accident

philosophy

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June 25, 2026

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In philosophy, an accident refers to a nonessential property or characteristic of something, as opposed to its inherent essence. This concept is distinct from the more common understanding of an accident as a chance event, often one that results in harm or injury.12

In Aristotelian logic, an accident is one of five general kinds of attribution, alongside genus, species, differentia, and property. These categories help classify how a predicate relates to a subject. For instance, "Man is capable of learning grammar" describes an accident because it's a true statement, convertible with the subject, but not part of man's essential definition. This philosophical meaning of accident is rarely encountered outside of academic discussions.31

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Epicureanism
Criticism and evaluation
…atomistic terms—of Aristotle’s theory of accidents (i.e., of properties that are not essential to the substances in which they occur), inasmuch as an accident, too, as Aristotle himself had stated (Metaphysics I 3), is without a cause. Moreover, a similar view was seriously advanced in the 19th century under the…
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…atomistic terms—of Aristotle’s theory of accidents (i.e., of properties that are not essential to the substances in which they occur), inasmuch as an accident, too, as Aristotle himself had stated (Metaphysics I 3), is without a cause. Moreover, a similar view was seriously advanced in the 19th century under the…
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