David Lewis accepts two principles: (i) the necessity of plenitude, which says that facts about the space of possible worlds are necessary, and (ii) the Humean thesis, which denies necessary connections between distinct existences. Roca-Royes (Synthese 197, 2020) has argued that there is a conflict between the necessity of plenitude and the Humean thesis. The goal of this paper is to show that there is no such conflict. I will unpack Roca-Royes’s argument first. After that, I will show that once…
Read moreDavid Lewis accepts two principles: (i) the necessity of plenitude, which says that facts about the space of possible worlds are necessary, and (ii) the Humean thesis, which denies necessary connections between distinct existences. Roca-Royes (Synthese 197, 2020) has argued that there is a conflict between the necessity of plenitude and the Humean thesis. The goal of this paper is to show that there is no such conflict. I will unpack Roca-Royes’s argument first. After that, I will show that once we give the necessity of plenitude and the Humean thesis their correct interpretation, Roca-Royes’s suggested conflict goes away.
