The Atlas of Reality by Robert C. Koons Timothy Pickavance & Timothy H. Pickavance

Author:Robert C. Koons,Timothy Pickavance & Timothy H. Pickavance
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781119116097
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Published: 2017-02-13T00:00:00+00:00

15.1.3 A dilemma for Magical Abstractionism

David Lewis (1986a) raised a powerful objection to Magical Abstractionism. If propositions represent ways that things are, then the way things are “selects” certain propositions. The proposition that grass is green represents that grass is green, and since grass really is green, the way things are (which includes the fact that grass is green) selects the proposition that grass is green. Magical Abstractionists, given the Uniqueness of the Actual World, maintain that one possible world is uniquely selected by the universe (where the universe is here understood very broadly so as to include not just us and our physical surroundings, but any immaterial and abstract objects as well). The world that is selected in this way is thereby the actual world. Selection occurs because the actual world represents just what the universe is like. Had things been different, the universe would have selected a different world. So far, so good. Now, consider whether selection an internal or an external relation. That is, is which world is selected determined by the intrinsic characters of the universe and the actual world (in which case selection is internal, see Def 2.2) or is it not so determined (in which case selection is external)? Lewis believed both answers are problematic and, therefore, that Magical Abstractionism faces a dilemma.

Suppose that selection is an external relation. Thus, whether it holds between the universe and a world is not a function of the intrinsic features of the way things are and of possible worlds. Lewis thinks that, if this view of selection is true, then the selection relation must be “magical”. What did he mean by this? Everyone agrees that worlds, and propositions more generally, have their representational features essentially. The actual world, Alpha, could not represent things as being a different way than it in fact represents them as being any more than the proposition that grass is green could fail to represent that grass is green. (This is just Essentiality of World-Content from Section 14.2.) This point is almost too obvious to state. It would be strange indeed to think of the proposition that grass is green representing that grass is blue, or worse, that there are exactly 17 electrons in the universe. One would be right to wonder what a person meant by “represent” if they were to make such a suggestion! So, what a world represents is essential to it. But selection is just the dual of representation; the two go hand in hand. Propositions are selected if and only if what they represent in fact occurs. Thus, a certain world must be selected, given that things are are a certain way, and given the representational features of worlds. What is the problem? According to Lewis, the problem is that every uncontroversially external relation is contingent. Consider spatial relations, a paradigmatically external relation. Just given the fact that two things stand in a certain spatial relation does not guarantee that they stand in that spatial relation. A necessary

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