Possible worlds as shifting domains

Erkenntnis 36 (1):83 - 101 (1992)
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Abstract

Those who object to David Lewis' modal realism express qualms about philosophical respectability of the Lewisian notion of a possible world and its correlate notion of an inhabitant of a possible world. The resulting impression is that these two notions either stand together or fall together. I argue that the Lewisian notion of a possible world is otiose even for a good Lewisian modal realist, and that one can carry out a good Lewisian semantics for modal discourse without Lewisian possible worls. I do so by generalizing Lewis' own idea that restrictions on quantification come and go with the pragmatic wind and relativizing possible worlds as shifting domains of discourse. I then suggest a way to soften the infamous incredulous stare.

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Takashi Yagisawa
California State University, Northridge

Citations of this work

Real impossible worlds : the bounds of possibility.Ira Georgia Kiourti - 2010 - Dissertation, University of St Andrews
Is Everything A World?Josh Parsons - 2007 - Philosophical Studies 134 (2):165-181.
Actualism or possibilism?James E. Tomberlin - 1996 - Philosophical Studies 84 (2-3):263 - 281.
Worlds Enough for Junk.David Sanson - 2016 - Res Philosophica 93 (1):1-18.

View all 7 citations / Add more citations

References found in this work

The Nature of Necessity.Alvin Plantinga - 1974 - Oxford, England: Clarendon Press.
Philosophical papers.David Kellogg Lewis - 1983 - New York: Oxford University Press.
Attitudes de dicto and de se.David Lewis - 1979 - Philosophical Review 88 (4):513-543.
The Liar: An Essay on Truth and Circularity.Jon Barwise & John Etchemendy - 1987 - Oxford, England and New York, NY, USA: Oxford University Press USA. Edited by John Etchemendy.
Theories of actuality.Robert Merrihew Adams - 1974 - Noûs 8 (3):211-231.

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