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151Worlds 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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23Review 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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197Isolation 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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130The Methodology of Modal Logic as MetaphysicsPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 88 (3): 717-725. 2014.
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120Plenitude of Possible StructuresJournal of Philosophy 88 (11): 607-619. 1991.Which mathematical structures are possible, that is, instantiated by the concrete inhabitants of some possible world? Are there worlds with four-dimensional space? With infinite-dimensional space? Whence comes our knowledge of the possibility of structures? In this paper, I develop and defend a principle of plenitude according to which any mathematically natural generalization of possible structure is itself possible. I motivate the principle pragmatically by way of the role that logical possibi…Read more
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952David Lewis: On the Plurality of WorldsIn John Shand (ed.), Central Works of Philosophy, Vol. 5: The Twentieth Century: Quine and After, Acumen Publishing. pp. 246-267. 2006.David Lewis's book 'On the Plurality of Worlds' mounts an extended defense of the thesis of modal realism, that the world we inhabit the entire cosmos of which we are a part is but one of a vast plurality of worlds, or cosmoi, all causally and spatiotemporally isolated from one another. The purpose of this article is to provide an accessible summary of the main positions and arguments in Lewis's book.
Amherst, Massachusetts, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Metaphysics |
Philosophy of Language |
Philosophy of Mathematics |
Philosophy of Physical Science |