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On The Possibility Of Possible Worlds

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Zeno Vendler
Zeno Vendler*
Affiliation:
University of California, San Diego
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Extract

The notion of possible worlds — once an abstruse offspring of Leibnizian theology — seems to enjoy a new lease on life in the hands of contemporary modal logicians and semanticists. The phrase “possible world” crops up with increasing frequency, and, as it is the case with many philosophical catchwords, its very familarity creates a presumption of understanding. Yet, although some related problems, particularly the one concerning cross-world identification of individuals, have received some critical scrutiny, the very idea of possible worlds has been borrowed from Leibniz, and its intelligibility taken for granted even without its theological roots.

My misgivings about this notion are not due to a prejudice against the concept of the possible itself: far from “passing” away, it remains a fundamental and irreplaceable element of human thought.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 5 , Issue 1 , September 1975 , pp. 57 - 72
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 1975

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References

1 Carnap, R. Philosophical Foundations of Physics, New York - London: Basic Books, 1966, p. 11.Google Scholar

2 Critique of Pure Reason, A596 fn.

3 Very clearly stated in his Counterfactuals, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1973, pp. 84–91.

4 I shall refer to the conjunction of these two principles as “Leibniz's Law”. See Feldman's, Fred “Leibniz and ‘Leibniz's Law“’ (Philosophical Review, Vol. LXXIX, 1970, pp. 510–522)Google Scholar concerning the form and the application of these principles in Leibniz's works.

5 “Leibniz to the Landgrave, 12. April 1686” in The Leibniz-Arnauld Correspondence (ed. Mason, H. T.), New York: Barnes & Noble, 1967, pp. 15–16.Google Scholar

6 “Remarks upon M. Arnauld's letter,” ibid., p. 46

7 Ibid., p. 41.

8 Kripke, Saul A. “Naming and Necessity” in Semantics of Natural Language (Davidson, D. - Harman, G. eds.), Dordrecht - Boston: Reidel, 1972, pp. 253–355.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9 If somebody does not know the year of Napoleon's birth, but knows his general role in history, then he might say “Napoleon (for all I know) may have been born in 1765, or 1766, etc.” But once one knows that he was born in 1769, one cannot say that he could have been born in 1765. Yet even though we know that he became an emperor, we still can say that he could have died as a child.

10 Op. Cit., p. 269 and passim.