Wierenga on theism and counterpossibles

Philosophical Studies 176 (3):693-707 (2019)
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Abstract

Several theists, including Linda Zagzebski, have claimed that theism is somehow committed to nonvacuism about counterpossibles. Even though Zagzebski herself has rejected vacuism, she has offered an argument in favour of it, which Edward Wierenga has defended as providing strong support for vacuism that is independent of the orthodox semantics for counterfactuals, mainly developed by David Lewis and Robert Stalnaker. In this paper I show that argument to be sound only relative to the orthodox semantics, which entails vacuism, and give an example of a semantics for counterfactuals countenancing impossible worlds for which it fails.

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Fabio Lampert
University of Vienna

Citations of this work

Counterpossibles.Alexander W. Kocurek - 2021 - Philosophy Compass 16 (11):e12787.
Theism and Secular Modality.Noah Gordon - 2023 - Dissertation, University of Southern California

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References found in this work

On the Plurality of Worlds.David K. Lewis - 1986 - Malden, Mass.: Wiley-Blackwell.
Counterfactuals.David K. Lewis - 1973 - Malden, Mass.: Blackwell.
The Philosophy of Philosophy.Timothy Williamson - 2007 - Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.
Naming and Necessity.Saul Kripke - 1980 - Philosophy 56 (217):431-433.
Essence and modality.Kit Fine - 1994 - Philosophical Perspectives 8 (Logic and Language):1-16.

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