In Defence of Fictionalism about Possible Worlds

Analysis 54 (1):27 - 36 (1994)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Modal functionalism is the view that talk about possible worlds should be construed as talk about fictional objects. The version of modal fictionalism originally presented by Gideon Rosen adopted a simple prefixing strategy for fictionalising possible worlds analyses of modal propositions. However, Stuart Brock and Rosen himself in a later article have independently advanced an objection that shows that the prefixing strategy cannot serve fictionalist purposes. In this paper we defend fictionalism about possible worlds by showing that there are other strategies besides the prefixing strategy for fictionalising talk about possible worlds, and that these strategies are proof against the objection advanced by Brock and Rosen

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 93,932

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

Why modal fictionalism is not self-defeating.Richard Woodward - 2008 - Philosophical Studies 139 (2):273 - 288.
Modal fictionalism and possible-worlds discourse.David Liggins - 2008 - Philosophical Studies 138 (2):151-60.
Three problems for “strong” modal fictionalism.Daniel Nolan - 1997 - Philosophical Studies 87 (3):259-275.
Modal fictionalism.Daniel Nolan - 2008 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
New problems for modal fictionalism.Bradley Armour-Garb - 2015 - Philosophical Studies 172 (5):1201-1219.
Modal Fictionalism and Hale's Dilemma Against It.Wen-Fang Wang - 2007 - The Proceedings of the Twenty-First World Congress of Philosophy 5:51-56.

Analytics

Added to PP
2011-05-29

Downloads
151 (#125,521)

6 months
6 (#700,872)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author Profiles

Philip Pettit
Australian National University

Citations of this work

Modal fictionalism.Daniel Nolan - 2008 - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
A Puzzle for Modal Realism.Daniel Graham Marshall - 2016 - Philosophers' Imprint 16.
A modal fictionalist result.John Divers - 1999 - Noûs 33 (3):317-346.

View all 6 citations / Add more citations

References found in this work

Dispositional Theories of Value.Michael Smith, David Lewis & Mark Johnston - 1989 - Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 63 (1):89-174.

Add more references