 But, of course, for the foregoing strategy to work and thus for (ID) to be fully vindicated, a perspicuous account of the notion of “essence” would be required—and that is a large task which cannot be undertaken here. However, various attempts to construct such an account have been made, for instance by Fine (1994a) and Lowe (2008). In this sense, a thing’s essence may be said to constitute its identity, when one uses the word “identity” in this distinctive manner to speak of a thing’s identity, rather than using it to speak of the identity relation. Seen in this light, identity-dependence as defined by (ID) is simply a species of essential dependence, that is, a way in which the essence of a certain thing is determined by a relation in which it stands to another thing.