Lin Li

This study develops a systematic account of Aristotle’s essentialism through the distinction between logical essence and causal essence, which are the two facets of Aristotelian essence. It offers a comprehensive treatment of their historical origins, philosophical motivations, and the relation between them. The first part, which concerns logical essence, argues that the notion of logical essence originates in the Platonic ‘What is it?’ question and Plato’s theory of Forms, and that it is philosophically motivated as a way of articulating essence through essential predication. The second part, which deals with causal essence, argues that this notion originates in Aristotle’s attempt to answer the question ‘What is the principle, or what are the principles, of something?’. It further shows that the notion of causal essence is philosophically motivated as a way of articulating essence through the causal explanation of the definiendum’s being. The last part argues that, in the case of infimae species, the final specific difference in a logical definition is ontologically based on the form or the cause in a causal definition. This correspondence ensures that the same entity can possess both logical and causal essence, without the unity of its essence being compromised.