Abstract:
I start the present investigation by discussing the recent history of two notions that
are at the center of contemporary metaphysics: essence and metaphysical necessity.
According to an idea that was popular in the last half of the 20th century,
modalism, essence is to be analyzed in terms of de re necessity. However, the
viability of modalism seems to have seriously decreased as a consequence of Kit
Fine’s putting forth a strong challenge against it. On the one hand, Fine raised a
series of substantial objections against modalism. On the other, he endorsed a
whole new way to construe the relation between essence and necessity: he claims
that necessity reduces to essence and not the other way around. According to the
Finean essentialist view, then, essence plays the role of the source of—and
therefore explains—necessity in the metaphysical structure of the world.
While Finean essentialism has received tremendous support by philosophers in the
literature of the past 20 years, it is only recently that it has been the target of
serious criticisms. One of the main goals of this dissertation is to discuss two
central difficulties for Finean essentialism, and to see whether and how they can be
addressed. To that effect, the first difficulty I introduce focuses on a rising concern
according to which there is an explanatory gap between essence and necessity.
Whereas this difficulty targets the intelligibility of Finean essentialism and whether
it achieves its main explanatory task, the second difficulty pertains to the
extensional adequacy of this theory; here, I argue that not all necessities can be
accounted for in terms of essence. Given these problems, my next step consists in
appealing to the notion of generalized identity in an attempt to find a construal of essence that can overcome the difficulties I raise against Fine’s theory. My
conclusion, however, is that Finean essentialists are forced to work with a restricted
version of their theory, and that a recent proposal made in the literature to address
the explanatory gap is unsuccessful. I end the present investigation by expanding
on the question of what the source of necessity is, and I present a framework where
necessity can be generated from logical axioms and where essence transfers
necessity.
Even though the conclusions I reach in my dissertation are, for the most part,
negative towards Finean essentialism, I believe that they advance the debate in at
least two different ways: on the one hand they challenge Finean essentialists to
clarify and refine their claims and theory. On the other, they offer a novel and
broader perspective on what kind of phenomenon necessity is and on the role that
essence might play in the metaphysical structure of reality.
Metaphysics