Comments on: Philosophy Discovers Society

By: Matthew Yglesias

Matthew Yglesias — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

That sounds about right to me. I’ve always been especially intrigued by the argument from italics which, though counterintuitive, is very powerful. You should note, though, that David Lewis doesn’t believe there are an infinity of actual possible worlds, he says there are an infinity of real, concrete possible worlds. Our own world is the only actual world because “actual” is an indexical like “here” or “now” that refers relative to the speaker.

By: Kieran Healy

Kieran Healy — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

You should note, though, that David Lewis doesn’t believe there are an infinity of actual possible worlds, he says there are an infinity of real, concrete possible worlds.

Yeah—- that was a slip on my part. All possible worlds are real. In fact (and you forget I have tech support on this), Lewis didn’t like to use the word “concrete” either—- he thought the concrete/abstract distinction was obscure. To be even pickier, our world isn’t the only actual world. There are other possible worlds that are actual when indexed with respect to those living in them.

By: Chris Bertram

Chris Bertram — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

Nice one Kieran. Bob Goodin has a good attack on “intuitions” in his Political Theory and Public Policy, specifically on a famous article that argues that intuitions we might have about being connected to hypothetical world-famous violinists by life-supporting (for them) tubes are a good guide to how to think about what the law on abortion should be.

By: Mick

Mick — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

Phew, now I’ve got a sore head!

By: Heather

Heather — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

I remember those arguments from What Do You Mean! I saw two people trying to one-up each other at a dissertation defense playing this game and I wanted to bonk their heads together.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 +0000

http://gulliver.weblogs.com