The Puzzle of Existence by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780203104323
Publisher: Taylor and Francis

where H* is a primitive expression of the kind that figures at the end of a chain of Definitions of the arbitrary nonmodal predicate F*.

Such an analysis is evaluated against the dual virtues of Conservativeness (of Opinion) and Economy (of Metaphysical Base) in the following manner (10): we hold the Analytic Hypotheses constant and consider the various pairings of Opinion and Metaphysical Base which result from their co-variation established in the Analytic Hypotheses. If some such pairing is adequate with respect to both Conservativeness and Economy, then the analysis is accepted, but if none is, the analysis is rejected.

Since Opinion includes beliefs about what is and is not possible, beliefs which have a direct bearing on the extent of possibility, considerations of Economy in the Metaphysical Base have direct consequences for the extent of possibility. Thus, to take a well-known example, Opinion includes, or at least is committed to, the possibility of ‘island universes’, that is, possible universes with spatio-temporally unconnected parts. But the Analytic Hypothesis requires that all possibilities are parts of worlds, and the Metaphysical Base tells us that worlds are maximally spatio-temporally interconnected mereological sums. Thus, Lewis (1986: 71) is faced with the choice of modifying the Metaphysical Base or rejecting an aspect of Opinion, and he takes the latter course. This seems a clear violation of methodological separatism, justified by the conception of analysis.

Divers’s challenge to the separatist is to give an equally well-defined and clear conception of analysis which does not have this consequence. Given what was said above, the separatist could perfectly well adopt the Lewisian conception of analysis as an account of the theory of the nature of X, with one change, namely, that ‘Opinion’ be restricted to intuitions about the nature of X or about what kind of thing there is or is not, that is, to proper data for the theory.9 This move immediately blocks the consequence that the evaluation of an analysis such as Lewis’s involves making a judgement about the extent of possibility. In fact, we can grant that intuitions about what unactualized possibilities are are entirely neutral on the question of island universes and thus that the savings in Economy provided by a Metaphysical Base in which all worlds are maximally spatio-temporally interconnected mereological sums has no cost to Conservativeness at all. However, given the Analytic Hypotheses, it does entail that island universes are not possible. But even if we grant that intuitions about what is possible include island universes, we do not yet have a loss of Conservativeness, for we do not know whether the best theory of the extent of possibility captures or rejects that intuition. Suppose Modal Theory does capture that intuition. Then our best theory of the extent of possibility is inconsistent with Lewis’s theory of the nature of unactualized possibility, and we have a hard theory choice to make, comparing not merely the virtues of each theory but also those of the next best theory. Suppose, instead, that Modal Theory does not capture the intuition.

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