Metaphysical and nomic modalities in J. Lowe’s serious essentialism

The paper aims to demonstrate how, within the framework of Jonathan Lowe’s serious essentialism, a partial solution to the navigation problem between different types of modality may be possible. According to essentialist concepts of modality, essence ontologically and epistemically precedes any modal facts. In this sense, the connection between essence and metaphysical modality is clear, but the connection between essence and other types of modality generally remains outside the scope of researchers’ interest. In a number of his works, J. Lowe emphasizes natural/nomic modality, which is associated with the laws of nature. However, he does not explain how nomic modality is related to essence or metaphysical modality. Based on J. Lowe’s position, according to which the essence of an entity can be divided into fundamental general and specific general parts, we argue that within the real definition of an entity, which expresses its essence, we could distinguish such meaningful parts as metaphysical essence and natural essence. The former would correspond to the fundamental general part of essence, and the latter to the specific general part. Metaphysical essence must be known a priori, and knowledge of metaphysical modality would be based on our knowledge of metaphysical essence. Natural essence must be discovered a posteriori, through empirical research, and knowledge of nomic modality would be based on our knowledge of natural essence. Thus, we obtain a particular solution to the navigation problem of the relationship between metaphysical and natural/nomic modality within the J. Lowe’s ontology.

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