Resumen de Essence and nomicity. On the foundations of dispositional essentialism
Dispositional Essentialism is the view that fundamental properties essentially confer nomic roles on their bearers and as such are the sources of natural modality. The view offers an intriguing account of natural modality. Yet, thus far, its key concepts and the import of its core claims have remained rather unclear, and this lack of clarity has prevented the view from finding many supporters. My dissertation provides a new foundation for Dispositional Essentialism, by clarifying its theoretical and ontological commitments and situating it in the context of the current debate on essence, dependence, grounding, and their logic. Chapter 1 develops and defends a novel nominalist account of Dispositional Essentialism, Austere Nominalist Dispositional Essentialism. Drawing on resources in higher-order metaphysics, the proposed account forgoes commitment to the existence of properties altogether, while preserving the core tenets of Dispositional Essentialism. Chapter 2 defends Dispositional Essentialism against a central objection, according to which the view incurs mutually incompatible commitments, where this incompatibility is alleged to derive directly from the nature of the relations between essence, dependence, and grounding. Chapters 3 and 4 both concern a prominent and prima facie compelling principle about the explanatory role of essence, according to which essence-truths ground their prejacents. I argue that two recent arguments based on considerations pertaining to the logic and semantics of essence and ground ultimately fail, but then go on to develop a novel argument against that same principle based on considerations more specifically rooted in truthmaker semantics.
