An increasingly popular view at the intersection of logic and metaphysics is that logical necessities have their source in the essences of logical entities: metaphysical necessity has its source in the essences or natures of things, and logical necessity is a restriction of metaphysical necessity. But logical and metaphysical necessity are, nevertheless, importantly distinct: there are metaphysical necessities that are not logical necessities. I raise a serious problem for this essentialist view. It seems as though they must misclassify some merely metaphysical necessities as logical necessities. I argue that the essentialist can accommodate these cases only at the cost of sacrificing core features of the view: either that it is recognizably an account of logical necessity; or that it is given in terms of logical entities. I close by offering a brief diagnosis of the root of the problem.
An increasingly popular view at the intersection of logic and metaphysics is that logical necessities have their source in the essences of logical entities. On such a view, metaphysical necessity has its source in the essences or natures of things, and logical necessity is a restriction of metaphysical necessity. But logical and metaphysical necessity are, nevertheless, importantly distinct: there are metaphysical necessities that are not logical necessities. In this paper I raise a serious problem for this essentialist view: it seems as though they must misclassify some merely metaphysical necessities as logical necessities. I argue that the essentialist can accommodate these cases only at the cost of sacrificing core features of the view: either that it is recognizably an account of logical necessity; or that it is given in terms of logical entities. I close by offering a brief diagnosis of the root of…
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