Title:
Is modality doing any work? A trilemma for Hybrid Modal Accounts of Essence.
Abstract:
The modal approach to essence claims that metaphysical necessity explains essence: essential properties are simply necessary ones. Following Kit Fine’s famous counterexamples, defenders of the modal view have turned to hybrid accounts. These views combine the classic modal condition with a non-modal filter to isolate genuinely essential properties, aiming to salvage the explanatory priority of modality over essence. To date, the primary obstacle facing hybrid accounts has been the formulation of an adequate non-modal criterion. In this talk I present a new challenge to the hybrid strategy. I formulate a trilemma showing that the modal condition in any hybrid framework becomes either neutralized, redundant, or explanatorily unjustified. Consequently, hybrid accounts fail to grant modality any genuine explanatory role in accounting for essence.