Kit Fine’s logic of essence and his reduction of modality crucially rely on a principle called the ‘monotonicity of essence’. This principle says that for all pluralities, xx and yy, if some xx belong to some yy, then if it is essential to xx that p, it is also essential to yy that p. I argue that on the constitutive notion of essence, this principle is false. In particular, I show that this principle is false because it says that some propositions are essential to yy even though those propositions are only about some of its members. I then consider modifications to the principle appealing to consequential essence and argue that such a modification is inconsistent with a central desideratum of Fine’s approach to metaphysics, what I call his neutrality condition.

基特·法恩的本质逻辑和他的模态还原关键依赖于一个称为“本质单调性”的原则。该原则表示，对于所有复数xx和yy ，如果某个xx属于某个yy ，那么如果 p 对xx是必需的，那么p对yy也是必需的。我认为，就本质的构成概念而言，这一原则是错误的。特别是，我表明这个原则是错误的，因为它说某些命题对于yy是必不可少的，即使这些命题仅涉及其某些成员。然后，我考虑对诉诸结果本质的原则进行修改，并认为这种修改与法恩形而上学方法的中心愿望不一致，我称之为他的中立条件。