 In sum, Hale holds that knowledge of essences can be gained from knowledge of meaning as well as from knowledge that is established via empirical investigation. By contrast, for Lowe the source of knowledge of essence is understanding, which is different from both knowledge of meaning and empirical investigation. (Still, Lowe doesn’t mean to rule out that a posteriori knowledge may contribute to our knowledge of essence, especially concerning kinds. See Tahko (2017, 2018) for discussion of Lowe’s view concerning empirical knowledge of essence.) Although Hale and Lowe's views on how we may gain knowledge of essences differ, they agree on how knowledge of essences can give us in turn modal knowledge, namely by deductive inference. The argument is as follows: