essences modally essentially. Moreover, this claim is plausibly a consequence of the
attempt to reduce modal necessity to that which follows (in some non-modal sense)
from the strict essences of all things. But for now I want to be cautious about the
connection between modal essence and strict essence.^2
As noted in section 8.3, Fine (1994a) distinguishes between what he callsconsti-
tutiveessence andconsequentialessence. Recall that the constitutive essence of a
thing is what is“directly”definitional of that thing, whereas the consequential
essence of a thing is that which is a consequence of the constitutive essence of that
thing. In section 8.3, we also discussed several kinds of consequential essence. In what
follows, I will focus on constitutive essence.
There are six questions concerning the connection between being and essence that
I want to discuss. First, in section 9.2, even if all things have a modal essence, does
everything have a strict essence? Second, in section 9.3, do truths about the essence of
a thing entail that the thing itself exists in some manner? Third, in section 9.4, are
essences entities, and if so, what manner of being do essences enjoy? Fourth, in
section 9.5, are there some things such that their strict essence is exhausted by the fact
that they have the mode of being that they have, or must objects always have a richer
strict essence than this? Fifth, in section 9.6, does strict essence reduce in some way to
modes of being? Finally, in section 9.7, is it part of the modal or strict essence of
things that they have the mode of being that they have?
It’s hard to answer any one of these questions without answering at least some
of the others. Consequently, the web of speculation to be spun will be both intricate
and delicate.
9.2 Do All Things Have a Strict Essence?
Few contemporary proponents of strict essence deny that the notion of strict essence
is perfectly general.^3 Moreover, the examples in the extant literature of things that
purportedly have essences—sets, people, conferences, events, propositions—also
suggest that most proponents implicitly believe that every entity has a strict essence.
Some proponents are even explicit: Oderberg (2007: x, 19, 47, 54, 87, 152) holds that
everyentity has a real essence.^4
(^2) Note that the connection between strict essence andde remodal essence might be historically more
contentious than we might have thought. For example, Brower (2014: 288–91) argues that Aquinas’s theory
of the Incarnation requires him to deny that if something is essentially F, then it is non-contingently F. 3
Cameron (2010: 263) does not think that all entities have strict essences but rather only the real ones
have them. As we 4 ’ll see, this is the position I favor.
Oderberg’s (2007: 105) discussion of privations and other beings of reason suggests a bit of wiggle
room, since he says such entities are not real beings. Were they within the range of his putatively universal
quantifier? Similarly, Dasgupta (2016) holds that anything that belongs to an ontological category has an
essence; but perhaps he does not think that holes belong to an ontological category. (On the account of
ontological categories developed in section 4.3, they do not.) Similarly, according to Pini (2005: 81–2),
Scotus held that only things that belong to an ontological category have a real essence.