Abstract
Metaphysicians have long conceived of essence as a modal notion: they treat essential truths as modal truths of a certain type (necessary and de re), and essential properties as characteristics that an entity necessarily possesses, if it exists at all. However, this approach was criticized by a series of works undertaken by Kit Fine as early as the 1990s. In particular, Fine shows that the modal approach to essence classifies, among the essential properties of a specific entity, properties that clearly do not belong to its nature. He then proposes an alternative, non-modal approach to essence, which reverses the explanatory order: essence is no longer explained in modal terms but, on the contrary, modalities are explained in terms of essence. In this talk, I will discuss Fine's objections to the modal approach to essence (and potential ways of responding to them), as well as Fine's own position and its main consequences for contemporary metaphysics.
