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413Concrete possible worldsIn Theodore Sider, John Hawthorne & Dean W. Zimmerman (eds.), Contemporary debates in metaphysics, Blackwell. pp. 111--134. 2008.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 i…Read more
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14Worlds and Propositions: The Structure and Ontology of Logical SpaceDissertation, Princeton University. 1983.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 and whose space…Read more
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2Review of Modality, Morality, and Belief: Essays in Honor of Ruth Barcan Marcus (review)Journal of Symbolic Logic 62 (1): 328-330. 1997.
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16Isolation and Unification: The Realist Analysis of Possible WorldsPhilosophical Studies 84 (2-3). 1996.If realism about possible worlds is to succeed in eliminating primitive modality, it must provide an 'analysis' of possible world: nonmodal criteria for demarcating one world from another. This David Lewis has done. Lewis holds, roughly, that worlds are maximal unified regions of logical space. So far, so good. But what Lewis means by 'unification' is too narrow, I think, in two different ways. First, for Lewis, all worlds are (almost) 'globally' unified: at any world, (almost) every part is dir…Read more
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Metaphysics |
Philosophy of Language |
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Philosophy of Physical Science |