 Unless the question is given a more specific technical sense, it would seem that “What is it?” is quite satisfactorily answered by sortals in the broad Strawsonian sense. “A kitten” or “A red table” both seem reasonable, so (4) can diverge from (3). The kitten does not go out of existence when it becomes adult, but it is no longer a kitten. Evaluating (5) is very difficult since there is no consensus on whether kinds have essences (Quine would say “none”) and there is no consensus among those who assert the existence of essences as to what they are. Contemporary versions of sortal essentialism provide a possible solution to these problems, particularly the theories of Brody (1980) and Wiggins (1967, 1980, and 2001). Another possible influential solution is offered by the essentialism of origin, such as the one proposed in Forbes (1985) or Salmon (1981) (for a discussion of these theories, see Robertson (1998, 2000)). Minimalist essentialism (Mackie 2006) is an alternative to those two forms of essentialism.