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Concrete possible worlds and counterfactual conditionals: Lewis versus Williamson on modal knowledge

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The epistemology of modality is gradually coming to play a central role in general discussions about modality. This paper is a contribution in this direction, in particular I draw a comparison between Lewis’s Modal realism and Timothy Williamson’s recent account of modality in terms of counterfactual thinking. In order to have criteria of evaluation, I also formulate four requirements which are supposed to be met by any theory of modality to be epistemologically adequate.

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Correspondence to Andrea Sauchelli.

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Sauchelli, A. Concrete possible worlds and counterfactual conditionals: Lewis versus Williamson on modal knowledge. Synthese 176, 345–359 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-009-9571-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-009-9571-3

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