Impossible Worlds: A Modest Approach

Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic 38 (4):535-572 (1997)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Reasoning about situations we take to be impossible is useful for a variety of theoretical purposes. Furthermore, using a device of impossible worlds when reasoning about the impossible is useful in the same sorts of ways that the device of possible worlds is useful when reasoning about the possible. This paper discusses some of the uses of impossible worlds and argues that commitment to them can and should be had without great metaphysical or logical cost. The paper then provides an account of reasoning with impossible worlds, by treating such reasoning as reasoning employing counterpossible conditionals, and provides a semantics for the proposed treatment

Other Versions

No versions found

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 102,020

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Impossible Worlds.Mark Jago - 2013 - Noûs 47 (3):713-728.
Who's Afraid of Impossible Worlds?Edwin D. Mares - 1997 - Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic 38 (4):516-526.
The Ontology of Impossible Worlds.David A. Vander Laan - 1997 - Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic 38 (4):597-620.
Counteressential Conditionals.Kenneth L. Pearce - 2016 - Thought: A Journal of Philosophy 5 (1):73-81.
An Excess of Dialetheias: In Defence of Genuine Impossible Worlds.Ira Kiourti - 2019 - In Adam Rieger & Gareth Young (eds.), Dialetheism and its Applications. Cham, Switzerland: Springer. pp. 81-100.
Impossible Worlds.Franz Berto & Mark Jago - 2013 - Oxford: Oxford University Press.
What are impossible worlds?Barak Krakauer - 2013 - Philosophical Studies 165 (3):989-1007.
Impossibility and Impossible Worlds.Daniel Nolan - 2021 - In Otávio Bueno & Scott A. Shalkowski (eds.), The Routledge handbook of modality. New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group. pp. 40-48.

Analytics

Added to PP
2010-08-24

Downloads
620 (#44,048)

6 months
56 (#96,363)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Daniel Nolan
University of Notre Dame

Citations of this work

The Philosophy of Philosophy.Timothy Williamson - 2007 - Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.
On what grounds what.Jonathan Schaffer - 2009 - In Ryan Wasserman, David Manley & David Chalmers (eds.), Metametaphysics: New Essays on the Foundations of Ontology. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press. pp. 347-383.
Grounding in the image of causation.Jonathan Schaffer - 2016 - Philosophical Studies 173 (1):49-100.
Modality and Explanatory Reasoning.Boris Christian Kment - 2014 - New York: Oxford University Press.
Metaphysical Causation.Alastair Wilson - 2018 - Noûs 52 (4):723-751.

View all 254 citations / Add more citations

References found in this work

Scorekeeping in a language game.David Lewis - 1979 - Journal of Philosophical Logic 8 (1):339--359.
On conditionals.Dorothy Edgington - 1995 - Mind 104 (414):235-329.
Indicative conditionals.Robert Stalnaker - 1975 - Philosophia 5 (3):269-286.
Modal fictionalism.Gideon Rosen - 1990 - Mind 99 (395):327-354.
Two Concepts of Possible Worlds.Peter van Inwagen - 1986 - Midwest Studies in Philosophy 11 (1):185-213.

View all 16 references / Add more references