Bibliographic record
Abstract
It is well known that Descartes replaced the Aristotelian essence/property ( proprium )/accident distinction with that between principal attributes and modes (cf. AT VIIIA 25–26, CSM I 210– 12). Among the questions this raises are (1) whether the change is more than terminological; (2) how essence differs from existence (i) in general, (ii) in finite substance , and (iii) in infinite substance; (3) whether, and in what sense (or senses), Descartes is an essentialist; and (4) how essences or definitions are known. Questions regarding the ontology of Cartesian essences are treated elsewhere (see true and immutable nature and universal ). The first question may be answered via the second. How essence differs from existence in general is straightforward enough: the essence of a thing is the answer to the question “What is it?” ( Quid est? ) as opposed to “Is it?” ( An est? ). The difference can be illustrated by a mathematical example from the Fifth Meditation: When, for example, I imagine a triangle, even if perhaps no such figure exists, or has ever existed anywhere outside my thought, there is still a determinate nature, or essence, or form of the triangle which is immutable and eternal, and not invented by me or dependent on my mind . This is clear from the fact that various properties can be demonstrated of the triangle, for example that its three angles are equal two right angles, that its greatest side subtends its greatest angle, and the like. (AT VII 64, CSM II 44–45) Here two properties are said to follow from the essence of a triangle, loosely defined in the Principles as “a [plane] figure made up of three [straight] lines” (AT VIIIA 28, CSM I 212). The triangle's true and immutable nature (AT VII 68, CSM II 47) or essence is contrasted chiefly with its existence but also with “invented” natures represented by “factitious” ideas (cf. AT VII 38, CSM II 26); in the Principles (where the language of “the Schools” for which the work was written figures more prominently), genus and propria are distinguished from accidentia .
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.002 | 0.010 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.005 | 0.006 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.003 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.015 | 0.004 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".