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2 ideas
6133 | If my counterpart is happy, that is irrelevant to whether I 'could' have been happy [Merricks] |
Full Idea: The existence of someone in another world who is a lot like me, but happier, is irrelevant to whether I - this very person - could have been happier, even if we call that other-worldly someone 'my counterpart'. | |
From: Trenton Merricks (Objects and Persons [2003], §1.IV) | |
A reaction: He says this is a familiar objection. I retain a lingering deterministic doubt about whether it ever makes to sense to say that I 'could' have been happy, given that I am not. It does seem to make sense to say that I was close to happiness, but missed it. |
14402 | If 'Fido is possibly black' depends on Fido's counterparts, then it has no actual truthmaker [Merricks] |
Full Idea: If Fido's being possibly black reduces (in Lewis's account) to the existence of black counterparts of Fido, then 'Fido is possibly black' is actually true, but it has no actually existing truthmaker. | |
From: Trenton Merricks (Truth and Ontology [2007], 5.I) | |
A reaction: This problem is increasingly the target of my views about dispositions and powers. Fido is not possibly a prize-winning novelist, but is possibly dead or in good health, because of the actual nature and dispositions of Fido. |