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Duilio Guerrero

Dr. Bruce Hauptli

English Empiricism

04MAR2013

TITLE

8. Critically consider T.E. Wilkerson’s discussion of the distinction between real and nominal

essences in his “Natural Kinds” (available in the Library in the journal Philosophy v. 63 [1988],

pp. 29-42).

In writing the paper clarify what Locke’s distinction between real and nominal essences is,

what problem Wilkerson finds with the distinction,what the seriousness of this critique would be for Locke’s orientation,

and whether you find the critique to be solid.

In her ―Introduction,‖ Vere Chappell notes that ―...the terms ‗nominal essence‘ and ‗real essence‘

do not, as Locke uses them, stand for two coordinate species of a single genus. Nominal

essences belong to one ontological category —they are ideas in people‘s minds— and real

essences to another — they are physical objects somehow belonging to individual bodies.‖7 Cf .,

T.E. Wilkerson‘s ―Natural Kinds,‖ for an excellent background discussion of this topic.8

III iv 2 Names of simple ideas refer (to the ideas). Names of substances refer (though he means

that they refer to complexes of simple ideas, not to things), but names of mixed modes need not

refer.

III iv 4 Names of simple ideas are ―undefinable.‖

III iv 12 Names of complex ideas are ―definable.‖

Chapter v. Of the names of mixed modes and relations:

III v 2 Locke says that these are names for abstract ideas — ideas which are made by the mind.

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Chapter vi. Of the names of substances:

*III vi 1 Locke contends that the common names for substances stand for ―sorts of things‖— they

are names for complex ideas.

*III vi 2 The different common substances are marked out by essences — and here, of course, it isnominal essences which we are talking about (not the real essences of things — about which we

know nothing).

*III vi 8-29 Locke points out that we can‘t ―sort‖ species according to ―real essences,‖ and points

to a large number of difficulties in attempting to do so:

-III vi 8 Locke points out that the discussion of substances can not be presumed to mark out realessences. We ―know not‖ real essences: ―...the species of things to us, are nothing but the

ranking them under distinct names, according to the complex ideas in us; and not according to

precise, distinct, real essences in them....‖

-9. ―Nor indeed can we rank, and sort things, and consequently...denominate them by their real

essences, because we know them not. Our faculties carry us no further towards the knowledge

and distinction of substances, than a collection of those sensible ideas, which we observe in

them; which however made with the greatest diligence and exactness, we are capable of, yet is

more remote from the true internal constitution, from which those qualities flow, than, as I said, a

country-man‘s idea is from the internal contrivance of the famous clock at Strasburg.‖9

--Garrett Thomson offers a good summary criticism of Locke‘s willingness to adhere to a―substance metaphysics:‖ ―the notion of pure substance in general appears to be an anomaly in

Locke‘s usually Empiricist philosophy. It is difficult to see how such a concept could be

acquired from experience, as Locke‘s Empiricism asserts that all ideas must be. Yet Locke

apparently argues that we need such a concept. Thus, logic and reason seem to require such aconcept, while experience appears to deny it. There is clearly a conflict between Locke‘s

Empiricism and what he takes to be a demand of reason.‖10

-12. There is probably a far greater variety of spiritual species than we generally acknowledge.

-16. We would need to know that nature always produces each kind of thing.

-17. There would have to be no ―middle-ground‖ cases (monsters, etc.).

-18. We would have to be aware of the real essences of things (and through them we would have

to make our distinctions).

-19. We would have to know the real essences to accomplish ―natural sorting,‖ but these are

beyond us.

*III vi 22-29 The ―essences‖ which we talk about are ―made by the mind‖ and not ―by nature.‖

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-22. Our abstract ideas are our ―measure of the species.‖

-26. They are ―made by the mind,‖ and not by nature.

-27. The definitions we employ are imperfect, inexact, and allow for loose cases.

-*28. But, the ―essences‖ which we speak of are not as arbitrary as what we find in the case of

mixed modes. The substances (co-subsisting simple ideas) have a ―character,‖ and the nominal

essences which we arrive at here are important. We use common language to accomplish the

―ordinary affairs of life:‖

--―...though men may make what complex ideas they please, and give what names to them they

will: yet if they will be understood, when they speak of things really existing, they must, in somedegree, conform their ideas to the things they would speak of; or else men‘s language will be like

that of Babel ; and every man‘s words, being intelligible only to himself, would no longer serve

to conversation, and the ordinary affairs of life....‖

III vi 32 Locke contends that ―the more general our ideas are, the more incomplete and partial

they are.‖ The process of increasingly general generalizations leads to less and less specificity in

the complex idea.

The kinds oak, stickleback and gold are natural kinds, and the kind stable, nation and banknote

are notI shall attempt to find a defensible distinction between natural and non-natural kinds.

If an account of natural kinds is to be at all interesting two conditions must be fulfilled. First, thenotion of a natural kind must be tied to that of a real essence.

LOCKE

III.vi16. Secondly, we would need to know whether nature always attains the essence that it designs

in the production of things. The irregular and monstrous births that have been observed in varioussorts of animals will always give us reason to doubt one or both of these—·that is, that anessence is intended, and/or that the intention is always fulfilled·. (Darwain)

III.vi.9. We don’t know the real essences of things, and so we can’t use real essences as thebasis on which to rank and sort things and so to name them (for what sorting is for is naming).The nearest our faculties will let us get to knowing and distinguishing substances is a collectionof the perceptible ideas [here = ‘qualities’] that we observe in them. And even if we collect these ascarefully and precisely as we possibly can, that collection won’t be anywhere near to the true internalconstitution from which those qualities flow. . . . There is no plant or animal, however lowly andinsignificant, that doesn’t baffle the most enlarged understanding. Though our familiar dealing with

things around us stops us from wondering about them, it doesn’t cure our ignorance. (points outnot to use for sorting)

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III.vi.6. I have often mentioned a ‘real essence’ that is distinct in substances from those abstractideas of them that I call their ‘nominal essence’. By this real essence I mean the real constitutionof a thing, which is the foundation of all those properties that are combined in and constantly foundto co-exist with the nominal essence; that particular constitution that every thing has within itself,without reference to anything else. But ‘essence’, even in this sense, relates to a sort and

presupposes a species. It is that real constitution on which the properties depend, so it necessarilypresupposes a sort of things, because properties belong only to species and not to individuals.[Here, and on some later occasions and perhaps on a few earlier ones, Locke uses ‘property’ in an old technical senseaccording to which ‘a property of iron’ means ‘a quality or attribute that has to be possessed by all specimens of iron’; it issupposed to follow from the essence of iron without actually being part of that essence. In this sense of the word, ‘a property

of this’—said by someone who is pointing to a piece of iron—is meaningless.] (difference between real &nominal- abstract idea and the reality)

III.vi.2. The measure and boundary of each sort or species, by which it is constituted as thatparticular sort and distinguished from others, is what we call its essence. This is nothing but theabstract idea to which the name is attached; so that everything contained in the idea is essential tothat sort. Although this is the only essence of natural substances that we know, and the only one by

which we can distinguish them into sorts, I give it the special name ‘nominal essence’, to distinguishit from the •real constitution of substances. [See note at end of iii.15.] The latter is •the source of the

nominal essence and of all the properties of that sort ·or species·; and so it can be called ‘the real

essence’ of the sort. For example, the nominal essence of gold is the complex idea that the word‘gold’ stands for—something like a body that is yellow, of a certain weight, malleable, fusible, and

fixed. But the real essence is the constitution of the imperceptible parts of that body, on which thosequalities and all the other properties of gold depend. Although both of these are called ‘essence’,you can see at a glance how different they are.

Real essences: these are ―the supposed real constitution of the sorts of things‖ which there are.

- Nominal essences: these are the abstract ideas or sortals which we employ in our use of kinds,sorts, or species.

Primary qualities are the inseparable features of a body, e.g., its size, shape, solidity, mobility,texture, weight, etc. (II.viii.9). Secondary qualities are the colors, sounds, smells, tastes, etc., of

any object. These are secondary because these features of objects do not exist in the objects

themselves, but rather are nothing but the power of the primary qualities of the object to producean idea in us of a certain kind (II.viii.10). So, for example, the color of the table is not in the

table, rather, it is part of how the matter and texture of the table (i.e., its primary qualities), as it

reflects, absorbs and refracts light, has the power to produce ideas in us of that color. Finally, the

tertiary qualities of a body are those powers in it that, by virtue of its primary qualities, give it

the power to produce observable changes in the primary qualities of other bodies, e.g., the power of the sun to melt wax is a tertiary quality of the sun (II.viii.23).

nominal essence an essence is that it contains both the necessary and sufficient conditions for

something to belong to its species or genus.

Nature provides us with similarities and we create definitions of species and genera. However,no matter how dependent general names are on our definitions, we are answerable to nature and

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must keep our definitions as close as we can to what nature provides. It is in this sense that

species and genera are the workmanship of the human understanding; we take what nature gives

us and we create our own definitions and taxonomical categories.

On the other hand, a real essence is an essence because it makes the object to be what it is. It is

real in that it does not include human choice for it to be what it is, rather, it is precisely as naturemade it. In the case of a piece of gold, the real essence is that collection of particles that make up

that particular piece of gold and give it its qualities of color, weight, electrical conductivity,

malleability, etc..

It is universally agreed that Locke thinks that we sort things into species and genera based on

nominal essences and species and genera are a kind of human linguistic categorization process.

On the other hand, one might think, Locke has no reason to reject natural kinds (which concern

the metaphysics of nature, and not the meanings of names) simply because our sorting process isarbitrary. In other words, there are those who argue that Locke was a natural kind realist, even

though he was convinced that taxonomies are the workmanship of the understanding. Whether

Locke thinks that there are natural kinds, i.e., types of real essences independently of humansorting activities, is an interpretive issue we shall address in 4.3 below.

To be sure, there are passages in the Essay that seem to indicate that Locke was a natural kind

realist even if he was a conventionalist about taxonomical practices. For example:

The other, and more rational Opinion, is of those, who look on all natural Things to have a real,

but unknown Constitution of their insensible Parts, from which flow those sensible Qualities,

which serve us to distinguish them one from another, according as we have Occasion to rank

them into sorts, under common Denominations. (III.iii.17)

In other words, one might argue, if real essences cause the observable qualities of bodies, and we

sort things into species based on observable similarities, then if we assume that similaritiesamong the real essences always results in similar observable qualities, and similar observable

qualities are always caused by similar real essences, there is reason to think that Locke assumed

that our nominal essences track, at least to some degree, real kinds in nature.

Indeed, there are passages where Locke speaks of the ―imperfection‖ of our species ideas and the

need to make them better conform to nature. For example, in III.xi.24 he says that:

And therefore in Substances, we are not always to rest in the ordinary complex Idea, commonly

received as the signification of that Word, but must go a little farther, and enquire into the Natureand Properties of the Things themselves, and thereby perfect, as much as we can, our Ideas of

their distinct Species…

There is no reason, so one may argue, to suspect that our species ideas could be either perfectedor imperfect if there is no natural kind archetype. On the other hand, there is some evidence that

Locke anticipated this kind of account and rejected it. For example, he says:

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…That we find many of the Individuals that are ranked into one Sort, called by one common

Name, and so received as being of one Species, have yet Qualities depending on their real

Constitutions, as far different one from another, as from others, from which they are accounted todiffer specifically. This, as it is easy to be observed by all, who have to do with natural Bodies;

so Chymists especially are often, by sad Experience, convinced of it, when they, sometimes in

vain, seek for the same Qualities in one parcel of Sulphur, Antimony, or Vitriol, which they havefound in others. For though they are Bodies of the same Species, having the same nominal Essence, under the same Name; yet do they often, upon severe ways of examination, betray

Qualities so different one from another, as to frustrate the Expectation and Labour of very wary

Chymists. But if Things were distinguished into Species, according to their real Essences, itwould be as impossible to find different Properties in any two individual Substances of the same

Species, as it is to find different Properties in two Circles, or two equilateral Triangles. (III.vi.8)

This argument is a modus tollens: if the members of a nominally defined species had the sametype of real essence, then they should all exhibit the same qualities (including those not included

in the nominal essence), but they do not exhibit all of the same qualities, therefore they do not all

have the same type of real essence.

Given that there are real and nominal essences for modes and that a general knowledge consists

in knowledge of essences, then Locke needs some way to distinguish the essences of modes from

those of substances.

According to Locke, one of the main differences between substances on the one hand and simpleideas and modes on the other is that the real essences of substances are distinct from their

nominal essences, whereas for simple ideas and modes, they are the same.

Essences being thus distinguished into Nominal and Real , we may farther observe, that in the

Species of simple Ideas and Modes, they are always the same: But in Substances, always quite

different . Thus a Figure including a Space between three Lines, is the real, as well as nominal

Essence of a Triangle; it being not only the abstract Idea to which the general Name is annexed,

but the very Essentia, or Being, of the thing it self, that Foundation from which all its Properties

flow, and to which they are all inseparably annexed. But it is far otherwise concerning that parcel

of Matter, which makes the Ring on my Finger, wherein these two Essences are apparentlydifferent. For it is the real Constitution of its insensible Parts, on which depend all those

properties of Colour, Weight, Fusibility, Fixedness, etc. which are to be found in it. Which

Constitution we know not; and so having no particular Idea of, have no Name that is the Sign of

it. But yet it is its Colour, Weight, Fusibility, and Fixedness, etc. which makes it to be Gold , or gives it a right to that Name, which is therefore its nominal Essence. (III.iii.18)

So the real essences of a triangle, or gratitude, or murder, or yellow, or sweet, etc., are exactly

the same as their nominal essences. There is nothing more to being a triangle than being a plane,

closed three-sided figure. Similarly, there is nothing more to being a particular ‗species‘ or shade

of yellow than the nominal definition.[7

]

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/real-essence/notes.html#7




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While it is clear that Locke envisioned some analogy between the real and nominal essences of

substances with those of modes, it is unclear, however, just how that analogy should be cashed

out. For example, Roger Woolhouse argues that it is a mistake for Locke to say that mode ideashave a real essence at all because there is nothing like a corpuscular structure that is analogous to

the definition of a concept like triangle or lying. Moreover, there is, according to Woolhouse,

nothing that binds the nominally essential qualities of modes together, whereas, for substancesthere is an underlying physical structure (see Woolhouse 1971, pp. 125 – 128). Indeed it is quitedifficult to see how a mode could have a real essence if the model for what a real essence is

comes from corpuscular structures. If Woolhouse is right, then Locke has no way to make good

on his intended analogy and he is unable to adequately differentiate modes from substances.

P. Kyle Stanford (1998), on the other hand, suggests that the analogy between real and nominal

essences was intended to be based in their entailment relations. Stanford argues that, just as

every property of a substance flows from the real essence with geometrical necessity (IV.vi.11),so too does every property of a triangle follow from its definition with geometrical necessity.

And this fact is what all real and nominal essences have in common for Locke. By his way of

thinking, even though the connection between the real essence of a piece of gold is the causal ground of the nominally essential properties of gold, and the real essence of a triangle is the

logical ground for the nominally essential properties of a triangle, they are alike in that all

nominally essential properties can be deduced from the idea of the real essence; if we knew thereal essence of a triangle, then we could deduce from it any of the properties of a triangle. To

make this analogy work, Stanford argues that the real essence of a substance is more than a

corpuscular structure, it must also include the causal powers that produce the observable qualities

of the substance; in like fashion, the real essence of modes includes the logical ground fromwhich the nominally essential properties of the term flow. If Stanford is correct, then there is a

possible analogy between the real and nominal essences of modes and substances that yields an

interesting interpretation of the real essences of both modes and substances.

On either reading, however, it appears that Locke is saddled with the view that in cases of simple

ideas, ideas of modes and mixed modes, if we understand the meanings of the words, we knowall that there is to know regarding those concepts. Moral and mathematical concepts and ideas

are mere trifling propositions, analytic truths and uninformative. However, it will be difficult for

many moral philosophers to accept that all they are doing is cashing out the definitions of terms

and dealing with uninformative analytic truths; asserting that lying is wrong seems to be morethan a trifling opinion. Moreover, it is unclear how Locke thinks moral terms can be normative,

i.e., how they can constitute commands we ought to obey — if his position is correct.

In a similar vein, since many mixed modes, which include all moral concepts, are arbitrary

mental constructs, it follows that we create moral concepts by producing their definitions. Sincethe real and nominal essences of mixed modes are the same, it follows that if we know the realessence of lying (knowingly and falsely asserting that ‗ p‘ with the intention to mislead someone

whom we ought not to mislead, etc), we can deduce from that idea all the components of lying,

and so there is nothing more to know about lying than the ideas contained within its definition. A

problem with Locke's account here is that, as John Mackie points out, social scientists seek outthe real essences of social phenomena such as adultery, incest, jealousy, lying and suicide, but

understanding these complex phenomena involves more than simply understanding the meaning

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of the word. If we are to understand why people lie, we must know more than a definition of

lying. Of course, it is possible for Locke to argue that once we understand all that is included in

lying, we have uncovered its real essence, why people lie, and the many ways they do so,however, are separate questions that we cannot expect to be decided by a semantic theory. It is

unclear how he would solve the normative problem

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