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Essentiality Without Necessity Essentiality without Necessity Petter Sandstad Abstract It is widely accepted that if a property is essential then it is necessary. Against this I present numerous counterexamples from biology and chemistry, which fall into two groups: (I) A property is essential to a genus or species, yet some instances of this genus or species do not have this essential property. (II) A property is essential to a genus, yet some species of this genus do not have this essential property. I discuss and reject four minor objections. Then I discuss in depth whether a distinction between constitutive essence and consequential essence is able to handle these counterexamples. I conclude that this distinction is better put as one between (1) the essence, which is necessary, and (2) the essential properties, which are not formally necessary. An essence of an object X is the substantial universal expressed by its real definition. An object X has a property P essentially iff the property P is explanatory and non-trivial, and P follows from the essence of X. Keywords: essential properties, necessary properties, essence, exceptions Kripke, Putnam, and others defended the tenability of essentiality as de re necessity, orthodoxly analysed as something that is true of a thing in all possible worlds where it exists (cf. [27] for a historical survey). According to this modal view, a property is predicated essentially if and only if it is (physically) necessary. If an object X essentially has a property P, then it must have P in all possible worlds where X exists (i.e. it must be necessary). Consequently, by losing the property P the object X would cease to exist. On the other hand, an essential property is often held to be explanatory (and as giving a definition and an account). Kriterion { Journal of Philosophy, 2016, 30(1): 61{78. http://www.kriterion-journal-of-philosophy.org c 2016 The author 62 KRITERION { Journal of Philosophy, 2016, 30(1): 61{78 However, using the example of Socrates and the singleton set fSocratesg, Kit Fine [8], [9] has argued that this does not square with the necessity view: while necessity holds in both directions (if Socrates exists then fSocratesg exists, and also if fSocratesg exists then Socrates exists), explanation only holds in one direction. It is not explanatory for Socrates to say that he is the sole member of fSocratesg. However, it is explanatory for fSocratesg to say that it contains Socrates as the sole member. Two further points, in addition to Fine's, speaks against the modal conception of essentiality. (1) Necessity and essentiality differs linguisti- cally. One can speak of Socrates' essence, but not of Socrates' necessity. However, one can speak of Socrates' essential properties and Socrates' necessary properties. The linguistic point is thus an argument against equating essentiality with necessity. But it leaves open a wide range of other possible relations between essentiality and necessity. (2) Necessity is generally recognized to be monotonic, e.g. if the existence of singleton fSocratesg necessitates the existence of Socrates, then the singleton will also necessitate Socrates' existence no matter which additional premises are added. In contrast, explanation is generally recognized to be non- monotonic, e.g. `I did not buy oranges because I forgot' might be a good explanation, but `I did not buy oranges because I forgot and a democrat is president of the US' is not. Other notions more or less distinct from essentiality, such as grounding and causation, have also been argued, based on there being exceptions, to be non-monotonic and consequently not necessary. Grounding is also taken to be a type of ex- planation, namely metaphysical explanation (e.g. the ball is coloured in virtue of being red), and the examples in [17], [32] prima facie indicate that grounding is non-monotonic.1 Similarly, some [25], [30] argue that causation is non-monotonic, e.g. giving someone a lethal dose of poison causes them to die, but giving someone a lethal dose of poison and the antidote does not cause them to die. Essentiality, like explanation and causation (and perhaps grounding), is non-monotonic, and thus distinct from necessity which is monotonic. E.g. if a bird is a raven, and ravens are essentially black, then the bird will be black; but if a bird is a raven, and ravens are essentially black, and the bird is an albino, then the bird will not be black. As a result of Fine's work (cf. also [14]), many authors have argued that not every property that is necessary is also essential. I.e. it is false that if something is necessary then it is essential. On this broadly neo-Aristotelian view, essentiality is understood non-modally (cf. also [5], [19], [31]). Despite of the vast recent literature defending non-modal Petter Sandstad: Essentiality without Necessity 63 conceptions of essentiality, there have been few attempts at a strict def- inition of essence and essential properties. And usually no distinction is made between essence and essential property. Both Fine [8], [9] and Lowe [19] emphasize the role of real definition, and they say that the real definition is the essence (cf. [31]). Or rather, essence is not the definition as a proposition or linguistic entity, but that which the real definition signifies. Lowe also defines it in terms of the locution `what it is to be': \if X is something of a kind K, then we may say that X's general essence is what it is to be a K [...]" [19, p. 35] Others emphasize more heavily the aspect that essence is explanatory, e.g. deRosset: \the essence of a thing is the totality of its features that are explanatorily basic." [5, p. 266] I present my own definitions of essence and essential property on page 69, and I am hoping that my paper will justify these definitions. To place these definitions at the beginning of this paper would give the reader the false impression that these definitions are to be found in the current literature on non-modal essentiality already. Neo-Aristotelians like Fine simply assume that if a property is essen- tial then it is necessary. I argue that this assumption is mistaken. My paper first and foremost engages with this recent (and vast) literature of neo-Aristotelians defending a non-modal conception of essentiality. Al- though my argument is not without relevance for those who, like Kripke and Putnam, have a modal conception of essentiality, I will be assum- ing throughout the paper a non-modal conception. In the first section I will present several counterexamples to the claim that if a property is essential then it is necessary. More precisely, I present counterexamples where a property is essential to an object of a certain kind, but yet the property is not possessed by that object. After briefly discussing four minor objections in section II, I then in section III answer a major ob- jection to my case. The major objection makes the distinction between a thin or constitutive essence (viz. the real definition constituted by the genus and differentia) and a thick or consequential essence (viz. the derivative attributes, viz. propria, which follows from the real definition) [9, pp. 56-61]. The possible objector admits that the exceptions hold for the consequential essence, but then claims that the constitutive essence does not admit of exceptions and that the constitutive essence is what is properly referred to as the essence. I concede this objection, although I argue that this distinction is better put as one between (1) the essence as the substantial universal expressed by its real definition, which is nec- essary, and (2) the essential properties that follow from the essence and are non-substantial universals, which are not formally necessary. 64 KRITERION { Journal of Philosophy, 2016, 30(1): 61{78 I Counterexamples Surprisingly, there seem to be countless cases where we are inclined to say that a property is essential, and yet that the property is not neces- sary.2 Some of these examples have been around in the literature for a long a time, some going all the way back to Aristotle [29]3, while others have been discussed by Kripke, Lowe, and Mumford. Birds essentially have the capability to fly, but penguins, ostriches, birds who has had their wings clipped, etc. do not have the capability to fly [24, p. 272]; [29, pp. 75-79]. Tigers essentially have four legs, but there are tigers missing one or more of their legs [13, pp. 119-120]; [21, p. 199]. Ravens essentially are black, but there are albino ravens [20, p. 150, pp. 188-189 & pp. 209-212]; [24]. Birds essentially are feathered, but e.g. geese are (brutally) plucked several times during their life, and disease can cause loss of feathers (e.g. Psittacine beak and feather disease). Mammals essentially give birth to live young, though male mammals do not, nor prepubertal children, nor postmenopausal females or females otherwise sterile. Mammals essentially have fur, but some mammals have very little fur (e.g. humans, hippopotamuses, elephants, and rhinoceroses), and some mammals completely lack hair (e.g. the Sphynx cat). Beer essentially contains alcohol, but then there is non-alcoholic beer where the alcohol has been removed through heating or reverse osmosis. Wa- ter essentially melts at 0◦C, but heavy water melts at 3.81◦C. Water essentially is H2O, but H3O and HO naturally occur in distilled water through autoionization.4 There is insufficient place to defend each of these counterexamples in detail. The counterexamples cover cases from biology and chemistry, and seem to concur with our current best sci- entific theories.
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