Lewis' Reduction of Modality
Acta Analytica 26 (2):95-114 (2011)
| Abstract | I start by reconsidering two familiar arguments against modal realism. The argument from epistemology relates to the issue whether we can infer the existence of concrete objects by a priori means. The argument from pragmatics purports to refute the analogy between the indispensability of possible worlds and the indispensability of unobserved entities in physical science and of numbers in mathematics. Then I present two novel objections. One focusses on the obscurity of the notion of isolation required by modal realism. The other stresses the arbitrary nature of the rules governing the behaviour of Lewisean universes. All four objections attack the reductive analysis of modality that is supposed to be the chief merit of modal realism | |||||||||
| Keywords | No keywords specified (fix it) | |||||||||
| Categories | ||||||||||
| Options |
|
|||||||||
Download options| PhilPapers Archive |
Upload a copy of this paper Check publisher's policy on self-archival Papers currently archived: 5,672 |
| External links |
 |
| Through your library | Configure |
Similar books and articlesLouis deRosset (2009). Possible Worlds I: Modal Realism. Philosophy Compass 4 (6):998-1008.
Tom Baldwin (2002). The Inaugural Address: Kantian Modality. Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 76:1 - 24.
Takashi Yagisawa (2010). Worlds and Individuals, Possible and Otherwise. Oxford University Press.
Charles S. Chihara (1998). The Worlds of Possibility: Modal Realism and the Semantics of Modal Logic. Oxford University Press.
Otavio Bueno & Scott A. Shalkowski (2000). A Plea for a Modal Realist Epistemology. Acta Analytica 24:175--194.
Andrea Sauchelli (2010). Concrete Possible Worlds and Counterfactual Conditionals: Lewis Versus Williamson on Modal Knowledge. Synthese 176 (3):345-359.
Ross P. Cameron (2012). Why Lewis's Analysis of Modality Succeeds in its Reductive Ambitions. Philosophers' Imprint 12 (8).
Analytics
Monthly downloads |
Added to index2009-11-14Total downloads101 ( #6,019 of 549,067 )Recent downloads (6 months)5 ( #15,099 of 549,067 )How can I increase my downloads? |
My notes
Discussion
