Wildman Nathan
Tilburg Center for Logic, Ethics, and Philosophy of Science (TiLPS), University of Tilburg, PO Box 90153, 5000 LE Tilburg, The Netherlands.
Synthese. 2021;198(Suppl 6):1455-1471. doi: 10.1007/s11229-017-1667-6. Epub 2018 Jan 5.
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a claim of metaphysical modality, in possession of good alethic standing, must be in want of an essentialist foundation. Or at least so say the advocates of the view (the REF, for short), according to which all (metaphysical) modality is to be reductively defined in terms of essence. Here, I contest this bit of current wisdom. In particular, I offer two puzzles-one concerning the essences of non-compossible, complementary entities, and a second involving entities whose essences are modally 'loaded'-that together strongly call into question the possibility of reducing modality to essence.
一个普遍公认的事实是，一个具有良好真理性地位的形而上学模态断言必然缺乏本质主义基础。或者至少持该观点（简称为“REF”）的倡导者们是这么说的，根据这一观点，所有（形而上学的）模态都应依据本质进行还原定义。在此，我对这一当下的普遍看法提出质疑。具体而言，我提出两个谜题——一个涉及非可能的互补实体的本质，另一个涉及本质具有模态“负载”的实体——这两个谜题共同有力地质疑了将模态还原为本质的可能性。
