial properties.

On this view, which I will call anti-essentialism of type

b),

any property a

thing has

is

a property it might have lacked. Thus since I have the properties

of being born in North America, weighing less than

500

lbs. and being

something that is not a light switch, according to an anti-essentialist of type

b) I might have failed to be born in North America, I might have failed

to

weigh less than 500 lbs., and I might have been a light switch. Nothing is

essential to me on this version

of

anti-essentialism. Anti-essentialism of type

b)

is

thus, as it were, the flip side of the extreme, Leibnizian essentialism

which says that

alt

of

a

things properties are essential to it.

I

know of no

proponents of this coherent but unpalatable version of anti-essentialism.

2. Descriptions and Scope

The two Quinean arguments mentioned at the outset are arguments for

anti-essentialism of type a). Consider first the argument that there are

counterexamples to the referential transparency of modal contexts. Quines

famous example is this:

9

and the number of planets are co-referring terms;

however, substitution of one

of

these terms for the other in modal contexts

can result in truth-value shifts. This is evident, Quine says, from the following

inference which he regards as invalid:

1)

Necessarily

9

is greater than

7.

2) 9 =

the number of planets.

Therefore 3) Necessarily the number of planets is greater than 7.

Intuitively 1) is true and

3)

is false, despite the fact that

3)

is reached simply

by substituting in

1)

a term that has the same referent as

9.

The point holds

for other modal contexts as well and thus Quine concludes that modal

contexts in general are referentially opaque. Actually, I should say that this

10. Anti-essentialism of this kind is endorsed in: A la n G ibba rd, Co nting ent Identity,

Journal of

Philosophical Logic,

vol. iv 1975), pp. 187-221; D avid Lewis, Co unte rpar ts of Persons and

Their Bodies, Journal

ofPhilosop/p,

vol. lxviii

I

97 I ) , pp. 203-2 11 and

On

the

Pluralip

of

Worlds

Basil Blackwell, 1986), pp. 246-263; Harold Noonan ,

Personal Zdmtip

Routledge, 1989),

Indeterm inate Identity, Continge nt Identity a nd Abelardian Predicates, 7he

Philosophical

Quark+,

vol. xli 1991), pp. 183-193 and Constitution is Identity,

Mind,

vol. cii 1993), pp.

133-146; Quine, Fmm

a Logical

Point of Kew 2nd edn., revised, Harvard University Press,

1980); Denis Robinso n, Re-Identifying Ma tter, Philosophical Rmm, vol. xci 1 982), pp.

11. Lewis, however, expounds the view in

somc

detail and treats it with respect. See

On

317--342.

Pluralily of Worlds, pp. 239-243.

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is what Quine

concluded.

He now recognises that this argument is mistaken.12

But it is important to

see

why it is mistaken, because the response on behalf

of essentialism in this case may be available also in the case of more recent,

formally similar objections to essentialism.

The response to Quine that I am about to sketch originates with Sm ~l lyan , ~

though NealeI4 lucidly expounds and develops it. I rely on Neale in what

follows.

As

Neale and Smullyan show, we can

see

that Quines example does

not in fact involve a violation of the principle of substitutivity if we accept

as Quine himself does) a Russellian account of definite descriptions. Two

features of this account are crucial here. First, for Russell, the definite

description the number of planets is not a genuine referring term. Rather,

sentences such as 3)) containing this term are to be analysed in terms of

quantifiers in the way that Russell famously explains in On Denoting see

3a) and 3b) below). The second key point to notice is that the Russellian

analysis gives

us

a clear way to represent an ambiguity in sentences such as

3)) that contain both a modal operator and a definite description.

In

3) the

definite description can be seen as having wide or narrow scope relative to

the modal operator. The

two

different readings provided by the Russellian

account are:

34

(Ex) ( (y ) (Py

y = x and O x>

7))

3b) U Ex) y) Py y = x ) and

x

>

7))

As

Neale (p. 136) explains, 3a), which gives the definite description wide

scope relative to the modal operator, says: Concerning the number x such

that

x

in fact uniquely numbers the planets,

x

is

necessarily greater than 7.

3b), which gives the definite description narrow scope, says: It is necessary

that whatever number x uniquely numbers the planets is greater than 7

Clearly 3b) is false since there are possible situations in which there are, say,

6 planets. In saying that

1)

and

2)

lead to the falsehood 3), it is apparently

3b) and not 3a) that Quine has in mind. This is

so

because 3a) is, arguably,

true and, more importantly for our purposes in answering Quine, one would

regard 3a) as failing to be true only if one

a h a

had a general argument

against quantification into modal contexts. Yet Quine is not yet in possession

of such an argument for, as Neale points out p. 136), Quine seeks to argue

against such quantification precisely by establishing the opacity of modal

contexts and this opacity has not yet been established. Since Quine thus has

3b) in mind, in order for Quine to use the above example to show that

modal contexts are opaque he must show that 3b) can be derived from

1 )

and

2)

by means of the principle of substitutivity.

However, as Smullyan and Neale demonstrate, 3b) is not derivable in this

way from 1 ) and

2)

see Neale, p. 137 for the proof which I will not

present here). Thus Quines charge of opacity fails. Further, the principle of

12. See Fmm a Lagical Point

of Vw

2nd edn ., revised), p. v ii.

13.

A.F. Srnullyan, Modality and Description,Journal

ofSym6olic b g i c ,

vol. xiii 1948), pp.

31-37.

14. Stephen Neale,

Descriptionr MIT

Press, 1990).

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substitutivity enables us to derive claims like 3a) from claims like 1) and 2).

Thus, as long as an essentialist gives the relevant definite description wide

scope, he can legitimately say that (3 ) is true and that no matter how the

number

9

is referred to

it

is necessarily greater than 7. So the Smullyan

defence against Quine consists of pointing out that a modal claim, viz.

(3) ,

that might initially seem to be false can actually be seen as true when the

relevant definite description is construed

as

having wide scope.

Quine, of course, was aware of Smullyans response, but he initially

dismissed it because he thought that, in allowing differences in scope to affect

the truth-value of claims containing modal contexts, Smullyan violated

Russells theory.I5 Yet Quine was clearly mistaken for Russell did allow scope

to matter in attitude contexts and there is no reason to think he would not

make the same claim for modal contexts.16

3. Knipkean Reconstmah

A major impetus behind the resurgence of interest in essentialism in the last

two decades has been Saul Kripkes Naming

and

Necessi . Part of what made

that work so exciting for essentialists was that it offered a general method for

handling certain objections to essentialist claims. That method

is,

in effect, a

subtle extension of the Smullyan strategy for responding to Quines worries

about the number of planets, as

I

will now explain.

To

see the kind of objection Kripke is concerned with, I need to discuss

briefly an important commitment of essentialism: the necessity of identity.

For an essentialist, if a and 6 are terms that refer to the same object, i.e.

if

a

=

6 ,

then necessarily

a

=

b.

This can be shown as follows:

4)Necessarily

a

= a.

This

is

trivially true; for it to be false there would have to be a possible

situation in which something fails to be self-identical and that is absurd. Ex

hypothesi

( 5 )

a =

6 .

Given

5)

and given the transparency of modal contexts, it follows that

6) Necessarily a

= b.

15. See the I96

1

edition of Q uines

Fmm u Lagicul Point of

Vi.

16. See Neale,

Descriptions,

pp . 137-138, and Marcuss A Backward Glance at Quines

Animadversions o n Modalities, p.

236.

In the preface to the 1980 edition of

Fmm u

Logical

Point of Viw,

Quine retracts his mistaken claims about Russell.

17. Haward University Press, 1980. See also Kripkes Identity and Necessity, in Stephen

Schwartz ed.), Numzng,NecessiQ and Nuturul Kin Cornell University Press, 1977) pp. 66-1 0 1.

18. See M arcus, The Identity of Individuals in a Strict Functional Calculus of Se cond Ord er,

Journal ofsymbolic Logic vol. xii 1947 ), pp . 12-15 published under the name Ruth Barcan).

For

related proofs, see Kripkes

Numing undNecessiQ,

p. 3 , an d Identity and Necessity, p. 89 .

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With the necessity of identity in mind, consider the familiar example of

Phosphorus and Hesperus. Lets say that a certain star appears in the morning

and that we give it the name Phosphorus. A star appears in the evening

and we give it the name Hesperus. If, as Kripke argues, proper names are

genuine referring terms, then an essentialist is committed to:

7) Necessarily Phosphorus

=

Phosphorus.

Further, assume that it

is

discovered empirically that

8) Phosphorus = Hesperus.

This happens, for example, if we discover that one heavenly body, Venus,

traces a certain path in the sky. It follows, for an essentialist, that

9)Necessarily Phosphorus = Hesperus.

However, it might be objected that this essentialist commitment is absurd:

9)

is clearly false for there is a possible situation in which Hesperus is not

identical with Phosphorus. We can, on this objection, describe such a situation

simply by describing a situation in which the star that appears in the morning

is not identical with the star that appears in the evening. And surely, it would

be said, such a situation is possible. Thus, on this objection, 9) is false and

the identity between Hesperus and Phosphorus holds, but does

so

only

contingently.

Kripke takes this objection very seriously. He thinks that the objector is

correct in saying that there is an important element of contingency in this

case, but that the objector wrongly expresses this intuition as the denial of

9).

In order to show that 9) is false, the objector relies on the falsity of

1 0) Necessarily the star that appears in the evening = the star that appears

in the m~ rn in g . ~

Kripke points out, however, that the falsity of

10)

entails the falsity of

9)

only if being the star that appears in the evening were sufficient for being

Hesperus and being the star that appears in the morning were sufficient for

being Phosphorus. But these properties are clearly not sufficient. We can easily

imagine that a different star besides the one that actually appears in the

morning is the morning star. We can imagine, for example, that Jupiter and

not Venus is the star that appears in the morning. Thus the property of being

the morning star is not sufficient for being the star we have in fact named

19. It should be noted that 10) is false only when interpreted so that one or both of the definite

descriptions has narrow scope relative to the modal operator.

If

interpreted such that both

definite descriptions have wide scope, then

1

0)

would be true just in case the morning star

is in fact identical with the evening star. I will not spell out these different readings here.

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Phosphorus. Similar claims apply to Hesperus and being the evening

star.)

So by seeing the falsity of 10) as leading to the falsity of

9),

the objector

is mistaking a contingent connection between the properties of being the

morning star and being the evening star for a contingent identity between

the things that

do

in fact have the properties. The objectors intuition that

this case involves a contingent connection is correct. The objector, however,

wrongly expresses this intuition of contingency by denying

9)

instead of

merely denying

1

0).

There seems to be a general recipe here for reconstruing intuitions of

contingency that appear to make trouble for essentialist claims. To elicit this

general recipe, it is important to note two things. First, for Kripke, proper

names are a subclass of the rigid designators.

A

rigid designator is a term

that picks out the same object in all possible worlds in which it picks out

anything at all). In addition to proper names, some definite descriptions, such

as a the square root of

4

are rigid designators. This description picks out

the same thing,

viz. 2,

in all possible worlds and so it is a rigid designator.

A

non-rigid designator is, as we have seen, the morning star which picks out

Venus in this world, but picks out, for example, Jupiter in another world.

The second thing to note is that, for Kripke, the property of being the

morning star, in terms of which Phosphorus is non-rigidly designated, is a

property used to fix the reference of the term Phosphorus. We initially

identified Phosphorus as the morning star. Similarly, being the evening star

is

the property used to fix the reference of Hesperus. This property too is

an identifying property.

In the Hesperus case, the problematic intuition of contingency is expressed

as the denial of

9).

Kriple says, however, that this intuition of contingency

should instead be expressed as the denial of 10).Notice that Kripke is suggesting

that an intuition of contingency, originally expressed in the denial of 9))

in terms that rigidly designate their objects viz. the terms Hesperus and

Phosphorus) should be expressed in the denial of 10))in terms that do not

rigidly designate their objects

viz.

the terms the evening star and the

morning star). Further, the non-rigid designators in question pick

o u t

an

object by invoking the property used to identify the object in the actual world.20

This suggests the following general recipe. If the intuition of contingency

expressed as

11) It is not necessarily the case that a is F

where a is a rigid designator) generates a problem for an essentialist claim,

then reconstrue that intuition of contingency as

12)

It is not necessarily the case that the

G

is

F

20.

Actually, to avoid a counterexample to the necessity of identity, it would be sufficient if only

one of the two rigid designators in the denial of 9)were re-expressed. See note 19.

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where the

G

is a description that non-rigidly designates

a

by means of a

property used to identify a. In other words, the Kripkean strategy of

reconstruing a problematic intuition of contingency is to replace a rigid

designator by a non-rigid designator for the same object, and in particular

by

a

non-rigid designator that involves a property used to identify the object.

By seeing

12)

as true while regarding 11) as false, Kripke is implicitly

regarding the definite description the

G

in

12)

as having narrow scope

relative to the modal operator. We can see this by offering a Russellian

disambiguation of 12):

12a)

Ex) y) Gy

y

=

x and -0Fx)

12b)

-O Ex) y) Gy

y = x ) and

Fx).

1

2a) is the wide scope reading;

it

says: concerning the thing

x

such that

x

is

the G x is not necessarily

F.

12b) is the narrow scope reading;

it

says: it is

not necessary that whatever thing

x

is the

G

is also

F.

Notice that if

1 1)

is

false, then so is 12a). This is because in 12a) the variable x serves as a rigid

designator for the thing that is in fact the

G,

i.e. for

a.

Since the variable

here rigidly designates

a

and since, for Kripke,

1

1)

It is not necesssarily the case that

a

is F

is false, it follows that 12a) is false. However, the falsity of

1

1 ) does

not

entail

the falsity of 12b). 12b) is true

j u s t

in case there is a possible situation in

which whatever is the

G

is not

F.

And this can be

so,

even if the thing that

is actually the G is necessarily

F.

Since Kripke regards

11)

as false and

1

2)

as true, and since this can be so only if 12) is given a narrow scope reading

as in 12b), he must be interpreting

12)

as 12b).

Here we can see how Kripkes strategy is an elaboration of the Smullyan

strategy. Both Kripke and Smullyan realise that essentialists are committed

to claims about an object that might seem to be false viz.

( 3 )

and 9)).Kripke

and Smullyan each show that these claims can be seen

to

be unproblematically

true once they are distinguished from certain related, but false claims. In

these other claims, a definite description that in fact picks out the object in

question

is

interpreted as having narrow scope relative to a modal operator

cf. 3b), 10) and the denial of 12b) each of which Kripke and Smullyan

would regard as false).

Kripke goes beyond Smullyan in the following way. The Smullyan strategy

only provides a way to safeguard problematic modal claims such as

(3) )

hat

contain a definite description. Kripke can handle such cases, but he also

provides a way to safeguard claims such as

9)

that contain proper names

and not definite descriptions.

Kripke employs his general strategy to defend

a

number of essentialist

claims that he endorses. These include the claims: water is necessarily

H 2 0 ,

heat

is

necessarily molecular motion, Cicero is necessarily Tully, cats are

necessarily mammals, gold is necessarily the element with atomic number

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79, the Queen necessarily has the parents she in fact came from, etc. Some

of these claims will be touched on below.

4 . More

Objections t o Transparency

Despite the efforts of Smullyan and Kripke, attempts to demonstrate the

opacity of modal contexts still flourish. Indeed, the currently popular counter-

examples have the same basic form as those already rebutted. Interestingly,

however, in response to these more recent counterexamples, essentialists tend

not to use the kind of strategy developed by Smullyan and Kripke.

Perhaps the most popular argument for opacity

is

this: Lets say that a

certain artisan at a certain time puts together a lump in the shape of the top

half of a certain giants body and a lump in the shape of the bottom half of

that giants body. Call the resulting statue Goliath and the resulting lump

Lumpl. The lump and the statue came into existence simultaneously, i.e.

at the moment when the artisan fused the two original lumps of clay. Suppose

that the artisan, soon after, destroys both the statue and the lump at once,

by smashing, or by means of an explosion, or whatever. Lumpl and Goliath

thus

go

out of existence at the same time and we can, indeed, say that there

are no temporal differences between them. The statue exists when and only

when the lump exists. It is plausible to say that

13) Goliath is essentially a statue

and that

14) Lumpl

is

not essentially a statue.

This is so because, for example, Lumpl might have been squeezed into a

ball and not been destroyed, but this cannot be said of Goliath. If 13) and

14)

are true, and if modal contexts are transparent, it follows that

15)

Goliath Lumpl.

But, so the objection goes, this is absurd. Noonan puts the point in this way:

Unless we are prepared to accept that purely material entities

of

identical

material constitution at all times may nonetheless be distinct, we must accept

that Goliath and Lump1 are identical. Since the assumption of the

transparency of modal contexts leads to the absurdity 15) we must, on this

objection, conclude that modal contexts are opaque.2

21. Constitution is Identity, Mind, vol. cii 1993), pp. 133--146 .

22. The example originates with Allan Gibbard, Contingent Identity, Journal of Philosophical

Lo , vol. iv 1975), pp. 18 7-2 21. This example

or

similar ones are employed by David

Lewis, Counterparts of Persons and T heir B odies, Journal of Philoso , vol. lxviii 1971),

pp. 203-21 1, and

On the

PluruliQ of wo7 Blackwell, 1986); Harold Noonan, Reply to

Lowe on Ships and Structure, A na hsk , vol. xlviii 198 8),

pp.

221-223, Pmsonal Idmtig

Rou tledge, 1989), pp. 145- 147, Indeterminate Identity, Contingent Identity and Abelardian

Predicates,

77ze

Philosophical Quarterly

vol. xli

1991),

pp.

183-193,

and Constitution

is

Identity; and Rob inson , Re-identifying Matter.

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Why do these philosophers think that in this case the statue is identical

with the lump? The consideration usually appealed to is parsimony. Lewis

says, it reeks of double-counting to deny identity in such a case.23 In most

cases these arguments amount to little more than an assertion of an intuition

that there is only one object here. Such arguments do not have much force,

for it seems unlikely that philosophers who are inclined to regard modal

contexts as transparent would share this intuition. Or, if they do share this

intuition, such philosophers might see giving it up and accepting that there

is a multiplicity of objects in this case as a price worth paying in order to

maintain what they take to be the most natural account of modal predication.

Recently, however, a more subtle and potentially more effective argument

for identity in this case has emerged. This argument turns on a general

principle of the form

16) Ify is a paradigm statue and x is intrinsically exactly likey and

x

does

not partly overlap any statue then x is a

16) is, in effect, a claim of supervenience: x a nd y cannot differ with respect

to being

a

statue unless there is some intrinsic difference between them.25

This is a very plausible principle; it expresses the view that being a statue is

not a basic property. Something is or fails to be a statue in virtue of certain

other properties it has or fails to havez6 f 16) is correct, the claim of identity

follows quickly: Lump 1 is, on

a

plausible construal of intrinsic, intrinsically

exactly like the statue Goliath. Thus, by 16), Lumpl counts as a statue.

Since Lumpl is a statue, it could fail to be identical with the statue Goliath

only if there are two statues each wholly occupying the same region at the

same time. But asJohnston points out,* this seems rather gratuitous, especially

in light of the fact that once it is granted that Lumpl is a statue, it will, after

all, have all the modal properties of a statue, including being essentially a

statue.

So

the modal grounds for distinguishing Goliath and Lumpl would

disappear once it is granted that Lump1 is a statue. Thus no basis would

remain, it seems, for denying the identity of Lump 1 and Goliath once

1

6) is

accepted.

But is 16) correct? To deny it, one would have to allow that there are at

least some cases in which an objecty is a statue and

x

is not, yet there is no

intrinsic difference between them. If this were the case, then there would, it

seems, be no way to explain whyy is a statue and x is not. Appealing to

modal differences would not help because such differences themselves are

explained in terms of the difference with regard to the property of being a

statue.)** In this sense, one might say that the difference between x a n d y

23. Orr

t he

Pluralig f

Worlds,

p. 252; Noona n elaborates this point in much detail in Constitution

24 . O n the reason for the third conjunct of the anteced ent,see Noonans Constitution is Identity.

25. NeitherJohnstonnor No onan, wh o both discuss this argument, offers a definition

of

intrinsic.

26. See Michael Burke, Copper Statues and Pieces of Copper: A Challenge to the Standard

27. Mark Joh nston, Constitution is Not Identity, Mind, vol. ci 199 2), p. 98.

28.

See Burke, Copper Statues and Pieces of Copper.

is Identity.

Account, Analysis, vol. lii 1992), p. 14.

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with regard to the property of being a statue would fail to be grounded in

any further difference between x andy see the discussion of Forbes below).

Now this might not be an unacceptable view. As we will see, there are quite

plausible cases of ungrounded differences in identity properties, so it may not

after all be absurd to say that there are certain cases of ungrounded differences

in statue properties.* This is by no means an argument for rejecting 16).I

am simply pointing out that

a

final verdict on the argument for identity that

relies on 16) must await a general account of the kinds of ungrounded

properties we are willing to tolerate and those we are not.

At any rate, it is difficult

to

deny that there

is

at least prima facie plausibility

in the claim that Goliath and Lumpl are identical, How then do essentialists

respond to the charge that they are not able to accommodate this identity?

Typically, they are willing to follow the modal intuitions 1

3)

and 14) to the

conclusion of non-identity in 15).30

Relying on modal intuitions such as 1

3)

and

1

4) to reach a conclusion of

non-identity in this case is, perhaps,

a

defensible position. But what is striking

about the procedure of essentialists here is that they do not avail themselves

of a strategy for maintaining the plausible claim

of

the identity of Goliath

and Lumpl. This strategy is the strategy of reconstruing intuitions of

contingency in order to preserve intuitive claims of identity. Essentialists such

as Smullyan and Kripke use this approach to great effect in responding to

the objections discussed earlier. But when

it

comes to the most recent

incarnation of these objections, essentialists, quite puzzingly, abandon one of

their most powerful tools.

My puzzlement concerns in particular:

14)

Lumpl is not essentially a statue.

A

Kripkean reconstrual of

14)

certainly seems to be available. According to

the general recipe outlined earlier, to reconstrue

14),

we need to find a non-

rigid designator, the G, that picks out Lumpl in terms of a property used

to identify Lumpl and is such that

14) It is not necessarily the case that the G is a statue

29. Note, however, that the Goliath case would be an exception in this regard. In most cases,

the fact that x is a statu e a n d y is a non-statue w ould not be ungro unded. In most cases,

there would be qualitative differences between them that would explain this difference.

30. See Lowe, fin s

o j B i n g ,

esp. pp. 56-57; David Wiggins, Smmacs

and Substance

Harvard

University

Press,

1980); Stephen Yablo, Identity, Essence, and Indiscernibility, Journal of

Philmo , vol. lxxwiv 1987), pp. 293-314. Judith Jarvis Thomson discusses but does not

endorse this kind of modal argument in Parthood and Identity Across Time, Journal of

Phzfosop/y

vol. lxxx

1983),

pp.

201-220,

cf. esp. pp.

218-220).

In Constitution Is Not

Identity, Joh nsto n accepts the soundnes s of the essentialist inference

(13)- 15), but

his

primary reason for accepting non-identity in this case is that he thinks that, because of the

vagueness of the boundaries of physical objects, there would be an u nattractive proliferation

of statues and other objects if we did not deny identity in the Goliath and related cases.

In Constitution is Identity, Noonan argues that such vagueness does not necessitate

non-identity.

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is true. To find such a designator, we simply have to recall how we initially

identified Lumpl,

viz.

as the lump formed by a certain artisan at a certain

time) by putting together a lump in the shape of the top half of a certain

giants body and a lump in the shape of the bottom half of that giants body.

Certainly the designator involved here is non-rigid.

It

might have been the

case that the lump formed in that way was different from the lump that was

actually formed in that way. This might be the case if the artisan had

purchased his clay from a different store, etc.) Further, when we substitute

this rather complicated) designator for the G in 14), the resulting sentence

seems to be true. Certainly, it is possible that a lump formed in that way is

not a statue. This is because it is possible that, unlike Lumpl in the actual

situation, a lump formed in that way outlasts the statue it initially constitutes

and so

is

not identical with it or any other statue. Notice that, when conjoined

with 1

3),

the Kripkean reconstrual of 14) does not, unlike 1

4

tself, lead to

1

5). Thus by reconstruing the intuition of contingency in the above way, the

essentialist can avoid any problematic commitment to non-identity in this case.

So

my question is this: given that such a reconstrual appears to be available,

why do essentialists, in general, not avail themselves of it? Why do essentialists

readily accept such reconstruals in the Hesperus case, the number of planets

case, etc., yet fail to do so in the statue case and in other cases which currently

pose the greatest threat to essentialism?

Perhaps there is some principled reason why an essentialist should not

accept a Kripkean reconstrual in the Goliath case, even if such a reconstrual

is accepted in other similar cases3 But it is not immediately clear what such

a reason could be and, if there

is

no such reason, then the essentialist systems

that deny identity in the Goliath case must be seen as containing a significant

element of arbitrariness. And this, I believe, makes such systems vulnerable

to Quines

main objection

to

essentialists: the lack of a principled basis for

accepting certain essentialist claims and rejecting others.

I

should note that

Burke32and Van C l e ~ e ~ ~eem to combine essentialism with identity in cases

like that of Goliath. They do not do so, however, on the basis of a Kripkean

method of reconstruai.)

YALE UNIVERSITY MICHAEL DELLA ROCCA

31. I explore this issue in my paper Essentialists and Essentialism

(Journal

of Philnsop/y,

forthcoming).

3 2 . See Coppe r Statues and Pieces of Copper ; Dion and Th eon: An Essentialist Solution to

an Ancient Puzzle, Journal ofPhilosop/y, vol. xci 199 4), pp. 129 -139 ; and Preserving the

Principle of One Object to a Place: A Novel Account of the Relations Among Objects,

Sorts, Sortals, and Persistence Conditions, Philosophy and Phenomenological Reseanh, vol. liv

33. James Van Cleve, Why a Set Contains Its Members Essentially, NONOUS,ol. xix 1985), pp.

19941, pp. 591-624.

585-602 see esp. $6).

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ROCCA- Essentialism Part 1