 In response the essentialist will point out that the anti-essentialist’s thought does not square very well with intuition. Consider the object that is referred to by all these phrases: ‘nine’, ‘seven plus two’, ‘the number of planets’. Could that very object have failed to be greater than seven? Intuitively the question seems intelligible, and the answer seems to be that it could not have failed to be greater than seven. According to intuition then, the very object that is referred to by ‘the number of planets’ (which is the very same object that is referred to by ‘seven plus two’ and ‘nine’) is essentially greater than seven. Intuition also has it that the claim that the number of planets is greater than seven is not itself necessary. To add some jargon: Intuition has it that the claim that it is necessary that the number of planets is greater than seven is true read de re (“of the thing”), but false read de dicto (“of the dictum” or “of the statement”). (The de re reading is this: the number of planets has the property of being necessarily greater than seven. The de dicto reading is this: the claim that the number of planets is greater than seven has the property of being necessary.) The essentialist is pointing out that the anti-essentialist’s argument asserts that the latter intuition undermines the former, but does not say why.