How Close Are Impossible Worlds? A Critique of Brogaard and Salerno’s Account of Counterpossibles

Dialectica 73 (3):315-329 (2019)
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Abstract

Several theorists have been attracted to the idea that in order to account for counterpossibles, i.e. counterfactuals with impossible antecedents, we must appeal to impossible worlds. However, few have attempted to provide a detailed impossible worlds account of counterpossibles. Berit Brogaard and Joe Salerno’s ‘Remarks on Counterpossibles’ is one of the few attempts to fill in this theoretical gap. In this article, I critically examine their account. I prove a number of unanticipated implications of their account that end up implying a counterintuitive result. I then examine a suggested revision and point out a surprising implication of the revision.

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Dan Baras
Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan

Citations of this work

Counterpossibles.Alexander W. Kocurek - 2021 - Philosophy Compass 16 (11):e12787.
No need to get up from the armchair.Dan Baras - 2020 - Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 23 (3):575-590.

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References found in this work

Counterfactuals.David Lewis - 1973 - Philosophy of Science 42 (3):341-344.
Modality and Explanatory Reasoning.Boris Christian Kment - 2014 - New York: Oxford University Press.
Impossible Worlds: A Modest Approach.Daniel Nolan - 1997 - Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic 38 (4):535-572.
Remarks on counterpossibles.Berit Brogaard & Joe Salerno - 2013 - Synthese 190 (4):639-660.
Omission impossible.Sara Bernstein - 2016 - Philosophical Studies 173 (10):2575-2589.

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