ABSTRACT
Essentialism, basically viewed both as aristotelian and anti-scientific, was largely out of favor during the two thirds of the twentieth century, thanks to the prevailing anti-metaphysical attitude associated with the linguistic and logical positivist heritage (Quine). Together with a revival of metaphysics, some new forms of essentialism came to the fore, which were no longer tied to a substantialist or « deep » approach, but insisted more (as in Kripke or Putnam’s versions) on viewing essence as a modality. More recently, such conceptions have been attacked (Fine) and other versions of essentialist metaphysics have been proposed : either along neo-aristotelian lines (E. J. Lowe), or in such versions as B. Ellis’s « scientific essentialism ». However, essentialism still has a bad reputation in many circles, and not only among metaphysicians but among scientists (and philosophers of biology in particular). Now, are they right to be afraid of essentialism ? In the first part of my talk, I shall proceed to a brief clarification of the main meanings attached to the concepts of essence and essentialism ; I shall then present, in broad outlines, the merits and limits of the various essentialist responses that have been proposed to some antimetaphysical reactions, before suggesting, in the last part of my talk, another (hopefully more convincing and reassuring) approach, which I have called « aliquidditism » - consisting mainly in viewing essence along relational and dispositional lines – and which is part and parcel of the dispositional realistic and scientific attitude I recommend in metaphysics.