Organon F
Volume 33, August 2026, Issue 3, Pages 281–317
ISSN 2585-7150 (online)
Research Article
Modal Essentialism, Possible Worlds and the Problem of De Re Representation
Karol Lenart
Modal essentialism holds that some x is essentially F if and only if at every possible world at which x exists, x is F. This view entails (ignoring the case of extreme essentialism) that distinct possible worlds can represent de re (singular) possibilities for the same individual. In the literature we find haecceitist and anti-haecceitist explanations of de re representation. The aim of this paper is to analyse which explanations of de re representation are consistent with genuine (nontrivial, objective) and plausible variants of modal essentialism. As I demonstrate, only moderate haecceitism meets this criterion. However, its weakness lies in its inability to account for intuitions about the variability of our modal judgments. In contrast, extreme haecceitism and moderate anti-haecceitism (modelled on qualitative counterpart theory) have the advantage of accommodating both essentialist and variability intuitions, provided both views are supplemented with a notion of quasi-essentiality.
De re modality; essence and essentialism; modal representation; haecceitism; possible worlds; transworld identity.
Author
Karol Lenart
Affiliation
University of Warsaw
Address
Department of Philosophy, University of Warsaw, ul. Krakowskie Przedmieście 26/28, 00-325 Warsaw, Poland
Received
26 February 2025
Accepted
23 January 2026
Publishers
Institute of Philosophy of the Slovak Academy of Sciences
Institute of Philosophy of the Czech Academy of Sciences
APA
Lenart, K. (2026). Modal Essentialism, Possible Worlds and the Problem of De Re Representation. Organon F, 33(3), 281–317. https://doi.org/10.31577/orgf.2026.33303
Chicago
Lenart, Karol. 2026. "Modal Essentialism, Possible Worlds and the Problem of De Re Representation." Organon F 33 (3): 281–317. https://doi.org/10.31577/orgf.2026.33303
Harvard
Lenart, K. (2026). Modal Essentialism, Possible Worlds and the Problem of De Re Representation. Organon F, 33(3), pp. 281–317. https://doi.org/10.31577/orgf.2026.33303
© Karol Lenart
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