This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Notes
W. V. O. Quine has informally characterized 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” (‘Three Grades of Modal Involvement’,Ways of Paradox (New York: Random House, 1966), p. 174). According to Quine's formal characterization, essentialists are committed to the truth of sentences of the form‘(∃x) (necFx · Gx · necGx)’ for at least some open sentences ‘Fx’ and ‘Gx’. Commitment to the truth of such sentences is a commitment to essentialism if one also accepts Quine's view of quantification as objectual rather than substitutional. While Aristotle has no, or at least no well-developed, theory of quantification, his treatment of singular statements does seem to be objectual rather than substitutional, as Alan Code has pointed out to me. G. E. L. Owen claims that general statements are carried on the backs of particular statements in Aristotle's logic (in ‘Aristotle on the Snares of Ontology’,New Essays in Plato and Aristotle, ed. R. Bambrough (London: Routledge, 1965). If he means that the truth of a quantified statement can be specified in terms of the truth of (non-quantified) instances and if this claim is correct, then Aristotle's treatment of general statements is also objectual. We can be reasonably sure Aristotle is also an essentialist in the Quinean sense if it can be shown that he holds that things have some of their properties essentially and others contingently independently of our thought and language. His is an interesting essentialism if he also holds that what belongs necessarily or essentially to one thing does not so belong to everything — in modern formal terms: (∃x) (□Fx · Gx · ~ □ Gx) · (∃x)(~□Fx) or, better, “(∃x 1) ⋯ (∃x n(π nxn · □F) · (∃x 1) ⋯ (∃x n)(π nxn· ~ □f), whereF is an open formula whose free variables are included inx 1, ⋯,x n, and whereπ nxnis any conjunction of formulas of the formx i = xjorx i ≠ xjfor every 1 ⩽i < j ⩽ n, but not including bothx i = xjandx i ≠ xjfor anyi, j”. (On the need for this latter formulation taken from Terence Parsons, see his ‘Essentialism and Quantified Modal Logic’,Philosophical Review LXXVIII (1969), pp. 35–52). It should be noted that acceptance of any of the Quinean versions of ‘Aristotelian essentialism’ just mentioned is compatible with the rejection of my (3) below. Nicholas White has recently questioned whether Aristotle is committed to essentialism in any modern sense with regard to sensible particulars. (See his ‘Origins of Aristotle's Essentialism’,Review of Metaphysics XXVI (1972), pp. 57–85.) Others have undertaken the task of showing in detail that he is. (The most thorough study of this of which I am aware is being done by Mohan Matthen in a Stanford University doctoral dissertation. S. Marc Cohen is also working on it; see his ‘Essentialism in Aristotle’ (mimeographed). See also Russell Dancy,Sense and Contradiction (Dordrecht: Reidel, 1975).) I shall take for granted in this paper that Aristotle is so committed. Briefly, the following considerations suggest that he is: (a) In his defense of the principle of non-contradiction inMet. ⌜.4, Aristotle assumes that an individual man is essentially a man regardless of the way he is described. On this point, see Matthen, op. cit. and Dancy,op. cit.; (b) As noted by G. E. L. Owen,op. cit., Aristotle suggests in Met. H.2 and elsewhere that there are different modes of existence even within the category of substance. There is no such thing as simply existing. Rather, for an individual substance to exist at all is for it to exist as a man or as a horse, etc. and what it is to be a man is not what it is to be a horse. I regard this position as philosophically unfortunate, but it does have obvious implications as to his essentialism; (c) Some of the views expressed by Aristotle in the modal logic seem plausible only when we assume that he has in mind some sort ofde re rather thande dicto modalities. E.g., his doctrine of complementary conversion, his view that negative universal contingent propositions do not convert, and his acceptance and rejection of certain syllogistic forms as valid —An. Pr. A.9 and 17.37a7–9 are obvious cases. While it must be admitted that Aristotle was not clear on the placement of modal operators, still such claims as ‘Some white things are necessarily animals’ (30b5–6) and ‘Some lifeless things are necessarily not white’ (36b15–17) would scarcely play a critical role in arguments used by one who was construing necessity as solely a linguistic or conceptual notion. (d) The pursuit of essences envisaged in the biological works (see e.g.P.A A.1,De an. B.1–2,De gen. an. A.1 is clearly not a search for linguistic or conceptual connections, but for properties which belong to real things before we discover them and in such a way as to fit a Quinean schema (see discussion below, especially pp. 373ff.). There are a number of variants within a general commitment to essentialism, e.g some philosophers hold that an individual has some properties so intimately associated with him that no other thing could have them without being that individual (individual essences) and other philosophers hold merely that individuals have natural kind properties essentially. It seems clear that Aristotle might be committed to some of the positions currently bearing the label ‘essentialism’ whether or not he uses the Greek terms we translate ‘essential’, ‘necessary’ or their cognates to state such positions. I shall not pursue the question of such commitments here, but shall focus on his view of what he speaks of as essential.
Some representative examples are: (a) from Ruth Barcan Marcus, ‘Essential Attribution’,Journal of Philosophy LXVIII (1971): “For Aristotelian essentialism, an essential property is a property that an objectmust have. It answers to the question ‘What is it?’ in a strong sense; if it ceased to have that property it would cease to exist. It is a property such that, if anything has it at all, it has it necessarily ⋯” (p. 190) “⋯ if an object had such a property and ceased to have it, it would have ceased to exist or it would have changed into something else. If by bombardment a sample of gold was transmuted into lead, its structure would have been so altered, and the causal connections between its transient properties that had previously obtained would so have changed that we would not reidentify it as the same thing”. (p. 202. I am assuming that the latter remarks indicate that Aristotelian essential properties are thought by Marcus to have explanatory import.) (b) from Paul Teller, ‘Essential Properties: Some Problems and Conjectures’,Journal of Philosophy LXXII (1975): “⋯ for allx and ally, ifx could have the propertyP andy could fail to have the propertyP, thenx is not the same, numerically identical thing asy (235 ⋯ [This claim] captures a very generalized form of the idea that the difference between havingP and not havingP makes a difference to what a thing is, in the strong sense of making a difference as to the very identity of a thing. The corresponding Aristotelian idea is that an essential property is such that if a thing loses it, that thing ceases to exist ⋯” (p. 236) Teller also suggests that all “explanatory essences” are essential properties (p. 244) and that at least all “interesting basic” essential properties (i.e. those that are not boolean combinations of explanatory essences or “uninteresting”, where “If ‘a’ is a rigid designator thenbeing identical with a is an ‘uninteresting’ basic essential property” (p. 247)) are explanatory. He adds, “Aristotle's notion of an essential property was that of a property that serves to give a unifying causal and scientific explanation of an entity's other properties. At the same time, Aristotle also clearly took an essential property to be a property such that nothing could lose it and yet remain the very same, numerically identical thing” (p. 248). (c) from Baruch A. Brody, ‘Why Settle for Anything Less than Good Old-Fashioned Aristotelian Essentialism?’Nous VII (1973): “⋯ if, before the change, there was an objecto 1 that had a propertyP 1, then the change is an alteration ifo 1 continues to exist after the change but now has a propertyP 2 whose possession is incompatible with the possession ofP 1, while the change is a substantial change if, after its occurrence,o 1 no longer exists ⋯” (p. 352) “⋯ we are now in a position to introduce a very simple theory of essentialism. We shall say that an objecto 1 has a propertyP 1 essentially just in caseo 1 hasP 1 and would go out of existence if it lost it: just in case the loss of it would involve a substantial change. We shall say that an objecto 1 has a propertyP 1 accidentally just in caseo 1 hasP 1 but could lose it without going out of existence: just in case the loss of it would involve a mere alteration” (p. 354) Such passages strongly suggest Brody is committed to the biconditional form of (1) and to (3). However, there is reason to doubt this also, for he seems to view the material a substance is composed of, e.g. the metal constituting this car, as something to which a substantial property, e.g. being a car, belongs accidentally. A referee for this journal has suggested one might read the relevant clause of the second quotation as “just in caseo 1 is a substance of a kind whose definition includesP 1 and hence would go out existence if it lostP 1”. Brody later notes, “In most recent discussions of essentialism, the whole emphasis has been on the connection between essential properties and properties that, in some sense or another, the object must have” (p. 362). Without disagreeing with this view, Brody adds that he wishes to stress also another important connection, “the connection between the properties that one has essentially and the kind of thing that one is. Traditionally, the kind of thing that one is determined by the set of one's essential properties” (p. 363). (He notes that disjunctive properties and tensed properties create problems for one who wishes to say “all essential properties (properties had essentially by something) determine natural kinds” (p. 363), but he hopes still to be able to reach this conclusion.) In an earlier paper in which the same theory of essentialism is more briefly set out, he notes, “It looks ⋯ as though essences are connected in some way with explanations, as though the essential properties of an object are those which are used to explain the other properties of the object. This is very reminiscent of what, Aristotle did say about essential properties (An. Post. 74b5–9) ⋯ I am suggesting that it is the properties that we use in explaining other properties that are said to be essential ⋯” (‘Natural Kinds and Real Essences’,Journal of Philosophy LXIV (1967), p. 445).
This is an additional characterization to be conjoined to those already noted in note 1 and has various formal versions: e.g. (a)(x) (F(x) ⊃ □ F(x)); (b)(x) □ (F(x) ⊃ □ F(x)); (c) □(x) (F(x) ⊃ □ F(x)). These are taken from Ruth Marcus,op. cit., p. 198.
It has been suggested that Aristotle's use ofper se may simple indicate linguistic necessity. (See e.g. White,op. cit., p. 66.) That is not the case in this sense ofper se, for what belongsper se are the elements in the what-is-it and the latter is clearly not a linguistic entity.
Brody, ‘Why Settle’,op. cit. makes much of this, using it as the basis for his own theory of essentialism.
Whether a property belongs essentially, beyond merely necessarily, depends, at least in part, on whether it has a central explanatory role (see below pp. 368ff.), so (2) enters the picture.
See Hilary Putnam, ‘The Thesis that Mathematics Is Logic’,Bertrand Russell: Philosopher of the Century, ed. Ralph Schoenman (London: Allen and Unwin, 1967), pp. 299–230 and Rudolf Carnap,The Logical Syntax of Language, trans. Amethe Smeaton (Paterson, N. J.: Littlefield, Adams, and Co., 1959), pp. 308–309 for brief recent discussions of the distinction.
See e.g. Brody, ‘Why Settle’,op. cit., p. 363 and Teller,op. cit., pp. 237–238.
This has also been observed by Ruth Marcus,op. cit., p. 196, and by Daniel Bennett, ‘Essential Properties’,Journal of Philosophy LXVI (1969), p. 494.
It should be obvious that not all conditional properties have this difficulty. Immersing some things in boiling water does not cause them to turn red, but immersing lobsters does, so if being a lobster is an essential property of an individual lobster, then so is turning red when immersed in boiling water. See Marcus, pp. 220–203 for discussion of a similar case.
One should not suppose that by speaking of explanatory power, I am suggesting that essential properties are relative to linguistic or epistemological contexts. They are elements of reality independent of thought and language and their explanatory power consists, at bottom, in some ontological relationship in which they stand. As Moravcsik notes, theaitia or explanatory factors “referred to by Aristotle are indeed elements of reality or roles played in some context by elements of reality. And thus the relationships introduced are ontological relationships; and not relations between the world and elements of language or some given state of human understanding” (‘Aristotle on Adequate Explanations’,Synthese 28 (1974), p. 7). I assume that modern essentialists who hold that essential properties are explanatory take the same position on this matter.
For example, it is so portrayed by Marcus,op.cit. and Bennett,op. cit.
Those who posit the existence only of corporeal elements such as the simple bodies: fire, water, earth, and air, have recognized some important existents but cannot adequately account for generation, destruction and change among perceptible things (Met. A3. 983b6–984a16, 8.988b22–989a30). Even when they confront the question of why generation occurs and are led to posit some efficient cause or causes, they are unable to account for the order and arrangement of the complex structures and activities which are manifest in nature. They can do no more than account for mingling or association, but “things can be mingled fortuitously” (De. gen. et corr. B.6.333b13–16, cf.Met. A.3. 984b8–18, 8.988b29;De an. A.5.410a1–6).
The Pythagoreans and Platonists realize that there must also be definite forms and abstract structures, but their theories also will not do. The Pythagoreans treat the problem too superficially (Met. A.5.987a21, cf. 989b29–990a29). The views of Plato and his followers must be given serious consideration, but in the end they too are faulty. In particular, the separate existence of the forms of perceptible things leaves us at a loss as to how to account for generation and change. On neither of these approaches does there seem to be a way of explaining, for example, how these definite forms get transmitted to or among sensible things. None of his predecessors, he thinks, has yet fully grasped what other sort of individuals must also exist and, indeed, be of paramount importance in the sublunar world if an adequate explanation of its phenomena is to be given. Aristotle's conception of what the nature of such individuals must be provides a solution of great power and originality to the difficulties he finds in his predecessors and to the problems he has set for himself.
See note 1 above. Rogers Albritton has argued that there are some indications that Aristotle recognizes particular forms as well as universal ones (‘Forms of Particular Substances in Aristotle'sMetaphysics’, Journal of Philosophy LIV (1957), pp. 699–708. Wilfrid Sellars takes a similar position in ‘Substance and Form in Aristotle’,Journal of Philosophy LIV (1957), pp. 688–699. However, the passages that suggest this (the account of the soul inMet. Z-H, especially Z.10–11, 13, and the discussion of proximale causes in Λ, especially 1071a28) are controversial and can be interpreted differently, as Albritton himself notes. See also James H. Lesher, ‘Aristotle on Form, Substance and Universals: A Dilemma’,Phronesis XVI (1971), pp. 174–176. Moreover, such a doctrine seems to conflict with Aristotle's conception of form as playing a central role in science since he insists that only universals are knowable.
See Moravcsik,op. cit., p. 10 and Alan Garfinkel, ‘Explanation and Individuals’ (unpublished doctoral dissertation, Department of Philosophy, Harvard University, 1975).
In thePhysics he notes, “Now of things that cause motion of suffer motion, to some the motion is accidental, to others essential” (254b7–8). In thePrior Analytics he says that properties may belong in different ways to different things: “Belonging is one thing, necessarily belonging another, possible belonging yet another” (A.8.29b29), with no suggestion that those properties which can belong necessarily constitute a distinct class. On the contrary, the very same property is sometimes mentioned in both necessity and possibility propositions. E.g. white is said to belong contingently to man but necessarily to swans and snow (A.16.36b8–12). Evidently, Aristotle is not regarding properties as, on the one hand, necessary or essential, and on the other, contingentin themselves.
The first and third of these passages are inconclusive since Aristotle may simply be presenting an account of Platonic doctrine or stating a problem in Platonic terms. I do not see that the others can be satisfactorily dismissed. For fuller discussion of this and related points in the following few pages of the present paper, see my ‘Can Substance Be Predicates of Matter?’Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie (forthcoming).
Such attempts are not very convincing. It is sometimes pointed out that Aristotle says we should say the casket is wooden rather than that the wood is a casket, etc. (e.g. at 1033a5–23 and 1049a18–b2), but the reason for this cannot be that being a casket is not predicated of the wood for in one of the very passages where Aristotle is admonishing us to say the casket is wooden he reaffirms his contention that when we are speaking of modifications the substratum is a substance like man, but “when this is not so but the predicate is a form and a this, the ultimate subject is matter, and material substance” (Met. —.7.1049a34–36). The correct reason for his admonition is given by Alan Code, ‘The Persistence of Aristotelian Matter’,Philosophical Studies 29 (1976) pp. 357–367.
The non-identity of form and matter has become increasingly evident in recent years with the advent of computers. Putnam notes that a computer made of electrical components can be functionally isomorphic to one made of cogs and wheels. The machine will then be in different physical and chemical states when computing, and the properties of the material constituents of the two will be different from those of the form, the functional organization or abstract structure of the thing. Such considerations lead Putnam to claim that form and matter are not identical and he justly acknowledges his debt to Aristotle in this regard. See his ‘Philosophy and Our Mental Life’,Mind, Language and Reality (Cambridge University Press, 1975). pp. 293–94 and 302.
The fact that it is predicated of the matter, however, does indicate that the primacy of living things in Aristotle's ontology does not depend solely on their being subjects. On this see my ‘Can Substance Be Predicated of Matter?’op. cit.
It should perhaps be emphasized that to accept this position is not to accept the Quinean view that whether a thing is essentially such and such depends on how we describe it and “necessity resides in the way we talk about things and not in the things we talk about” (W. V. O. Quine,op. cit., p. 174) because this body is not the same existent as this man and similarly in other cases.
I am very grateful for helpful comments on earlier versions of this paper from Alan Code, Mike Byrd and Mohan Matthen. Matthen was commentator on a version presented at the meeting of the American Philosophical Association, Pacific Division, in Berkeley, California on March 27, 1976. I have also profited from comments and/or stimulating discussions on various points in the paper with a number of other persons, especially Terry Penner, Marc Cohen, Lee Rice, Tom Prendergast, Wm. E. Dooley, S. J., Curtis Carter, and Aaron Snyder.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Kung, J. Aristotle on essence and explanation. Philos Stud 31, 361–383 (1977). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01857029
Received:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01857029