 A point of entry to the idea that there are notions of dependence not analyzable in terms of the modal-existential account—and hence a motivation to pursue a non-modal analysis of dependence altogether—are cases that do not seem to involve a requirement for existence at all. Indeed, as we already saw in the case of  (3),  “Socrates does not ontologically depend on singleton Socrates”, it seems that something beyond mere existential independence is being expressed. Instead, one might say that singleton Socrates does not have anything to do with the identity or essence of Socrates, and it is this lack of identity-dependence between Socrates and {Socrates} that we wish to express with (3). In other words, being a member of singleton Socrates is not an essential property of Socrates. Recall that a similar issue seemed to arise with regard to the possibility of composite objects having essential proper parts. We will now consider a more systematic method for dealing with cases of dependence involving the essences or essential properties of objects.