Organon F: Medzinárodný Časopis Pre Analytickú Filozofiu 33 (3):281-317. 2026Modal essentialism holds that some x is essentially F if and only if at every possible world at which x exists, x is F. This view entails (ignoring the case of extreme essentialism) that distinct possible worlds can represent de re (singular) possibilities for the same individual. In the literature we find haecceitist and anti-haecceitist explanations of de re representation. The aim of this paper is to analyse which explanations of de re representation are consistent with genuine (nontrivial, objective) and plausible variants of modal essentialism. As I demonstrate, only moderate haecceitism meets this criterion. However, its weakness lies in its inability to account for intuitions about the variability of our modal judgments. In contrast, extreme haecceitism and moderate anti-haecceitism (modelled on qualitative counterpart theory) have the advantage of accommodating both essentialist and variability intuitions, provided both views are supplemented with a notion of quasi-essentiality. ( direct link )