Hinduism, Leibniz, and Origin Essentialism

Abstract Deshmukh and Janssen-Lauret (2024) (hereafter D&J) show that origin essentialism, when combined with other metaphysical theses assumed by Kripke in Naming and Necessity , are together inconsistent with Hinduism. They also show that, given the way in which the seeming inconsistency arises, Hinduism, if there is an inconsistency, would be a counterexample to Kripke’s theory. I concur. But I argue that it is the auxiliary metaphysical theses, and not origin essentialism itself, that generates the inconsistency. I show that Leibniz’ philosophy shares with Hinduism the very feature that D&J use to generate the apparent inconsistency. But Leibniz’ philosophy also entails origin essentialism. Even so it is jointly consistent with origin essentialism and the Hindu doctrines D&J discuss. Furthermore, Hinduism and origin essentialism may be shown to be consistent even without auxiliary Leibnizian assumptions.