Branching of possible worlds

Synthese 190 (18):4261-4291 (2013)
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Abstract

The question as to whether some objects are possible worlds that have an initial segment in common, i.e. so that their fusion is a temporal tree whose branches are possible worlds, arises both for those who hold that our universe has the structure of a temporal tree and for those who hold that what there is includes concrete universes of every possible variety. The notion of “possible world” employed in the question is seen to be the notion of an object of a kind such that objects of that kind play a certain theoretical role. Lewis’s discussion of the question is thereby clarified but is nevertheless inadequate; his negative answer is correct but even from his combinatorialist viewpoint the rationale he provides for this answer is misguided. I explain why the combinatorialist advocate of concrete plenitude should hold that no object is a tree of possible worlds. Then I explain that for a different reason the nomic essentialist advocate of concrete plenitude should hold this much too

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Philip Percival
Nottingham University

Citations of this work

Relativism and Two Kinds of Branching Time.Dilip Ninan - 2023 - Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 104 (2):465-492.

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References found in this work

On the Plurality of Worlds.David K. Lewis - 1986 - Malden, Mass.: Wiley-Blackwell.
On the Plurality of Worlds.David Lewis - 1986 - Revue Philosophique de la France Et de l'Etranger 178 (3):388-390.
Facing the future: agents and choices in our indeterminist world.Nuel D. Belnap - 2001 - New York: Oxford University Press. Edited by Michael Perloff & Ming Xu.
Ramseyan humility.David K. Lewis - 2008 - In David Braddon-Mitchell & Robert Nola (eds.), Conceptual Analysis and Philosophical Naturalism. Bradford. pp. 203-222.

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