The Modal Status of Generative Principles

This contribution to a symposium marking the 30th anniversary of Kit Fine’s “Essence and Modality” raises a general question for essentialist theories of modality: What sort of proposition can figure in the essence of a property? Several versions of Fine’s preferred “definitional” conception are explored. The main aim is to find a version of the theory that can secure the necessity of generative principles — e.g., the principles according to which complex entities are generated from simples — without opening the door to opening the door to bogus principles that would prove the existence of gods and angels.