Towards a Hyperintensional Theory of Intrinsicality

Abstract

A: e distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic properties is an elusive distinction that has resisted precise formulation.Some of the most promising accounts of this distinction take the form of combinatorial or duplication analyses.e former try to capture the patterns of independence amongst intrinsic and extrinsic properties in terms of logical, modal, mereological and spatiotemporal notions.e latter attempt to identify intrinsic properties as properties that never differ amongst duplicates.is paper argues in favour of a hyperintensional analysis of intrinsicality that appeals to 'in virtue of ' claims.It will be shown that accounts of intrinsicality that appeal to combinatorial and duplication principles do not yield satisfactory results, even when they are supplemented with a notion of 'naturalness'.We need to appeal to 'in virtue of ' claims rather than to 'naturalness' in order (i) to allow for cases whereby a property is possessed both intrinsically and extrinsically, (ii) to adequately classify modal properties when these are given a counterparttheoretic analysis, and (iii) to retain the idea that the set of intrinsic properties and the set of pure extrinsic properties are closed under Boolean operations.Moreover, the paper will argue in favour of treating the intrinsically/extrinsically distinction as more basic than the intrinsic/extrinsic distinction and explaining the latter in terms of the former.

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