Hale's dilemma

Abstract

Bob Hale in Hale 1995b posed a dilemma for modal fictionalism (more specifically, Rosen's version of modal fictionalism). A modal fictionalist who maintains the version outlined in Rosen 1990 believes that the fiction of possible worlds (PW, to use Rosen and Hale's abbreviation) is not literally true. The question arises, however, about its modal status. Is it necessarily false, or contingently false? In either case, Hale argues, the modal fictionalist is in trouble. Should the modal fictionalist claim that the story of possible worlds is necessarily false, then the modal fictionalist cannot gloss their "according to the fiction of possible worlds ... ." prefix as "were the fiction of possible worlds true, then ... would be true". This is because, according to Hale, conditional claims with antecedents which are necessarily false are automatically true, so it follows that if the fiction of possible worlds is taken to be necessarily false, all conditionals of the form "were the fiction of possible worlds true then ..." are true, and not merely the ones that the modal fictionalist wishes to endorse. If the modal fiction is to be useful, not everything should be true according to it: examples of claims that had better not be true according to it include the claim that 2+2=7, or the claim that there are no possible worlds. On the other hand, if the fiction of possible worlds (PW) is only contingently false, Hale claims this also lands the Rosen's fictionalism in unacceptable trouble, though it is not so clear why (see below). Let me discuss these horns in turn.

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 90,221

External links

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

Through your library

  • Only published works are available at libraries.

Similar books and articles

Modal fictionalism and possible-worlds discourse.David Liggins - 2008 - Philosophical Studies 138 (2):151-60.
Reductive theories of modality.Theodore Sider - 2003 - In Michael J. Loux & Dean W. Zimmerman (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Metaphysics. Oxford University Press. pp. 180-208.
Modal fictionalism and compositionality.Josh Dever - 2003 - Philosophical Studies 114 (3):223 - 251.
The limits of modality.Sam Cowling - 2011 - Philosophical Quarterly 61 (244):473-495.
Why modal fictionalism is not self-defeating.Richard Woodward - 2008 - Philosophical Studies 139 (2):273 - 288.
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
2009-01-28

Downloads
324 (#56,268)

6 months
4 (#315,466)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Daniel Nolan
University of Notre Dame

Citations of this work

Add more citations

References found in this work

Impossible Worlds: A Modest Approach.Daniel Nolan - 1997 - Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic 38 (4):535-572.
Modal fictionalism.Gideon Rosen - 1990 - Mind 99 (395):327-354.
Modal Fictionalism Fixed.Gideon Rosen - 1995 - Analysis 55 (2):67-73.
Three problems for “strong” modal fictionalism.Daniel Nolan - 1997 - Philosophical Studies 87 (3):259-275.

View all 7 references / Add more references