An Introduction to Ontology by Nikk Effingham

Author:Nikk Effingham
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Publisher: Wiley
Published: 2013-02-27T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter summary

In this chapter, we have:

introduced the reasons why philosophers talk about possible worlds.

introduced the motivations for, not just talking about worlds, but including them in our ontology.

examined realist theories for possible worlds (Lewis’s Genuine Modal Realism and some ersatz options).

introduced fictionalism and then explored fictionalism about possible worlds as a specific example of it in action.

Further reading

General introductions to modality include Joseph Melia (2003), E. Jonathan Lowe (2002), John Divers (2002), Louis DeRosset (2009a, 2009b) and Rod Girle (2003). Melia’s book explains the difficulties of translating modal sentences without using possible worlds. A good collection of papers can be found in Stephen Laurence and Cynthia Macdonald (1998), Michael Loux (1979, 2001) and Loux and Zimmerman (2003).

There is a lot of literature on Genuine Modal Realism. The famous introduction is Lewis’s 1986 book. The problem with GMR missing out worlds is discussed in many places, such as the work of Philip Bricker (2001, 2006), David Efird and Tom Stoneham (2005) and Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra (2004). The problem of morality and GMR is briefly discussed in Lewis (1986) and at great length by Mark Heller (2003). Nor are these the only problems. Others are discussed by Lewis himself (again, 1986), and other objections include those by Divers and Melia (2002) and Richard Sheehy (2006). Modal fictionalism is discussed at length by Gideon Rosen (1990) and also endorsed by Armstrong (1989b). An accessible introduction is by Daniel Nolan (2011).

There is more to modality than just what this chapter covers. For instance, there are other anti-realist programmes concerning possible worlds – see Divers (2004, 2006) – as well as attempts to account for modality without ever mentioning possible worlds; see, e.g., Barbara Vetter (2011) and Michael Jubien (2007).

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