Fabrice Correia

In this chapter, I discuss the distinction between essential and accidental properties from a contemporary perspective. I first distinguish between the modal notion and the Aristotelian notion of essence. I present various ways of cashing out the modal notion, and then I turn to the Aristotelian notion, which has been at the centre of metaphysical enquiry over the past thirty years or so. I present and discuss simple modal accounts of that notion, then sophisticated accounts and finally non-modal accounts. In the very last part of the chapter, I briefly go through various topics: individual essences; the question of what is essential to what; the use of essence in the characterisation of other notions; so-called generic essence and other generalizations of the standard, objectual notion of essence; and finally, scepticism and anti-realism about essence.

Ontological dependence and grounding are two important items in the metaphysician’s toolbox: both notions can be used to formulate important philosophical claims and to define other notions that play a central role in philosophical theorising. Philosophical inquiry about ontological dependence and (especially) grounding has been very lively over the past few years, making it difficult to write a short review article on any of them, let alone a short review article on both. I try to reach a good compromise between a discussion of each notion taken separately and a discussion of how they relate to one another. I begin by introducing the notions and discussing a number of their connections with modality (Sections 9.1 and 9.2), starting with grounding for systematic reasons (some important concepts of ontological dependence are defined in terms of grounding). I then further the discussion of how the notions are connected to each other, by arguing against the view that (partial) grounding is equivalent to (the converse of) ontological dependence between facts (Section 9.3). Finally, I discuss their respective roles in the theory of fundamentality (Section 9.4).