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Constructing worlds

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Abstract

You and I can differ in what we say, or believe, even though the things we say, or believe, are logically equivalent. Discussing what is said, or believed, requires notions of content which are finer-grained than sets of (metaphysically or logically) possible worlds. In this paper, I develop the approach to fine-grained content in terms of a space of possible and impossible worlds. I give a method for constructing ersatz worlds based on a theory of substantial facts. I show how this theory overcomes an objection to actualist constructions of ersatz worlds and argue that it naturally gives rise to useful notions of fine-grained content.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK

    Mark Jago

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  1. Mark Jago
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Correspondence to Mark Jago.

Additional information

This paper was completed and first presented during a study visit to RSSS at the Australian National University, 25–31 October 2010, funded by Macquarie University New Staff Grant 9201000794. I’m grateful to Jonathan Schaffer, Rachael Briggs and the audience at my ANU talk for feedback.

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Jago, M. Constructing worlds. Synthese 189, 59–74 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-012-0095-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-012-0095-x

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