Organon F

Volume 31, August 2024, Issue 3, Pages 309–336

ISSN 2585-7150 (online) ISSN 1335-0668 (print)

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

Essence and Essentialism; Essentialism and Quantified Modal Logic; De Re Modality; Properties; Kit Fine.

Author

Andrew Dennis Bassford

Affiliation

University of Texas at Austin

Address

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

E-mail

a.d.bassford@utexas.edu 

Received

29 January 2024

Accepted

22 July 2024

Publishers

Institute of Philosophy of the Slovak Academy of Sciences

Institute of Philosophy of the Czech Academy of Sciences

APA

Bassford, A.D. (2024). Essence and Modality: Continued Debate. Organon F, 31(3), 309–336. https://doi.org/10.31577/orgf.2024.31305

Chicago

Bassford, Andrew Dennis. 2024. "Essence and Modality: Continued Debate." Organon F 31 (3): 309–336. https://doi.org/10.31577/orgf.2024.31305

Harvard

Bassford, A.D (2024). Essence and Modality: Continued Debate. Organon F, 31(3), pp. 309–336. https://doi.org/10.31577/orgf.2024.31305

© Andrew Dennis Bassford

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