However, this isn’t obvious—one can believe that there are non-modal essences
while denying that everything has one. Historically, this has been the popular
position, and insofar as the contemporary proponent intends to be recapturing
this ancient notion, the view that not everything has a strict essence needs to be
on the table.
For example, Aquinas (1965: ch. 1) holds that, of those creatures that fall under the
categories, only substances can straightforwardly be said to have strict essences. But
entities in the other categories of being have essences only in a secondary manner,
which isfitting given that they do not enjoy the same mode of being as substances.^5
That substances and accidents do not enjoy essences in the same manner seems to be
a doctrine that goes back to at least Aristotle.^6
Second, inMetaphysicsVII.4, 1030a11, Aristotle (1984b: 1626) appears to deny
that accidental unities, such as pale Socrates, have essences.^7 According to Aquinas,
privations, such as blindness in an eye, holes, or shadows, have no essence at all.^8
Suárez also agrees that these entities—which he and Aquinas thought of as beings of
reason—lack essences.^9 I agree that there are such entities, which I identified with
beings by courtesy. However, although there are such entities, and although there are
de renecessary truths about them, they lack essences in the strict sense.^10
We’ve discussed the historical precedents for the claim that some entities lack
strict essences.^11 Let’s now discuss two arguments that some things lack strict
essences. The things in question are beings by courtesy. Interestingly, there are two
routes to the conclusion that beings by courtesy lack strict essences. Thefirst route
assumes that the notion of strict essences is metaphysically fundamental. The second
route is via a particular reductive account of strict essence.
Suppose that strict essence is a metaphysically ground-floor notion. In section 5.7,
we examined the principle that only fully real entities can enjoy fundamental
(^5) See Galluzzo (2013: 258–69). Amerini (2014: 337–8) notes that Alexander of Alessandria also held
that accidents have essences only in a secondary manner, provided that they have essences at all. By way of
contrast, the contemporary essentialist Oderberg (2007: 152) says that accidents have essences, since
everything has an essence. He does not distinguish there between primary and secondary ways of having
an essence. 6
See, for example,MetaphysicsVII.4, 1030a27–b13; (Aristotle 1984b: 1626–7), where Aristotle appears
to assert that nothing which is not a species of a genus has an essence. Tahko (2013: 52) claims that, for
Aristotle, only species have essences. Cohen (2009: 203) disagrees, holding that Aristotle probably does not
intend in this passage to deny that members of species have essences as well. 7
8 See Cohen (2009: 203–5) for discussion.
See chapter 1 of Aquinas’s (1965)Being and Essence. In his commentary, Kenny (2005a: 4) notes that
onlyfirst-class beings have essences, whereas privations do not, and accidents have essences at best only in
a secondary way (Kenny 2005a: 7). See also Brower (2014: 25, 200) and Wippel (1982: 132). 9
10 See Suárez, Disputation 54, section 1, subsection 10 (Suárez 2005: 65–6).
Interestingly, Ryle (1971: 91, 107) also seems skeptical about the universality of essences. He holds
that we can speak of the nature or essence of triangles or bicycles, or the nature or essence of this thingqua
bicycle, but we cannot speak of the nature or essence of a particular that is a bicycle. 11
See also Robinson (1950: 149–52) for further discussion of historicalfigures who believed in“real
definitions.”Interestingly, one of Robinson’s (1950: 154) complaints about the notion of essence is that,
according to some proponents of this notion, not everything has an essence.