An Analysis of Intrinsicality |
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Authors: | Dan Marshall |
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Affiliation: | Lingnan University |
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Abstract: | The leading account of intrinsicality over the last thirty years has arguably been David Lewis's account in terms of perfect naturalness. Lewis's account, however, has three serious problems: i) it cannot allow necessarily coextensive properties to differ in whether they are intrinsic; ii) it falsely classifies non‐qualitative properties like being Obama as non‐intrinsic; and iii) it is incompatible with a number of metaphysical theories that posit irreducibly non‐categorical properties. I argue that, as a result of these problems, Lewis's account should be rejected and replaced with an alternative account, which also analyses intrinsicality in terms of perfect naturalness, but which avoids these problems. |
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