Is L.A. Paul’s Essentialism Really Deeper than Lewis’s?
L.A. Paul calls “deep” the kind of essentialism according to which the essential properties of objects are determined independently of the context. Deep essentialism opposes “shallow essentialism”, of which David Lewis is said to be a prominent advocate. Paul argues that standard forms of deep essen...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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University of Rijeka. Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
2024-01-01
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| Series: | European Journal of Analytic Philosophy |
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| Online Access: | https://hrcak.srce.hr/file/455384 |
| _version_ | 1797206101987426304 |
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| author | Cristina Nencha |
| author_facet | Cristina Nencha |
| author_sort | Cristina Nencha |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | L.A. Paul calls “deep” the kind of essentialism according to which the essential properties of objects are determined independently of the context. Deep essentialism opposes “shallow essentialism”, of which David Lewis is said to be a prominent advocate. Paul argues that standard forms of deep essentialism face a range of issues (mainly based on an interpretation of Quinean skepticism) that shallow essentialism does not. However, Paul claims, shallow essentialism eliminates the very heart of what motivates essentialism, so it is better to be deep than shallow. Accordingly, she proposes a very sharp novel account of essentialism, which, while attempting to preserve some of the advantages of shallow essentialism over the classical forms of deep essentialism, can be deemed to be deep.
In this paper, I compare Paul’s proposal for a kind of deep essentialism with Lewis’s account, as it is presented by Paul. My aim is to show that the differences between the two approaches are not as significant as Paul takes them to be, and that Paul’s account can be taken to be deeper than Lewis’s only at the cost of sacrificing the very idea at the bottom of deep essentialism.
This might be taken to suggest that, if Paul is correct in asserting that shallow essentialism is better equipped to address some skeptical challenges, but it is generally preferable to be deep than shallow, then Lewis’s account should be re-evaluated, since, as shallow as it can be, it might be deeper than it looks. |
| first_indexed | 2024-04-24T09:01:40Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-41e2fa75a8964bd697a2b2502506a123 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1845-8475 1849-0514 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-04-24T09:01:40Z |
| publishDate | 2024-01-01 |
| publisher | University of Rijeka. Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences |
| record_format | Article |
| series | European Journal of Analytic Philosophy |
| spelling | doaj.art-41e2fa75a8964bd697a2b2502506a1232024-04-15T19:28:23ZengUniversity of Rijeka. Faculty of Humanities and Social SciencesEuropean Journal of Analytic Philosophy1845-84751849-05142024-01-01201315410.31820/ejap.20.1.2Is L.A. Paul’s Essentialism Really Deeper than Lewis’s?Cristina Nencha0University of Bologna and University of Bergamo, ItalyL.A. Paul calls “deep” the kind of essentialism according to which the essential properties of objects are determined independently of the context. Deep essentialism opposes “shallow essentialism”, of which David Lewis is said to be a prominent advocate. Paul argues that standard forms of deep essentialism face a range of issues (mainly based on an interpretation of Quinean skepticism) that shallow essentialism does not. However, Paul claims, shallow essentialism eliminates the very heart of what motivates essentialism, so it is better to be deep than shallow. Accordingly, she proposes a very sharp novel account of essentialism, which, while attempting to preserve some of the advantages of shallow essentialism over the classical forms of deep essentialism, can be deemed to be deep. In this paper, I compare Paul’s proposal for a kind of deep essentialism with Lewis’s account, as it is presented by Paul. My aim is to show that the differences between the two approaches are not as significant as Paul takes them to be, and that Paul’s account can be taken to be deeper than Lewis’s only at the cost of sacrificing the very idea at the bottom of deep essentialism. This might be taken to suggest that, if Paul is correct in asserting that shallow essentialism is better equipped to address some skeptical challenges, but it is generally preferable to be deep than shallow, then Lewis’s account should be re-evaluated, since, as shallow as it can be, it might be deeper than it looks.https://hrcak.srce.hr/file/455384David LewisessentialismL.A. Paulcontext-sensitivity |
| spellingShingle | Cristina Nencha Is L.A. Paul’s Essentialism Really Deeper than Lewis’s? European Journal of Analytic Philosophy David Lewis essentialism L.A. Paul context-sensitivity |
| title | Is L.A. Paul’s Essentialism Really Deeper than Lewis’s? |
| title_full | Is L.A. Paul’s Essentialism Really Deeper than Lewis’s? |
| title_fullStr | Is L.A. Paul’s Essentialism Really Deeper than Lewis’s? |
| title_full_unstemmed | Is L.A. Paul’s Essentialism Really Deeper than Lewis’s? |
| title_short | Is L.A. Paul’s Essentialism Really Deeper than Lewis’s? |
| title_sort | is l a paul s essentialism really deeper than lewis s |
| topic | David Lewis essentialism L.A. Paul context-sensitivity |
| url | https://hrcak.srce.hr/file/455384 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT cristinanencha islapaulsessentialismreallydeeperthanlewiss |