 Like Plantinga, Fine takes individual essences seriously but he regards the notion of necessity as prior to the notion of a possible world, and the notion of an individual essence as prior to the notion of necessity (Fine 1994, 1995a, 1995b, 2000). Fine’s modal theory is based on the broadly Aristotelian idea that alethic modality stems from natures of things. Understanding of actual or non-actual possible objects should therefore be firmly grounded on understanding of natures of things. Fine believes that ‘There is a possible object x’ is reducible to ‘Possibly there is an object x’ (Prior and Fine 1977: 130–9, Fine 1979, 1981, 2003). For a similar reductive proposal, see Peacocke 1978, 2002. For some difficulties with such a project, see Hazen 1976.