Abstract
A state of affairs is a partial world. Alternatively, a world is a maximal state of affairs. In this paper, I want to consider a proposal due to Nathan Salmon about how fine-grained the ontologies of worlds and states of affairs are.’ One natural way of thinking of worlds and states of affairs is as constructs out of objects and properties.’ I will argue that Salmon’s proposal fails because it presupposes an incoherent conception of what an object is.
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Notes
See Salmon, `Modal Paradox: Parts and Counterparts, Points and Counterpoints’, in Midwest Studies in Philosophy XI: Studies in Essentialism, French et al (eds.), Minnesota University Press 1986, pp. 75–120, and `The Logic of What Might Have Been’, The Philosophical Review 98 (1989) 3–34.
I give a formal theory of states of affairs in my Languages of Possibility, Oxford: Basil Blackwell 1988, Ch.5. A simplified version is to be found in my `Truth, Correspondence and Redundancy’, in Fact,Science and Morality: Essays on Language, Truth and Logic, Macdonald, G. and Wright, C. (eds.) Oxford: Basil Blackwell 1986.
I take this nomenclature from the title of the paper `Against Constitutional Sufficiency Principles’ by T. J. McKay, in French et al,op. cit. pp. 295–304. I hope to discuss McKay’s challenge to CS elsewhere.
The example is originally from `Identity Through Possible Worlds: Some Questions’ by Roderick Chisholm, Noûs 1 (1968) 1–8.
See ‘The Logic of What Might Have Been’, especially Section III.
I argue in Ch. 2 of Languages of Possibility that the best motivations for possibilism, if accepted by a modalist, would inevitably drive her towards anti-modalism.
See Ch. 4 of Languages of Possibility for a defence of this remark.
This kind of reduction of the extensional to the intensional was pioneered by Kit Fine. See e.g. his `Plantinga on the Reduction of Possibilist Discourse’ in Alvin Plantinga, edited by James Tomberlin and Peter van Inwagen, Reidel 1985.
Here I generally follow Wiggins, though he would be dubious about the application of his apparatus to artefacts such as chairs. See his Sameness and Substance, Basil Blackwell 1985, Ch. 5
See On The Plurality of Worlds by David Lewis, Basil Blackwell 1986, p.20.
See his ‘Primitive Thisness and Primitive Identity’, The Journal of Philosophy 76 (1979) 5–26.
Adams’ example is consistent with CS since the globes of u and v are constituted of different iron.
This is my response to David Kaplan’s remark that ‘for individuals not extant during an overlap…tracing back to the common part and comparing…[is] unavailing’. See his ’Quantifying In’, in Words and Objections, Davidson, D. and Hintikka, J. (eds.), Reidel 1969, at p.224.
See his review of The Metaphysics of Modality, in The Journal of Philosophy 85 (1988) 329–37.
No great changes are needed in (3) to make it consistent with Figure1: given a criterion of isolation, the total states quantified over can be restricted to states which do not draw upon isolated parts.
See ‘Can We Dispense with Space-Time?’ by Hartry Field, in Proceedings of the 1984 Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association edited by P. Asquith and P. Kitcher, fn. 14.
In writing this paper, I have benefited from discussion and correspondence with Jonathan Lowe, Nathan Salmon, Jim Stone and Stephen Yablo.
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Forbes, G. (1992). Worlds and States of Affairs: How Similar Can They be?. In: Mulligan, K. (eds) Language, Truth and Ontology. Philosophical Studies Series, vol 51. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-2602-1_8
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