Switch to: References

Citations of:

Possible worlds

Noûs 10 (1):65-75 (1976)

Add citations

You must login to add citations.
  1. Essence and Thisness.Sungil Han - 2023 - In Dean Zimmerman & Karen Bennett (eds.), Oxford Studies in Metaphysics Vol. 13. Oxford University Press.
    The project of grounding necessity in essence often goes together with the model of essence that assimilates the constitutive essence of an object to the definition of it. The paper argues that if the grounding project is to succeed, the definitional model must be questioned. Like any object whatever, a concrete individual is necessarily identical to that individual. It is argued that this necessity can have an essential ground only if the primitive identity property of it or its thisness is (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Against S5: Impossible Worlds in the Logic of What Might Have Been.Nathan Salmon - manuscript
    The dogma that the propositional logic of metaphysical modality is S5 is rebutted in related installments (previously published and unpublished essays).
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Island Universes and the Analysis of Modality.Phillip Bricker - 2001 - In Gerhard Preyer & Frank Siebelt (eds.), Reality and Humean Supervenience: Essays on the Philosophy of David Lewis. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
    It follows from Humean principles of plenitude, I argue, that island universes are possible: physical reality might have 'absolutely isolated' parts. This makes trouble for Lewis's modal realism; but the realist has a way out. First, accept absolute actuality, which is defensible, I argue, on independent grounds. Second, revise the standard analysis of modality: modal operators are 'plural', not 'individual', quantifiers over possible worlds. This solves the problem of island universes and confers three additional benefits: an 'unqualified' principle of compossibility (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   74 citations  
  • Applications and Extensions of Counterpart Theory.Peterson Bridgette - 2017 - Dissertation, University of Massachusetts Amherst
    An exploration of the details of counterpart theory, and some applications of the view. In Chapter 1, I set out the view and clarify the most important features: that the counterpart relation is a context dependent similarity relation, and that individuals are world-bound entities. I then set out what I take to be the most promising methods of filling in important details. Chapter 2 is a discussion of an alternative view, lump theory. I attempt to distinguish lump theory from counterpart (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • A Defense of Hume's Dictum.Cameron Gibbs - 2019 - Dissertation, University of Massachusetts Amherst
    Is the world internally connected by a web of necessary connections or is everything loose and independent? Followers of David Hume accept the latter by upholding Hume’s Dictum, according to which there are no necessary connections between distinct existences. Roughly put, anything can coexist with anything else, and anything can fail to coexist with anything else. Hume put it like this: “There is no object which implies the existence of any other if we consider these objects in themselves.” Since Hume’s (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  • Formal Ontology and Conceptual Realism.Nino Barnabas Cocchiarella - 2007 - Dordrecht, Netherland: Springer.
    Theories about the ontological structure of the world have generally been described in informal, intuitive terms. This book offers an account of the general features and methodology of formal ontology. The book defends conceptual realism as the best system to adopt based on a logic of natural kinds. By formally reconstructing an intuitive, informal ontological scheme as a formal ontology we can better determine the consistency and adequacy of that scheme.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   23 citations  
  • Problemas de Metafísica Analítica / Problems in Analytical Metaphysics.Guido Imaguire & Rodrigo Reis Lastra Cid (eds.) - 2020 - Pelotas: Editora da UFPel / UFPel Publisher.
    O desenvolvimento da filosofia acadêmica no Brasil é direcionada, entre vários fatores, pelas investigações dos diversos Grupos de Trabalho (GTs) da Associação Nacional de Pós-Graduação em Filosofia (ANPOF). Esses GTs se dividem de acordo com a temática investigada. O GT de Metafísica Analítica é relativamente novo e ainda tem poucos membros, mas os temas nele trabalhados são variados e todos centrais no debate metafísico contemporâneo internacional. A sua investigação se caracteriza pelo rigor lógico e conceitual com o qual aborda esses (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Cosmological Arguments.Michael Almeida - 2018 - Cambridge University Press.
    The book discusses the structure, content, and evaluation of cosmological arguments. The introductory chapter investigates features essential to cosmological arguments. Traditionally, cosmological arguments are distinguished by their appeal to change, causation, contingency or objective becoming in the world. But none of these is in fact essential to the formulation of cosmological arguments. Chapters 1-3 present a critical discussion of traditional Thomistic, Kalam, and Leibnizian cosmological arguments, noting various advantages and disadvantages of these approaches. Chapter 4 offers an entirely new approach (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  • Modality and Anti-Metaphysics.Stephen K. McLeod - 2001 - Aldershot: Ashgate.
    Modality and Anti-Metaphysics critically examines the most prominent approaches to modality among analytic philosophers in the twentieth century, including essentialism. Defending both the project of metaphysics and the essentialist position that metaphysical modality is conceptually and ontologically primitive, Stephen McLeod argues that the logical positivists did not succeed in banishing metaphysical modality from their own theoretical apparatus and he offers an original defence of metaphysics against their advocacy of its elimination. -/- Seeking to assuage the sceptical worries which underlie modal (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   3 citations  
  • Essays in the metaphysics of modality.Alvin Plantinga & Matthew Davidson - 2003 - New York: Oxford University Press. Edited by Matthew Davidson.
    Perhaps no one has done more in the last 30 years to advance thinking in the metaphysics of modality than has Alvin Plantinga. Collected here are some of his most important essays on this influential subject. Dating back from the late 1960's to the present, they chronicle the development of Plantinga's thoughts about some of the most fundamental issues in metaphysics: what is the nature of abstract objects like possible worlds, properties, propositions, and such phenomena? Are there possible but non-actual (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   24 citations  
  • From Metaphysics to Ethics: A Defence of Conceptual Analysis.Frank Jackson - 1998 - New York: Oxford University Press.
    Frank Jackson champions the cause of conceptual analysis as central to philosophical inquiry. In recent years conceptual analysis has been undervalued and widely misunderstood, suggests Jackson. He argues that such analysis is mistakenly clouded in mystery, preventing a whole range of important questions from being productively addressed. He anchors his argument in discussions of specific philosophical issues, starting with the metaphysical doctrine of physicalism and moving on, via free will, meaning, personal identity, motion, and change, to ethics and the philosophy (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1055 citations  
  • Metaethics After Moore.Terry Horgan & Mark Timmons (eds.) - 2006 - Oxford, GB: Oxford University Press UK.
    Metaethics, understood as a distinct branch of ethics, is often traced to G. E. Moore's 1903 classic, Principia Ethica. Whereas normative ethics is concerned to answer first order moral questions about what is good and bad, right and wrong, metaethics is concerned to answer second order non-moral questions about the semantics, metaphysics, and epistemology of moral thought and discourse. Moore has continued to exert a powerful influence, and the sixteen essays here represent the most up-to-date work in metaethics after, and (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   42 citations  
  • Propositions as Truthmaker Conditions.Mark Jago - 2017 - Argumenta 2 (2):293-308.
    Propositions are often aligned with truth-conditions. The view is mistaken, since propositions discriminate where truth conditions do not. Propositions are hyperintensional: they are sensitive to necessarily equivalent differences. I investigate an alternative view on which propositions are truthmaker conditions, understood as sets of possible truthmakers. This requires making metaphysical sense of merely possible states of affairs. The theory that emerges illuminates the semantic phenomena of samesaying, subject matter, and aboutness.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   7 citations  
  • Worlds and Propositions: The Structure and Ontology of Logical Space.Phillip Bricker - 1983 - Dissertation, Princeton University
    In sections 1 through 5, I develop in detail what I call the standard theory of worlds and propositions, and I discuss a number of purported objections. The theory consists of five theses. The first two theses, presented in section 1, assert that the propositions form a Boolean algebra with respect to implication, and that the algebra is complete, respectively. In section 2, I introduce the notion of logical space: it is a field of sets that represents the propositional structure (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  • مطالعۀ تطبیقی جهان‌های موازی فیزیک و جهان‌های ممکن دیوید لوئیس.Maryam Parvizi & Ashouri Kisomi Mohammad Ali - 2021 - Wisodom and Philosophy 17 (67):39-62.
    در نگاه نخست به نظر می‌رسد می‌توان شباهت‌هایی بین جهان‌های ممکن مورد نظر لوئیس و نظریۀ جهان‌های موازی فیزیک یافت. هر دو این نظریات به امکان وجود جهان‌هایی بیش از جهانی که در آن زندگی می‌کنیم، اشاره دارند. پس از رسالۀ اورت، توجه فیزیک‌دانان به چندجهانی و جهان‌های موازی جلب شد. اکنون جهان‌های موازی یکی از نظریه‌های مورد توجه دانشمندان و پژوهشگران حوزۀ فیزیک است. دیوید لوئیس با تکیه بر فیزیکالیسم و رئالیسم موجهاتی از جمله طرفداران نظریۀ جهان‌های ممکن است. (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Concrete possible worlds.Phillip Bricker - 2008 - In Theodore Sider, John Hawthorne & Dean W. Zimmerman (eds.), Contemporary Debates in Metaphysics. Blackwell. pp. 111--134.
    In this chapter, I survey what I call Lewisian approaches to modality: approaches that analyze modality in terms of concrete possible worlds and their parts. I take the following four theses to be characteristic of Lewisian approaches to modality. (1) There is no primitive modality. (2) There exists a plurality of concrete possible worlds. (3) Actuality is an indexical concept. (4) Modality de re is to be analyzed in terms of counterparts, not transworld identity. After an introductory section in which (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   28 citations  
  • Presentism and ontological commitment.Theodore Sider - 1999 - Journal of Philosophy 96 (7):325-347.
    Presentism is the doctrine that only the present is real. Since ordinary talk and thought are full of quantification over non-present objects, presentists are in a familiar predicament: in their unreflective moments they apparently commit themselves to far more than their ontological scruples allow. A familiar response is to begin a project of paraphrase. Truths appearing to quantify over problematic entities are shown, on analysis, to not involve quantification over those entities after all. But I think that we might be (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   103 citations  
  • The ersatz pluriverse.Theodore Sider - 2002 - Journal of Philosophy 99 (6):279-315.
    While many are impressed with the utility of possible worlds in linguistics and philosophy, few can accept the modal realism of David Lewis, who regards possible worlds as sui generis entities of a kind with the concrete world we inhabit.1 Not all uses of possible worlds require exotic ontology. Consider, for instance, the use of Kripke models to establish formal results in modal logic. These models contain sets often regarded for heuristic reasons as sets of “possible worlds”. But the “worlds” (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   87 citations  
  • Conceivability and the Epistemology of Modality.Asger Bo Skjerning Steffensen - 2015 - Dissertation, Aarhus University
    The dissertation is in the format of a collection of several academic texts, composed of a two-part presentation and three papers on the topic of conceivability and the epistemology of modality. The presentation is composed of, first, a general introduction to conceivability theses and objections and, second, a discussion of two cases. Following the presentation, Asger provides three papers. The first paper, Pretense and Conceivability: A reply to Roca-Royes, presents a problem and a dilemma for Roca-Royes’ Non-Standard Dilemma for conceivability-based (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Modal fictionalism.Daniel Nolan - 2008 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
    Questions about necessity (or what has to be, or what cannot be otherwise) and possibility (or what can be, or what could be otherwise) are questions about modality. Fictionalism is an approach to theoretical matters in a given area which treats the claims in that area as being in some sense analogous to fictional claims: claims we do not literally accept at face value, but which we nevertheless think serve some useful function. However, despite its name, “Modal Fictionalism” in its (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   27 citations  
  • Beyond the Humphrey Objection.Theodore Sider - 2006
    I defend counterpart theory against post-Kripkean objections. Trenton Merricks objects that no construction of ersatz counterparts is uniquely and intrinsically suitable; I reply that metaphysical constructions need not have these features. Sarah Moss refutes my solution (from "All the world's a stage") to the problem of timeless counting for temporal counterpart theory; I offer a new solution. Hazen, Fara, Williamson, and others have objected that counterpart theory generates an unacceptable logic for an actuality operator; I attempt to give a better (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   15 citations  
  • Potentiality and Possibility.Barbara Vetter - 2010 - Dissertation, Oxford
    In this thesis, I develop a nonreductive and general conception of potentiality, and explore the prospects of a realist account of possibility based on this account of potentiality. Potentialities are properties of individual objects; they include dispositions such as fragility and abilities such as the ability to play the piano. Potentialities are individuated by their manifestation alone. In order to provide a unified account of potentialities, I argue in chapter 2 that dispositions, contrary to philosophical orthodoxy, are best understood in (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   9 citations  
  • Initial Conditions as Exogenous Factors in Spatial Explanation.Clint Ballinger - 2008 - Dissertation, University of Cambridge
    This dissertation shows how initial conditions play a special role in the explanation of contingent and irregular outcomes, including, in the form of geographic context, the special case of uneven development in the social sciences. The dissertation develops a general theory of this role, recognizes its empirical limitations in the social sciences, and considers how it might be applied to the question of uneven development. The primary purpose of the dissertation is to identify and correct theoretical problems in the study (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  • Conservative Meinongianism: An Actualist+ Ontology.T. Parent - manuscript
    [Draft substantially revised, September 2021] David Lewis acclimated us to talk of “nonactual concreta that exist,” regarding talking donkeys and the like. I shall argue that this was not for the best, and try to normalize a way of describing them as “actual concreta that do not exist.” The basis of this is a defense of the Meinongian thesis “there are objects of which it is true that there are no such objects,” re: fictitious and illusory objects. I first formulate (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • A User's Guide to Proper Names, Their Pragmatics and Semantics. Pilatova, Anna - unknown
    Summary of Anna Pilatova’s doctoral thesis A User’s Guide to Proper Names, Their Semantics And Pragmatics The origins of this work go all the way back to my reading of Kripke’s Naming and Necessity in 1993. It had left me with a feeling of dissatisfaction that lingered long enough to inspire my MA thesis (on Internalism and Externalism in the Theories of Reference), and finally inspired the current work. Over time, I became acquainted with other influential accounts of reference of (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • The Meaning of "Look".Wylie Breckenridge - 2007 - Dissertation, New College, University of Oxford
    My main aim is to clarify what we mean by ‘look’ sentences such as (1) below – ones that we use to talk about visual experience: -/- (1) The ball looked red to Sue -/- This is to help better understand a part of natural language that has so far resisted treatment, and also to help better understand the nature of visual experience. -/- By appealing to general linguistic principles I argue for the following account. First, we use (1) to (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   10 citations  
  • Harming as causing harm.Elizabeth Harman - 2009 - In M. A. Roberts & D. T. Wasserman (eds.), Harming Future Persons. Springer Verlag. pp. 137--154.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   64 citations  
  • On the Plurality of Worlds: David Lewis. [REVIEW]Louis Derosset - 2011 - Humana Mente 4 (19).
    A commentary on David Lewis's /On the Plurality of Worlds/.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  • Real impossible worlds : the bounds of possibility.Ira Georgia Kiourti - 2010 - Dissertation, University of St Andrews
    Lewisian Genuine Realism about possible worlds is often deemed unable to accommodate impossible worlds and reap the benefits that these bestow to rival theories. This thesis explores two alternative extensions of GR into the terrain of impossible worlds. It is divided in six chapters. Chapter I outlines Lewis’ theory, the motivations for impossible worlds, and the central problem that such worlds present for GR: How can GR even understand the notion of an impossible world, given Lewis’ reductive theoretical framework? Since (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   16 citations  
  • A study in metaphysics for free will: using models of causality, determinism and supervenience in the search for free will.David Robson - unknown
    We have two main aims: to construct mathematical models for analysing determinism, causality and supervenience; and then to use these to demonstrate the possibility of constructing an ontic construal of the operation of free will - one requiring both the presentation of genuine alternatives to an agent and their selecting between them in a manner that permits the attribution of responsibility. Determinism is modelled using trans-temporal ontic links between discrete juxtaposed universe states and shown to be distinct from predictability. Causality (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Metaphysical Theories of Modality: Properties, Relations and Possibilities.David A. Denby - 1997 - Dissertation, University of Massachusetts Amherst
    Many theories assimilate the idioms of modality to those of quantification; they hold that so-and-so is possible iff there is a "world" at which it is true that so-and-so. "Modal realism" identifies worlds with certain concrete particulars, and truth at a world with what is true of it. Rival "ersatz" theories identify worlds with certain abstract entities and identify what is true at them with what they represent. ;David Lewis argues that pre-theoretic modal intuitions are best explained by modal realism. (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • On the Prospects of Modal Fictionalism.Michael-John Turp - 2007 - Gnosis 8 (2):31-47.
    I argue that fictionalism is an unpromising alternative to realism in two important respects. First, fictionalism offers a less satisfactory modal semantics because the incorporated fictive operator is itself modal and its results differ significantly from realism. Second, fictionalism struggles to provide us with a satisfactory account of the ontological grounding of modal truth and finds itself in opposition to several influential accounts of fictional objects which I discuss. I conclude by suggesting that, given the fictionalist’s motivation, a more promising (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   1 citation  
  • Modal Empiricism Made Difficult: An Essay in the Meta-Epistemology of Modality.Ylwa Sjölin Wirling - 2019 - Dissertation, University of Gothenburg
    Philosophers have always taken an interest not only in what is actually the case, but in what is necessarily the case and what could possibly be the case. These are questions of modality. Epistemologists of modality enquire into how we can know what is necessary and what is possible. This dissertation concerns the meta-epistemology of modality. It engages with the rules that govern construction and evaluation of theories in the epistemology of modality, by using modal empiricism – a form of (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   2 citations  
  • Stalnaker and Field on Truth and Intentionality.Carol Ruth Gabriel - 1990 - Dissertation, University of Massachusetts Amherst
    In a series of publications, Robert Stalnaker and Hartry Field have undertaken a dispute about what is the correct way to explain intentionality naturalistically. Field wishes to assimilate mental intentionality to linguistic intentionality and to explain both kinds of intentionality using Tarskian truth theory plus the causal theory of reference. Stalnaker wishes to subsume mental intentionality under the notion of indication and to explain it on the model of measurement theory, leaving linguistic intentionality to be explained derivatively. I attempt to (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Analysing causation.Morgan Jennifer Margaret - unknown
    This thesis will survey several prominent approaches to analysing causation, discuss their differences and similarities, and look at a number of problems which are common to all of them. I will be arguing for the following claims about how we should approach the process of analysing causation. Firstly, I will be arguing that a reductive analysis is desirable, since if we can reductively analyse causation in terms of something empirically accessible, we can explain how it is possible to know anything (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Logically Simple Properties and Relations.Jan Plate - 2016 - Philosophers' Imprint 16:1-40.
    This paper presents an account of what it is for a property or relation (or ‘attribute’ for short) to be logically simple. Based on this account, it is shown, among other things, that the logically simple attributes are in at least one important way sparse. This in turn lends support to the view that the concept of a logically simple attribute can be regarded as a promising substitute for Lewis’s concept of a perfectly natural attribute. At least in part, the (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   8 citations  
  • Mundos posibles como universales estructurales máximos: Una conjetura ontológica.José Tomás Alvarado Marambio - 2007 - Análisis Filosófico 27 (2):119-145.
    El trabajo presenta la conjetura de que los mundos posibles son universales estructurales máximos. En primer lugar, se explican brevemente las diferentes concepciones actualistas existentes sobre los mundos posibles y los problemas sistemáticos que deben enfrentar. Se argumenta que la conjetura presentada muestra cómo todas esas concepciones pueden ser unificadas en una teoría única y simple. En segundo lugar, se explica por qué la mejor alternativa para la constitución del espacio modal son los universales trascendentes. Finalmente, se indican brevemente algunas (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Necessity and Propositions.Tristan Haze - 2017 - Dissertation, University of Sydney
    Some​ ​propositions​ ​are​ ​not​ ​only​ ​true,​ ​but​ ​could​ ​not​ ​have​ ​been​ ​otherwise. This​ ​thesis​ ​is​ ​about​ ​modality​ ​and​ ​the​ ​philosophy​ ​of​ ​language.​ ​Its​ ​centrepiece​ ​is​ ​a​ ​new​ ​account​ ​of the​ ​conditions​ ​under​ ​which​ ​a​ ​proposition​ ​is​ ​necessarily​ ​true​ ​in​ ​the​ ​above​ ​sense.
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • Pretense, Cancellation, and the Act Theory of Propositions.Manuel García-Carpintero - forthcoming - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy.
    Several philosophers advance substantive theories of propositions, to deal with several issues they raise in connection with a concern with a long pedigree in philosophy, the problem of the unity of propositions. The qualification ‘substantive’ is meant to contrast with ‘minimal’ or ‘deflationary’ – roughly, views that reject that propositions have a hidden nature, worth investigating. Substantive views appear to create spurious problems by characterizing propositions in ways that make them unfit to perform their theoretical jobs. I will present in (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark   4 citations  
  • What Cancer Is.J. James Frost - unknown
    The problem of cancer is examined from the metaphysical standpoint of essence and ground. An essentialist definition of cancer is assumed that would be valid in all possible worlds in which cancer could logically exist. The grounds of cancer are then examined and elucidated. Two grounding cancer properties are identified and discussed: symmetry- breaking and computational intelligence. Each examination leads to concrete conclusions for novel therapeutic approaches and a more fundamental understanding of what cancer is at bottom. Other possible cancer (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark  
  • The Logic of Contingent Existence.Daniel Michael Kervick - 1997 - Dissertation, University of Massachusetts Amherst
    Among modal claims, claims that involve the notions of broadly logical possibility and necessity, one that seems almost trivial is this: that if some proposition is possible, then it is possibly true. However, there is an argument, due in its essentials to the medieval philosopher and logician Jean Buridan, to the effect that this seemingly trivial claim is, in fact, untrue. ;Briefly put, the argument is this. Let Q be the proposition that Quine does not exist. Since Quine's existence is (...)
    Download  
     
    Export citation  
     
    Bookmark