Combining Philosophers

Ideas for Anaxarchus, Berit Brogaard and David Lewis

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2 ideas

10. Modality / A. Necessity / 4. De re / De dicto modality
De re modal predicates are ambiguous [Lewis, by Rudder Baker]
     Full Idea: Lewis is perhaps the most prominent proponent of the view that de re modal predicates are ambiguous.
     From: report of David Lewis (Survival and Identity, with postscript [1983]) by Lynne Rudder Baker - Why Constitution is not Identity n25
10. Modality / A. Necessity / 7. Natural Necessity
Causal necessities hold in all worlds compatible with the laws of nature [Lewis]
     Full Idea: Just as a sentence is necessary if it holds in all worlds, so it is causally necessary if it holds in all worlds compatible with the laws of nature.
     From: David Lewis (Counterpart theory and Quant. Modal Logic [1968], V)
     A reaction: I don't believe in the so-called 'laws of nature', so I'm not buying that. Is there no distinction in Lewis's view between those sentences which must hold, and those which happen to hold universally?